When Suffering Comes Upon Us Third Sunday in Lent February 24, 2008

(First, read the text for this sermon: Romans 5:1-11)

The season of Lent reminds us of our need to return to the God of grace and compassion. The themes of Lent remind us to return to our baptisms, through which we are included in the church – the community of forgiveness and salvation.

The word for this return is “repentance.”

Because of our sinfulness, we are broken apart from God, and from each other. It is only through the initiative of God that we can be restored. God has taken that initiative, through the death and resurrection of Christ, and through our baptism into that community of grace and forgiveness. Repentance is our response. Repentance means to turn again towards God. It is something we need to do at least every day, so to be restored in forgiveness. Luther teaches that there is daily significance of baptism: that each day the old creature in us must be drowned, so that the new person may rise up, the new person that God created us to be.

All of this is especially difficult when suffering comes upon us.

One theme of Lent is suffering. But let’s think about that. One unhelpful strain among the traditions of Christianity would formed us to think that the Christian life must be a life of suffering. This comes from the Puritan tradition, which has a certain amount of influence on all of us: that the world is evil, and it is sinful to enjoy anything! For instance, have you ever taken a bite of a scrumptious dessert and exclaimed, “This is sinful!” That’s Puritanism! According to that faith tradition, we are to resist the world’s pleasures. We are to suffer.

There’s a wonderful scene about this in the movie, Amistad. The Amistad was a slave ship, and the movie is about the true story of an 1839 mutiny while the ship was traveling towards the Northeast Coast of America. The enslaved Africans on board broke loose from their chains and killed the ship’s crew! But since they couldn’t sail a ship, they were re-captured and imprisoned in Boston until the court could figure out what to do with them. Were they property at this point? Were they free human beings who should be returned to Africa? What makes the movie so powerful is that much of it is told through the perspective of the Africans – and our culture is very strange, when seen through their eyes!

For instance, there is a group of Puritans – fierce abolitionists – who maintain a vigil each day outside the prison, singing hymns. In the scene I love, two of the Africans are gazing out at these strange creatures, and one says to the other, “Why do they look so miserable?”

Well, it’s because they’re suffering! And to someone influenced by this tradition of Christianity, one phrase from this morning’s Romans passage is like giving drugs to an addict: And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings,…

Really? Is Paul teaching that we must be miserable if we are be a follower of Jesus? By implication, is the season of Lent to be a time of entering into Jesus’ sufferings in an intense way – to become really, really miserable?

I think the opposite is true. Suffering comes upon each one of us. When that happens, it is God, through Jesus the Christ, who enters into our suffering.

God is intimately present to us in our humanity. That’s what the Incarnation means for us – that God took on human flesh. And so, it’s not that we don’t boast in our sufferings as if it’s a good thing to suffer! Instead, we are supremely confident in God’s continuing love, even when suffering comes upon us. Rooted in that love, we receive from the Holy Spirit endurance and character and hope in the Easter gospel that carries us through the suffering.

Listen again to what Paul writes to the Jesus people in Rome: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Think of times when suffering has come upon you. When you are suffering, how easy is it to know that peace? That hope? That love of God which has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us?

Often, when suffering comes upon us, it is a special challenge to repent, to turn towards God who restores us in love. Often, when suffering comes upon us, all we can feel is brokenness, despair, distress.

When suffering comes upon us, I really don’t know that it’s possible to repent, to return to the love of God, without the aid of members of the church – the community of compassion that the Holy Spirit calls together. During my weeks in the hospital, for instance, God’s love came to me many times each day – through the touch of particularly caring nurses, through one doctor in particular, through visitors who would hang in there, listening to me without judgment or the need to “fix things,” even when my suffering frightened them. But here’s the kicker. While I was enduring that suffering that had come upon me, I did not see that, in all those instances, God’s love was enfleshed in those people. It took yet another member of the community of compassion called together by the Holy Spirit to point that out to me, weeks later, as I was processing it all!

Perhaps you have had a similar experience, when you have endured a period of suffering that has come upon you. A health crisis. The grief that comes when a spouse dies suddenly. The painful work of caring for an invalid spouse or parent, who is suffering himself. Walking into the room of a parent whose dementia causes her to forget that you visited her last week, and who asks you with anger, “Why haven’t you been visiting me?” A new boss who criticizes you for even the most trivial things.

How easy is it to be sustained by God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us, when suffering comes upon you? The first thing we need to repent of is our cultures’ idolatry of self-sufficiency! That’s for sure! [W]e have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; but there are plenty of times when you and I cannot stand on our own, and so we need others in the community of compassion called together in the Holy Spirit. We come again to boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

It is not that suffering is good! It is that God restores our brokenness and holds us tightly when suffering comes upon us – as we are open to each other; as we hold each other tightly in prayer and compassion; as we turn again into God’s love; and we regain confidence in the hope and promise that suffering ends in Easter!

