Uplift Life

Title: Come and See
Scripture: Isaiah 49:5-7; John 1:35-42

**sermons are meant to be listened to, so listen along here**

There are certain things in life that you can’t describe with words.
You just have to experience it.
I mean, you can try.
You can tell someone how awesome it is and show pictures, but eventually you say, you just gotta go and see it.

Like the Northern Lights.
Grand Canyon
Mt Kilimanjaro (really any huge mountain)
Machu Picchu
Yosemite Valley
Salt Flats in Bolivia or Utah
(I’m basically reading you my travel bucket list right now)

You just have to experience it to really understand.

This is also how I feel about the beach.
Not MN beaches, but big sugar sand beaches like in Florida or even Lake Michigan.
Sure, it’s beautiful in pictures, but in real life, it is so much more.
It does something to me. To my heart.
And a picture, even a video, though I always take plenty of each… they are just not enough.
You have to be there.

Today Jesus tells his first potential followers to “come and see.”
Come and see.
I can tell you what I’m going to do, what this will be like, but it’s better if you come along with me and see it for yourselves.
You have to experience it to really understand.
Come and see.

The scene is set here quite nicely.
We’ve moved out of Matthews’s Gospel and into John’s Gospel this week, just for today.
And we come across John the Baptizer with his followers.  
Verse 29: The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and declared: Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
John was a Rabbi. He was doing some interesting stuff and despite being kind of a crazy guy, he had people trying to learn from him.
So John is hanging out and sees Jesus out walking and shouts to anyone in hearing distance – LOOK. That guy, that one right there, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And guess what else?  When I baptized him, which he said had to happen, the Spirit came out of the sky and the voice of God told us that this is the son of God.  I was there. I saw it happen.
Now if you are standing there, listening to John, your rabbi, tell you that this other guy is the real deal, what would you do?
If your job as a pupil, a disciple, is to learn at the feet of your rabbi and he points out this other rabbi as the son of God – what would you do?
We’d start to wonder.
Maybe we should stop being with this guy, and go with this Jesus guy.
I mean, even our own rabbi says this Jesus is the Son of God.
No. NO. That’s risky.
We don’t have enough information.

Verse 35-36: The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, Look here is the Lamb of God!”
LOOK YOU GUYS THAT IS THE LAMB OF GOD.
John is so awesome here. And so out of character.
For a Rabbi, you don’t tell your disciples to go follow someone else.
That’s not what you do.
You teach your disciples the things you believe about scripture and send them off to do the same.
So to look at his people and say hey you guys go with that guy… that’s almost unheard of.
So two of his disciples go and follow Jesus as he walks on.

Verse 38a: When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?”
These are the first words Jesus speaks in John’s Gospel.
What are you looking for?
The better translation of the original Greek would be “What are you seeking?”
Jesus does not pull any punches here does he?
He doesn’t say “what do you want?”
He doesn’t say “what can I do for you?”
He says “What are you seeking?”
This is not a surface-level question.
What is it, at your core, that you need?
We ask this question of ourselves on occasion.
When we seek wholeness, purpose, or meaning in our lives, we are asking ourselves this same question.
It’s HEALTHY to ask ourselves this question.
What am I doing?
What is my life about?
What am I seeking?
Also, I love that Jesus begins his time as a teacher not with the right answer or doctrine or rules and regulations, but with a question.
A question.

Verse 38b: They said to him – Rabbi (meaning teacher) where are you staying?”
Notice, they call Jesus Rabbi here.
He hasn’t given permission, or any kind of test to pass, or hoops to jump through,
They just call him teacher.
This is what they want.  They want to learn from him.  They want to follow him.
And so they ask: Where can we find you Jesus? Where are you staying?
Verse 39a: Jesus said to them, “Come and see.”

Three little words.
But they tell us so much about what we can expect from Jesus.  
They tell us so much about what it means to follow Jesus.
We can’t just talk about it.
We can’t just hear about it.
We have to come and see.
Jesus tells these guys, if you want to know what I’m about – you have to come and see.

