We Are the Music

This Sermon is based on Matthew 16:21-28.

As some of you are beginning to find out, music is a big part of my life. It follows then that one of my favorite quotations is all about music. In the novel detailing her walkabout journey with an aboriginal tribe of Australia, Morgan Marlow recalls one of the tribal members stating, “A musician carries the music within him. He needs no specific instrument. He is the music.” He is the music, what a powerful statement. Now I want you to repeat after me, “We are the music…” All together now...

So if we are the music, then it follows that we are all musicians. It’s true, we are all musicians. We walk through this world making music. Whether it be our words, our actions, our attitude, or our general disposition, we all make music as we move through this world. We create the soundtrack to our lives.

Now just like the music we listen to, the music we create has certain characteristics, namely harmony and dissonance. Harmony is a pleasing sound. The notes fit together to make sounds pleasant to the ears. Dissonance is a clashing sound. It builds tension, perhaps it makes us uncomfortable. The music we make carries these qualities. We can create harmony, dissonance, or a combination of both, just like music. Our God is no different.

Harmony is what was being sung the last time we encountered Matthew’s Gospel. Peter has just confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Messiah of God. Jesus tells Peter that he is the rock upon which the church will be build, a foundation so strong that not even the gates of Hades will prevail against it. God’s song, the Messiah, is breaking into the world, the theme music is full of rich chords, harmony pouring out with every note. The disciples are beginning to join the chorus. And then Jesus continues talking.

After warning the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah, Jesus unveils the next leg of his earthly journey, his passion. In a moment of clarity, we get a glimpse of where Jesus is headed and of who will be there to welcome him, the next verse of the song is revealed. Jerusalem, the city that kills prophets, the city that Jesus weeps over, the home of the powers of this world, shall be the stage upon which his passion will play out. The premier players are to be the religious leaders, the elders, chief priests and scribes. Jesus is to be handed over to suffering and death at their hands and he is to be raised after three days. The music, it seems, has changed. Dissonance fills the air, the theme is now dark and foreboding. The tension is too much. Peter steps in.

Of course it had to be Peter. Fresh off his shining moment of confession, a revelation straight from God, Peter steps in to set Jesus straight. There is to be no suffering and death for the Christ, the Messiah of God. That is not how the song of the Messiah is supposed to be sung. The Messiah is supposed to restore Israel to power, to end the suffering brought on by the hands of Rome. Peter is about to take a stand for his faith, a stand for what he and many of the Jews believe in. Jesus has to be set straight.

So Peter takes Jesus aside and has a few words with him. He contradicts Jesus, “God forbid it, Lord!” “May God in his mercy spare you this!” This is not how the song goes he tells Jesus. Peter is trying to evaporate the sudden tension that has filled the room. The newly revealed passion of Jesus does not jive with how Peter’s song of the Messiah is supposed to be sung. It seems that Jesus and Peter are no longer singing the same song.

The response of Jesus is quick. He turns to Peter and abruptly states “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Peter, you are not in harmony with me, you’re not singing God’s song anymore, Jesus says. Your mind is in harmony with human things, not divine. Your song for the Messiah is not God’s song.

This is what happens when we try and sing our own song, we tend to get out of rhythm with God. Broken relationships, revenge, greed, abusing each other and creation, the struggle for power, self-centeredness, these are the verses of the song of this world, the song we so often sing. When we forget who we are as people of God, our song grows louder and a trail of busted stuff is left in our wake. When we try and live by our own means, when we stay focused on human things, when we let our song get in the way, we lose sight of Jesus Christ and his call for us to follow. We forget the song of God and we sing in dissonance with God, not harmony.

Sometimes we do not even know that we’re singing in dissonance with God. Sometimes we sing our own tunes so well that they get stuck in our heads and drown out the music that gave us life, the very song of God. Peter thought he was in harmony with Jesus, he thought he was singing the same tune. But his song was not in harmony with God. Peter’s song was to keep Jesus alive, God’s song is to give the world life through Jesus. Peter’s mind was on human things.