This is stuff of great depth and profundity, isn’t it?

Blessings on your continuing journey through Lent.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"The Mystery Of Water And Spirit" Lent 2 February 17, 2008

(First read the text for this sermon: John 3:1-17)

In our prayer study groups over the past months, we’ve been trying out 12 different types of prayer practice, drawn from Christian tradition. (Did you know there are 12 ways to pray? Actually, there are many more than that!) The past couple of weeks, our focus has been on prayer that happens while slowly walking. This prayer practice arises from the metaphor of our spiritual life as a journey.

Like all journeys, sometimes the terrain of your spiritual journey is smooth and free of obstacles. At other times, the landscape is rough and rocky. Sometimes, along the way of our journeys, we feel as if we are lost in a spiritual wilderness. At all stages, and across all terrains during our spiritual journeys, in our prayer, we are to be listening for God’s guidance and presence.

The season of Lent is a spiritual journey in itself. It is a journey of 40 days (not including Sundays, which are feast days). In the adult class this morning, I led some Bible study highlighting the importance of the holy number “40,” throughout Scripture. As one example, think of the story that epitomizes journeying through times that are confusing and frightening: remember Moses and the Chosen People, wandering through 40 years of literal wilderness experience.

What is the terrain of your spiritual journey these days?

In my own spiritual journey, I am not currently experiencing wilderness. But I am finding some depth this year during my Lenten journey, using again a daily devotional from the writings of Henri Nouwen that I saved from last year. The devotions are based on the parable off the “Prodigal Son,” and his father, and the elder, compulsively responsible son (that’s the one I am!). These devotions are helpful because, in my prayer, I am still coming to terms with the absence of my father, who died 17 months ago.

More broadly, over the past several years in my spiritual journey, I’ve been discovering more and more the mystery of God; becoming aware of what we cannot understand about God; of how God is so much more than any of our intellectua conceptions and formulas of God. This is exhilarating for me, in my prayer! It also contributes to intellectual clarity. I am at a place of recognizing how futile it is to try to understand who God is with too much precision, in terms that are too limiting!

That’s what I am noticing, this time through this morning’s story from John. Some of you have heard this story many times. It begins in dramatic fashion: Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."

Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, under the cover of darkness. He’s taking a risk! He’s a Pharisee. He’s one of the elite leaders of the Jewish people. And yet, he’s drawn to Jesus and what Jesus is teaching and doing! And there are evidently other Pharisees who are attracted to Jesus: Nicodemus refers to “we.”

But, curiously, Jesus responds to all this interest in a way that is confusing and ambiguous. "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?"

Do you see the comedy here, in what Nicodemus says? We’re encountering a literary technique that the author of the gospel of John uses, as he constructs dialogue between Jesus and another person. Again and again in the gospel of John, Jesus speaks in flowing, figurative and metaphorical language – but his listener is literal and wooden-headed in his or her attempt to understand what Jesus is talking about! Look at this case: poor Nicodemus is trying to understand Jesus by picturing a grown adult somehow re-entering his mother’s womb, to be born a second time! Ludicrous!

Nicodemus is entirely missing the point. But it’s not entirely his fault. The Greek word that’s used in the story, anothen, could mean to be born “again,” as Nicodemus seems to assume. But it does not necessarily mean that! The word could also be translated to mean, born “from above”; or even, born “anew.” Indeed, you do find all three translations in various versions of the Bible!

Why does the gospel writer use a word that is so difficult, so ambiguous? Could it be intentional? Could it be to prevent us readers from understanding too precisely?

That’s what I suspect, at this point on my spiritual journey! This story does not encourage us to try to understand with too much precision, as if God can be reduced to a set of intellectual categories. Instead, this story is inviting us into the mystery that is God!

As supporting evidence, listen to more of what this gospel-of-John Jesus says. Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

In his befuddlement, all that poor Nicodemus can say to Jesus is, "How can these things be?"

Don’t you feel sorry for the guy? He’s taken great personal risk to approach Jesus, under the cover of darkness. He’s drawn to what Jesus is teaching. But is Jesus helping him out, with all this metaphorical and poetic language?

Well yes, I think Jesus is trying to help Nicodemus – because Nicodemus is struggling with a narrow and restrictive understanding of what is possible! Jesus’ responses are way beyond that! Jesus asks, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he has to let go of what he knows, so that he can enter into the mystery that is God!

The point of our spiritual journeys is to enter into that mystery more and more deeply. That is particularly true of our journeys during the season of Lent.