If you want to know the word made flesh, come and see Jesus. If you want to know what love is like, come and see Jesus. If you want to experience God’s glory, to be filled with bread that never perishes, to quench your thirst with living water, to be born again, to abide in love, to behold the light of the world, to experience the way, the truth, and the life, to enter into life everlasting, . . . if you want to know God, come and see Jesus. (Audrey West, Prof at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Chicago)

Come and See.
Jesus reminds us today that no matter what we are seeking – be it wholeness or purpose or meaning –
The only place we’ll really find it, is by being with Jesus.

Verse 39b: they came and saw where he was staying and they remained with him that day.  It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
This is a strange point to make here.
Doesn’t it seem odd to take note of an arbitrary moment in time?
But this is the moment these guys’ lives changed forever.
4 o’clock in the afternoon.
That’s when they became disciples of Jesus.
The one they’d been waiting for.
The son of God, the lamb of God, as John had said.
This isn’t actually that unusual.
We all know the times when our lives changed forever?
A wedding date.
The birth day and time of your child or children.
The day you heard “you have cancer”
The day someone you love died.
These are all moments that we remember.
The day and time gets stuck in our mind.
Verse 39b: they came and saw where he was staying and they remained with him that day.  It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
They remembered this day.
It was an important day. It was the day everything changed.

Verse 40-42: One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. Andrew first found his brother and said to him, “We have found the Messiah”
Andrew brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said “You are Simon, song of John. You are to be called Peter.”

Andrew goes to his brother and says, OH my gosh Simon you’ll never believe this but we found the ONE.
You have to come and see.
Come and see.
Andrew can’t keep this to himself!
Before he does anything else, follows Jesus out of the city, or to the next thing – he goes and tells his brother. Come and see Simon.
“Come and see” is something that spreads.

Again, we experience this all the time.
We see a tv show we love and we tell someone, oh my gosh you just have to watch _____
Or we discover a new song and send the link to friends on social media. This song changed my LIFE we say.
We are wired for come and see.
This is why when we hear a personal story about how someone has experienced God we find it so incredibly powerful and moving.
And this is why inviting people to church matters.
Come and see.
You see, Prince of Peace.
I think we have something unique here.
No, I KNOW we have something unique here.
Week after week, we come and see.
We gather together and get a glimpse of God.
That’s what happens.
That’s what you feel when your heart connects to something you’ve seen or heard.
There are a lot of churches where this doesn’t happen.
But it happens here.
So we need to go out and tell people – not come to my church the kids programs are great (though that’s true) – but come and see.
You are looking for purpose and meaning and a whole life?
I’ve found that.
Come and see.

We have been called.
We have been claimed.
We have been told to come and see.
We have followed Jesus.
We go out and tell others to come and see.
The story of these disciples is OUR STORY.
Come and See Jesus says to us.
To you.
Come and see what I am doing.
Come and see what it means that you are loved.
Come and see how far I’ll go to show you.

Come and see.

AMEN.

Scripture: Isaiah 42:5-9; Matthew 3:13-17
Title: Pure Promise

**Sermons are meant to be heard – not just read – so listen along here!**

Before we get going any further this morning, I think it’s important to acknowledge that Jesus’ baptism and our own baptisms are not the same thing.

We are not Christ. We are baptized into Christ.
In our baptisms we join our lives with Christ.  
So since Jesus can’t be baptized into himself, can’t join his life to himself, there is obviously another reason for Jesus to come to John and ask to be baptized.
John even knows that Jesus doesn’t need baptism in the same way everyone else does –
He says “Um – no Jesus.  You should be baptizing me, not the other way around.”
But Jesus says that this is the way it has to be – so people know and understand.
People were wondering and questioning whether or not Jesus was the promised King, the savior they had been waiting for, and his baptism and subsequent acknowledgment by God is what was needed.
Jesus goes into the water in order that people recognize him for who he is.
Just in case there is any doubt.
And as he gets baptized the skies open up and the voice of God tells all of those around him that yes, this is the one they are waiting for.
Jesus is who you are hoping he is.
And , God says, he is beloved.