And so it is with us. It’s the struggle we face every day. How do we use our lives to sing God’s song amidst the dissonance of our world? For this we only need to be reminded of God’s song, a song that contains both harmony and dissonance: A harmony that sets us free and gives us new life, a dissonance that reminds us of how to live when we start singing our own song. Since the beginning of it all, our God has been writing music to bring life as we know it into harmony. God’s voice sung the world from chaos into goodness at the birth of creation. God sung the people of Israel to new life again and again in the Old Testament, singing both dissonance and harmony in the ebb and flow of their relationship. God sent Jesus Christ into our world, writing a new harmonious song into the fabric of history through the Messiah. Jesus is God’s response to the dissonance we create with our songs. Jesus is the harmonious tune sung by God, the song that sets us free.

Through his ministry of teaching and healing, Jesus teaches us how to sing a new song of mercy and love. He teaches us how to sing in harmony with God and with one another. Through our baptism into Jesus Christ, we are set free to join into the song of God. Our voices are united with the saints of every age in the never ending chorus that proclaims Jesus Christ as the gift of new life to the world. And we are already singing it this morning.

In our worship, our reading of scripture, and our sharing in the Lord ’s Supper. In our being a part of a community of faith, our voices come forth singing notes of God’s song. We are put back in tune with God. When we worship with one another, we come together to honor our God who gives us new life and a voice to sing in this world. When we dig into scripture, we hear God’s song in action in the past, so that we can recognize it and sing it into our lives today, so that we can sing it boldly into the future of our world to come. We come to the font and the table to be filled with the gifts of God’s heart that set us free and strengthen us to sing the song of God as we walk through this world.

For that is the place where we must go, back out into this world that has its mind set firmly on human things. Into a world that sings its own song, often times in dissonance to the song of God. But remember, we are all musicians, we are the music. We were created to sing the song of God. So lift up your voices and sing. Sing out dear people of God. Sing your hearts out. With your hearts and voices, actions and lives, sing the song of God that proclaims new life in Jesus Christ. Let your journey’s of faith write songs that are in harmony with the song of God. Be the musicians you were created to be.

The Church of Christ, in every age...

I had the opportunity to volunteer for a few days at the 2011 Evangelical Lutheran Church of America's Churchwide Assembly, that took place last week in Orlando. I worn three hats during my time at the assembly: worship usher, page distributor, and wide-eyed student. I spent a few hours in service alongside the many volunteers who worked the countless hours needed behind the scenes to keep the gears of the assembly moving. I spent a majority of my time watching the ebb and flow of a church in action.

While I will not claim that the ELCA is the only embodiment of the church on earth, I do believe that we are a voice among the harmony of witnesses of Jesus Christ in our world today. We are a church beset by change, we are a church that is spirit led, as the old hymn goes, and we are working to move into the future together. The efforts 1025 delegates, lay and ordained, men and women, young and seasoned, and the countless folks on the churchwide staff, came together over five days, working and sweating for hours on end, swelling to the beat of the theme, "Freed in Christ to serve." Topics were debated, the Spirit’s movement was discerned, and decisions were made, all in an effort to be a witness of Christ in our world.

Paul writes in Romans 8 that we are to "not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and whole." In a society whose leaders often send a message of inadequate preparation and a proclivity to shift the blame to someone else, the ELCA, as a living witness of the Gospel, is taking strides to seek justice, embody love and mercy, and equip its members to bear Christ's life saving message to the world. While we are by no means perfect, we continue to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit in our world and roll up our sleeves to do the work of Christ. As a church, as a community of faith, as a witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our world, we are striving to renew our minds, and ourselves, to be a better servant in our world. While we do not always get it right, because there are still those without a voice in our world, I believe that we continue to walk in the way of Jesus Christ.

Between the Head and the Heart

Here it is, hot out of the pulpit, my first sermon as an intern at Trinity in Bradenton, Florida. The Gospel text is Matthew 15:10-28.