Remember Jesus hasn’t done anything yet.
His ministry as the Savior hasn’t yet begun.
I like to imagine he threw temper tantrums like any other two and three year old. He added some sass into the mix around elementary school age, and developed a sullen attitude during his teenage years.
And still – he is called beloved.

Our baptisms, though different, are still important too.
Not to be named as the long awaited savior, as much as we may wish that to be the case, but because we need what baptism brings us.

When I sit at my desk – there are a few things in my field of vision that are reminders as I work and write and read and plan.
The first – is called the “Girl Power Manifesto” buy Jennifer Pastiloff.
It goes:
I promise to not be a jerk to myself (ok it doesn’t say jerk but we’re in church so)
Heck (also not what it says), I promise to love myself.
I will remember that my self-worth is not based on what I look like,
How much I weigh,
How many followers I have,
Or any other stupid crap that has nothing to do with who I am.
I will empower other girls and women.
I will be kind. Fiercely kind.
I will have a sense of humor.
I will do my best not to gossip, create drama, or judge others (or myself).
I will remember that just because I’ve had a bad day,
Doesn’t mean I have a bad life.
And even on the crappiest days, I will remember this:
I am enough.

Then, if I turn my head to the right – just above my phone, I see this sign:

You are Always Enough.

And then, for all those times when I’m NOT in my office, I have this: (pic)

Yeah. I put the ultimate reminder of my enough-ness on myself. Permanently.

There’s a reason I have all of these things around me and on me at all times.
It’s because the rest of the time, the world is trying to tell me that what I am, what I do, how I look, who I know, is more important than who God has told me I am.
All the time.

Matthew 3:17 – And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Oh so many lovely words to dig into here – God calls Jesus his beloved – and the word there in Greek is agapetos – coming from the root agape which means unconditional love. So agapetos means unconditionally loved. God is naming Jesus his unconditionally loved Son.
But agapetos can also mean worthy of love.
Worthy of love.

Author Rachel Held Evans says that “baptism doesn’t make you a child of God, it merely acknowledges your existing belovedness”
Jesus didn’t begin to be loved by God at his baptism, it was an acknowledgement of something that already existed.

So baptism does give us something – but it’s not something on checklist or some kind of requirement.
It’s an identity.
A name.
A new name.
The only name we need.
Beloved.
Baptism is a naming.
We are named child of God and that is enough.
Hear me say it.
That is enough.

The world is going to try to tell us differently.
OH will it.
Just today, walking out of this place, I will be told I’m not pretty enough, not thin enough, not fit enough, not rich enough, not powerful enough, not popular enough,
not enough…

My 6 year old is in 1st grade and in this first half of the year alone, she’s come home to tell us that someone told her that her head is too big, she’s fat, she’s not smart, she isn’t a good draw-er,
I mean geeeez. We start em young.
And these messages get into our minds and create doubts that carry all the way well into adulthood:  and they all say one thing.
Who you are on your own is not enough.
You need to do more.
Be better.
Try harder.
You need to be like everyone else.
You are not enough.
We forget.
We have been claimed and named beloved and we forget.
All the time.

Martin Luther said that we need the daily reminder of our baptism, and even though social media wasn’t a thing in the 1500s, he understood that the world is always going to tell us that we are not enough. And he knew that there was only one thing that could fight against it.
Our identity as children of God.

So today – we are going to have a time of remembrance.
This is to remember the promise you have been given.
The name of beloved.
The acknowledgement of who you have always been and always will be.
And we need it.
All the darn time.
So today we’re going to come forward at the guidance of the ushers and receive a cross on our forehead, and hear the words spoken to us: You are a beloved child of God.
And we’ll let that be enough.
So let’s say it together, before we hear it spoken individually –

I am a child of God, and I am enough. (say it)

Again, this time with your eyes closed:  I am a child of God, and I am enough.

**remembrance**

You are a child of God, and you are enough.
So do we LIVE freely in that promise.
But we don’t stop there.
We can’t stop there.
Our Gospel text ends today with this promise of God that is revealed in baptism, but it goes on from this place, and this is not where Jesus stops either.
He doesn’t spend a lot of time just reveling in the promise he’s been given.
The new identity.
He goes out into the wilderness.
And is immediately confronted with all the messages and identities the world wants him to take on instead.

Same with us.
We might be feeling pretty great right now.
We’ve been renewed in our own identity as a beloved child of God.
But we’re going to walk outside and immediately be bombarded with everything telling us that being a child of God is not enough.

And it is.

You’ve been uniquely created and uniquely gifted by a loving God and called beloved.
That will never ever change.
You can’t lose it, it doesn’t go away.
But we have a choice.  

We can spend our lives trying to be good enough for the world. or we can be who we are created to be. 

I know which one I am going to choose – how about you?

One more time let’s say it – I am a child of God, and I am enough. 

Sermons are meant to be heard, not just read – so listen along HERE.

Scripture: Isaiah 63:7-9, Matthew 2:13-21
Title: Be it Resolved

Happy New Year!

I don’t know what brought you here this morning – maybe, like me, you no longer stay up to watch the transition between years, and so since you were up anyway, here you are.
Maybe your last few days or weeks haven’t been the greatest for you and you needed this place on this day.
Maybe you came this morning because you’ve resolved to come to church more, and it would seem like a bad start to miss the FIRST SUNDAY of the new year.

Whatever brought you here today – welcome.  Good morning.  Happy New Year.

This morning’s texts give us a quick departure from the happiness of the holiday season.  Many of us are still right in the midst of parties and joyful gatherings, some today and tomorrow even.

So it’s difficult to come to church and hear such a dark text in today’s Gospel.
And yet – it doesn’t really feel all that out of place.
How many of you have a new year’s resolution?
Why do we resolve new things each year? To be resolved is to decide firmly on a course of action. And in a time of transition like a new year, it feels like the right time to make resolutions.
I think we like the new beginning, the feeling of a fresh start, especially after a sometimes unexpectedly tough year.   

Many of us have experienced a really difficult 2016, losing loved ones, some feeling their safety in the world is compromised, others experiencing health scares and losses of independence.

It’s 2017 today – and no matter how much we want it to, somehow a new year doesn’t just erase all of the things that have happened.  
Oh we want it to.
But it doesn’t.
So here we are, come to church with our fresh outlook on 2017, ready to begin anew with light and life and love and we hear about darkness and fear and death.

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod.

For the family of Jesus, the joy and celebrations of his birth are literally just ending, the visitors are heading home, Mary can finally get some rest, and then Joseph is visited by an angel in a dream.
The angel doesn’t bring good news this time,  doesn’t tell him to not be afraid, no, this angel tells Joseph to leave because he is in danger.

Go… flee.
The word used there implies action, and quick action.
Don’t take your time Joseph. Go. Go now.
And he does.
Joseph gets up, and in the cover of night, the family runs away to Egypt.

Do you know what word is defined as: “a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster” ?  

Refugee.

Jesus and his family were refugees.

Last year during our Good Friday services, we read sonnets about the road to the cross written by poet Malcolm Guite.  He has written a poem called “Refugee” about this Sunday’s Gospel and I’d like to read a part of it here this morning:

Refugee – by Malcolm Guite
We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want.
For even as we sing our final carol
His family is up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing behind and shouldering their load.
Jesus, son of God, was a refugee.
I don’t think we like to think about this.
I think it actually makes us pretty uncomfortable.
We like to think of the birth of Jesus like a warm happy glowing Christmas card.
Peace on earth, goodwill toward all.
But that is not the world which Christ was born into.
No, Christ was born into Herod’s world.
And Herod was not the best guy.
He was a powerful ruler who had just heard there was a baby born that was going to rule the world.
If you were the guy in charge, and heard this, it might not be good news to you like it was to the shepherds and outcasts and those under Roman rule.
If you were the Roman ruler, this was definitely BAD news.
So Herod acts.