Sometimes the best way I can find to describe how we walk through this world is a struggle between the head and the heart. At a young age we learn all the rules of how to treat others with kindness and play fair, we learn to try and balance what we learn with our heads with how we feel in our hearts. As we grow up and mature, we see how those rules get stretched and sometimes broken and we get confused as to what to do. The line between the head and the heart, between the rules and compassion gets blurred, and we get worn out by the struggle, slowly giving in to the tired phrase, “that’s just the way things are.”

During my time in Chicago, one of the greatest struggles between my head and my heart came when I hit the streets of the neighborhood and encountered folks begging for change, or perhaps a bite to eat. We were told as students to never give a dime to anyone in the neighborhood, with one of the professors remarking that “some of them have been working here longer than I have.” Now I know that some folks are just out there taking advantage of other’s generosity, but I cannot help but cringe inside every time I deny someone just a small piece of the abundance I have been given. Most of the time I bid them a good day and move on, my head usually wins out over my heart.

It is at the crossroads of this struggle between the head and the heart where we find Jesus today. He is in the market place, gathering a crowd and putting on his teacher’s hat. He is on the heels of a heated exchange with the religious leaders, the Pharisees who deal mostly with matters of the head. They are in charge of keeping the Torah, the books of law handed from Moses, meant to guide the community’s life together. Today’s topic of discussion; what exactly makes one unclean.

The Torah dictates that it is stuff from the outside world, in this instance unclean hands, that make one unclean. You see, the Pharisees have been quick to point out that the disciples of Jesus did not wash their hands before dinner, thus breaking the rules and therefore making themselves unclean. They are now officially cut off from the faith community until they repent and are made clean once more.

Jesus is growing weary of these religious leaders and their finger pointing and nitpicking. He is growing tired of them putting their traditions above the will of God, using rules of the head instead of compassion from the heart. He is quick to counter, declaring that it is not what goes into the body that makes one unclean, but rather what comes out of a person’s heart that makes them unclean.

His words hit the very crux of the argument, it’s not about what goes into the body, it’s not about the rules of the head that make things clean or unclean. It’s about what comes out of the mouth, the very things that proceed from the heart, that make one clean or unclean. Jesus is shifting our perception, trying to reorient how we walk through this world. He is putting an emphasis on how we live and what proceeds from our hearts, rather than on meticulously following all the rules.

The Pharisees and other religious leaders don’t seem to understand. They take offense to Jesus’ words. Jesus is shaking the status quo, ruffling the feathers of law and tradition. For generations the complex religious system of the Pharisees has been the gold standard of who is clean and who is unclean, who is in and who is out, who belongs and who is disqualified. They are simply following the tradition of the Torah, following it to the letter, but they fail to see what’s at the very heart of all the rules they try so desperately to keep. The missed the class on how the Torah was meant to give life. They remain stuck in their heads, sticking to their strict interpretations of scripture and continue to write people off as unclean, instead of reaching out with their hearts to give people life.

It’s a vicious cycle we see every day. Far too often we see people cut off by the very rules that are supposed to make us a loving community. We assign labels and categories that divide and destroy, we make up regulations to keep the people we want in and the people we don’t want out. We use our heads to walk through this world and label everyone and everything as in or out, good or bad, right or wrong.

When we use our heads more than our hearts, we shut the doors on our neighbors and cut them off from a life giving community. When we use our heads more than our hearts, we shut ourselves off from each other and slowly lose touch with what makes us a community of faith. When we use our heads more than our hearts, we miss opportunities to be the living Christ to those who we encounter and the cycle of brokenness continues and the kingdom of heaven remains absent from our lives.

But Jesus reminds us that our God is a God of the heart, and it is out of the heart of God that we were created and called good. Even the Torah came from the heart of God, out of God’s desire that we love and serve one another, a desire that we be a life giving community, faithful to one who gives us life.