Christ comes into the world.
And then is run out of his home because of violence and hatred.
Jesus and his family, running for their lives, go to Egypt.

What do the Egyptians do?
When faced with the refugee crisis in today’s Gospel, what do they do?
Maybe they should legislate.
Maybe they will turn it into a political issue.
Maybe they ignore the humanity of Jesus and instead call him a foreigner.
He’s not like us, they say.
Maybe they should even ban him coming in altogether.
We need to take care of ourselves – they say – that’s what we should do.

Imagine if this is the way the people in Egypt responded.
What would we think of them?

That is the world Christ is born into.
And – and this is important – this is still the world Christ is born into.
When we gather and celebrate Christ coming into the world we can all acknowledge that even today the world is not warm and peaceful and glowing.
The world today is still broken, still angry, still fearful.
And when Christ comes into this world – the gospel today reminds us exactly where Christ is.
He is not with the person in power.
He is not helping or acting on behalf of the person in power.
No.
His very life is threatened and he makes a run for safety.
Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, is a refugee.

We shouldn’t pick sides…Maybe that’s what you’re thinking today.
That I’ve picked a side.
And my response is you bet I have.
So should you.
Because God has already picked a side.
And it’s not here.
It’s not in this room.
It’s with those to whom his coming is good news.
And today – the good news is for the refugee.  

Anglican priest Joy Carroll Wallis once said that
“We Christians like to talk about putting Christ back into Christmas, but let’s not forget to put Herod back into Christmas. Herod represents the dark side of the gospel. He reminds us that Jesus didn’t enter a world of sparkly Christmas cards or a world of warm spiritual sentiment. Jesus enters a world of real pain, of serious dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression. Jesus was born an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee, and finally he becomes a victim to the powers that be. Jesus is the perfect savior for outcasts, refugees, and nobodies.”

Today’s Gospel is messy.
It’s not warm and cozy.
It’s violent and angry and hard to hear.

But it’s a reminder that God didn’t enter a perfect world.
It’s a reminder that God isn’t just with us in the warm cozy joyful moments, but that when God came to be with us God entered a broken, violent, messed up world too.
Then and now.
God is with us in all of it.

So here we are.
Welcoming Christ into the world yet again.
As we heard on Christmas – “for unto YOU is born a savior”
You.
Me.
Christ has come to us, for all of us.
For the whole world.
Only now we know how the story ends.
For we move from the beginning of the good news, the “for you” found in that little baby in a manger,
to the rest of it – for it was on the night on which he was betrayed, when our lord Jesus took bread, broke it, gave it to the disciples and said, take and eat, this is my body, broken for YOU.

End of worship closing:

So on this first day of 2017, as we start to think about the things we want to resolve to be or do in the coming year – I want you to try a new kind of resolution with me.
Can we try this together?

I want us to resolve to look for Jesus in the world around us…in those who are on the outside, who feel oppressed, who are fearful, who are hurting.  

I want us to resolve to try harder to understand our world is not the whole world. To understand that if we’re honest, we look for Christ where we’re comfortable going, and not necessarily where he really is.

I want us to resolve to be the love of God in the world – no matter who we are with, where we go, or who we encounter.

Christ has shown us which side he is on.
Let’s resolve to be with Christ, as Christ has already resolved to be with us.

There are a few organizations that do important and helpful and ethical work with refugees – right now, on the ground, in Aleppo. Please consider giving them your support:

* Lutheran World Relief

* Pre-Emptive Love

* White Helmets

* Doctors Without Borders

* Save the Children

* Together Rising