When Jesus encounters the Canaanite woman it appears that his head is going to win out over his heart. He understands his ministry to be the lost sheep of the house of Israel, a ministry to the Jews, to those who are clean. But the woman is a Canaanite, non-Jewish, ritually unclean, outside of the community. His initial response is true to his tradition, she cannot be helped by Jewish standards. His response seems cold, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” The story seems to be over, the head wins out over the heart. But that’s not the way our God works.

The woman is not wavered by Jesus’ initial coldness, the world has been a cruel place, but she is not about to give up. Her response is bold and clever, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” She knows even better than the religious leaders, what lies at the heart of God: Compassion and a life-giving love. Her response strikes a chord in Jesus, perhaps he smiles and chuckles to himself before he declares her faith great and her daughters healed. Jesus responds with his heart and the label of unclean is stripped away. Jesus sees her for what she truly is, a child of God. Someone who was called good by the creator, someone who deserves to be loved.

When we return to our hearts, we are reminded that at the heart of our God lies compassion and a love so deep that it passes all our understanding. At the heart of our God lies ordinary water changed into a life giving promise of love and acceptance. At the heart of our God lies wheat and grapes changed into a life sustaining meal of forgiveness and nourishment. At the heart of our God lies an empty tomb and resurrected Christ who speaks words of new life and love for all humanity.

Friends, this day and always, our calling as a church, our calling as a people of faith, is to live by our hearts. We are called to be love to one another and to those who have never known love. We are called to recognize the created good in all peoples and serve one another as Jesus Christ served us. We are called to be the hands and feet of the one who came to remind us how to open our hearts and give life to the world around us.

When we go from this place, nourished by the bread and wine that come from the heart of God, let us take up our calling, and serve. Serve our neighbors and all whom we encounter as we serve ourselves. Invite them into to our community of faith. Teach them the Gospel by the actions of our lives. Become the living Christ by walking through this world with the love in our hearts, rather than the rules in our heads.

Giving Life Abundantly

As I am preparing to preach for the first time here in Bradenton this weekend, I wanted to share a sermon I preached earlier this year. This is a sermon I preached at my home congregation, St. Paul's Lutheran, in Brenham, Texas, on May 15th, 2011, the fourth Sunday of Easter. The Gospel text is John 10:1-10.

“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

There’s an old bit of wisdom that claims; if you know where you have come from, there are no limitations to where you can go. This statement is all about identity, about knowing oneself.

I come from a line of farmers; German immigrants who took a great risk in crossing the Atlantic to find a new start in Texas. Since 1875 my family has been farming a piece of land just outside of Winedale. This farm literally gave me life. When I was a kid I helped to tend its gardens, I ate from its bounty. Now that I am in Chicago I keep a jar of its dirt on my desk as a reminder of who I am. As I continue to learn and grow in my faith, and in my formation as a future leader of the church, my identity as a son of farmers will not change. Knowing where I have come from, there is no limitation on where I can go.

We as a congregation come from a long line of Christians. Our roots are grounded in the confession of Jesus Christ as our lord and savior. Since 1895 we have worshipped in this community as Lutherans, our heritage stretching back to Martin Luther and the Augsburg Confession. This congregation gives people life. Through its ministry of Word and Sacrament, it has nurtured the faith lives of countless individuals and families. One only has to take a walk into the fellowship hall to see the rich history of St. Paul’s in the pictures of its confirmation classes. We know where we have come from as a congregation; there is no limit to where we go.

This morning as we continue to celebrate the mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are once again confronted with the question of, just who is this Jesus? We are now four Sunday’s into the season of Easter, a time of year when we celebrate and reflect upon who Jesus is as the central figure of our Christian identity.

Jesus stands amidst us today and clearly states who he is in John’s Gospel. “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep,” he says. He stands in front of a gathered crowd after a brief altercation with a group of Pharisees. Jesus has just given sight to a man born blind, an event that has caused quite a ruckus in the little town. The Pharisees have given the man and his family a rather hard time in their quest to discover just who Jesus is. Even in the face of a miracle and the clear witness and confession of the now open eyed believer, the Pharisees just don’t get it; just who is this Jesus?

“Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.” It is the clear express of Jesus’ self understanding that finds the ears of the gathered crowd and rings from our pulpit today. Jesus is no stranger to agricultural metaphors, nor is he afraid to draw parallels between himself and David, the shepherd boy turned king, who wrote the Psalm we read earlier. Jesus is clearly pointing to himself, refocusing the attention of the crowd, refocusing our attention today. “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved…”

This is one of his many “I am” statements in John’s Gospel; “I am the bread of life,” “I am the light of the world,” “I am the good shepherd,” and so on. It is in John’s Gospel that we get the clearest picture of Jesus’ self understanding. Amidst the many metaphors that Jesus uses to describe himself, bread, light, resurrection, truth, one clear theme emerges; Jesus gives life. He states this very clearly at the conclusion of our Gospel text today, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

But the Pharisees remain divided; they even try to stone Jesus a few verses later. They had forgotten where they had come from; they did not remember their history or their heritage. Their continual denial of who Jesus is will lead to conversations about arrest and conviction. Their voice will fan the flames of mob mentality, until the chant of “crucify him” will fill the streets of an early Friday morning. Their closed minded interpretation of scripture, an interpretation that had cast so many out of the community, would not allow them to see Jesus for who he truly was, the life giving messiah.

That’s what happens when we don’t remember where we have come from. When we get caught up in our own interpretations, we often get led astray and try to live by our own rules. We cast people out of our communities because they are different than us. We claim that we have the only angle on truth and close ourselves off to the rest of the world. We even try and use scripture to justify our attempts to rip the church apart. When we forget where we have come from, we slowly unravel until we have no future at all.

This is the disheartening cycle that has lead to denominations condemning each other, cutting themselves off from one another, until the heart of the Gospel is left trampled in the dust. This is the disheartening cycle that has lead to congregations into angry battles over whose right and who’s wrong, tearing themselves apart internally, leaving the Gospel message out of the conversation. It’s a power struggle dear people. When we get caught up in our own quest to have power and to be right, we forget about Jesus, the only reason we have life at all.

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Jesus’ words ring out across our arguments and refocus our attention on where we have come from. These words of Jesus confront us in our struggle for power and remind us who is actually in control of the Kingdom of God, past, present, and future.

Our identity as baptized children of God is grounded in Jesus Christ. He is our source of life. When we gather at the font in our baptism, we are brought to new life and claimed as children of God. Our identity in this world is forever changed. The old bonds of sin and death are washed away, we are set free from all that would hold us back from following in the example of Jesus and giving life to the world. Our vocation as baptized children of God is to give life to others, not to take it away. We don’t get to make the rules dear people. If God wants to give life, life will be given regardless of whether we give our approval. Acceptance into God’s kingdom is not by a 2/3rds majority vote. The decision for our acceptance and salvation was made unilaterally two thousand years ago when Jesus walked out of the tomb on that first Easter morning. Our call is to live into that promise, and spread the good news to world.

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” These words ring out across time and shatter the turmoil of our arguments today. Jesus is not telling us to pick and chose who gets to have life, Jesus is telling us that he is the one who gives life, and he gives life abundantly to all. When we live into this promise, we too become life givers in the world around us. Part of our identity as Christians is to surrender our pride, put down our idols of control and power, and be open to an encounter with the living Christ, who came that we may have life, and have it abundantly.

Friends in Christ, we are called to live into the promise of Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him may not parish, but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” That is the heart of the Gospel. It is time that we stand up and reclaim this as our identity as Christians, as members of St. Paul’s in Brenham Texas.

So stand up people of St. Paul's, stand up! Stand up and reclaim your identity as Christians who live out their lives in the heart of the Gospel. Stand up and reclaim your identity as a Lutheran congregation in this community that gives people life. Stand up and go out into this world - proclaiming with you very lives the call of Jesus Christ. Go out into this world and give life - and give it abundantly!