Are you willing to take the risk of entering into the mystery of being born of water and Spirit?

How might you and I be changed – by simply following the Spirit in our spiritual journeys, as the Spirit leads us into this ambiguity?

How might the Spirit draw us into God?

There is risk in this, because it draws us so far beyond what we think we understand about God – in our heads. (Most of us Lutherans put primary emphasis on that!) But, in our spiritual journeys, we can walk with great confidence: because what God the Holy Spirit is doing is leading us more and more deeply into Love. After all, we read this, in this morning’s story from John: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Blessings on your continuing journey through Lent.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
Saint Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

Returning To God And Becoming Human Lent 1 February 10, 2008

(First read the text for this sermon: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-17)

You may know that there are two creation stories in Genesis. The stories are so different in all of their details that only thing they share in common is the Truth they tell: that God has created everything; and that God is in control.

The first creation story is in chapter one of Genesis. In this story, water is so plentiful that it’s a danger! The first thing God does is to bring order to the water. This first story is organized by a seven day structure. That’s very famous. But in this first story, there is no serpent. There is no Adam and no Eve. In the first creation story, after everything else is created, God creates all human beings at the same time as the crown of creation; God’s final creative act.

We read from the second story this morning. That’s the story which begins with chapter two, verse four. There are no seven days in this story, which was obviously produced by a desert culture, because there is very little water. The earth is dust. The very first thing God creates is one single man. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God gives the man his work: to take care of the garden and to cultivate the plantings so that the garden will become fruitful. It is work that is integrated into the rest of creation, in harmony with the natural world. And God gives the man only one rule: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

What a wonderful privilege is given to the man! He is given the work of caring for creation! God gives him only one instruction: to be a human being. That thing about not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? That’s simply an instruction not to try to be God, but to be the human being that God created him to be.

This morning’s reading picks up the passage later in the story. By now, one single woman has been created, because the man was lonely. Sexist interpretation aside, according to the story itself, the woman is not created to be subservient to the man! She is created to be a helper as his partner. Now, think about that. A partner, of course, is an equal! “A helper as [a] partner” is a divine model of interdependence and mutuality and equality! That is how God created us human beings to live with each other.

One more thing. We read, And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. There is complete openness and honesty and trust.

So, now, look at how God has created life to be lived. God is God. The human beings have been given to each other, in community. And they have been given the most fulfilling work there is: nothing less than taking care of all that exists!

And now the story really gets interesting. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.' "

So far, so good, huh? The woman has deflected the serprent's misleading question. She is repeating from the catechism she learned in confirmation class. But watch out now! Here comes trouble. But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Do you see how the serpent portrays God to be a manipulative Being? How interesting!

And do you see what the primal temptation is, the temptation at the root of all sin? It is to be dissatisfied with being human, as we are created to be. It is to want to be like God. When human beings try to be like God, we really screw things up. We think the whole enterprise depends upon us, and so we are incredibly hard on ourselves. We are unable to open up to grace, and to be forgiving towards ourselves and others. This sinfulness shows itself in its worst ugliness when we give in to the temptation that we know what’s best for individuals, and even nations. We become domineering over others. Sometimes we even start wars! What emotional and physical death and destruction results when we try to be like God.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Do you notice that the story says nothing about what kind of fruit this is? The fact that most people think it’s an apple? We’ve made that up! But here’s the result. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Alas. Remember that openness and honesty and trust? It’s been destroyed now. Now the human beings are motivated by fear. Now they feel the need to protect themselves. “CYA,” y’all!

There’s a wonderful image of God, in the next verse? God is enjoying the garden God has made. God is taking a stroll as the sun is going down, as the heat of the day is letting up. Watch what happens. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"

Now. Remember that I said the human beings feel the need to protect themselves? “It’s not my fault!” right? God asks, “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" And what does the weasily man say? "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate."

Way to go, big guy. Way to take personal responsibility for your actions. But then, the woman doesn’t do any better. She’s just as good at passing the buck. We read, Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."

The rest of the passage offers explanations for common human experiences, in story form. Why do snakes slither rather than walk? Why are many women afraid of snakes? Why is it painful for a woman to give birth to a child? Why do so many men hate their jobs? All of that is in the next verses of this marvelous story.

But I want to center on this: everything would have been fine, if the human beings had been content with being human, as God created them to be.

It’s a story, of course, that plays out every day, among human beings. Why do you and I so often become angry, and impatient, and anxious, and defensive? It’s because of sin.

Sin is not, in its most important sense, anything that we do. Sin is the condition of brokenness – of being broken apart from God, and from other human beings, and from the awareness of what is fulfilling in our work. In our brokenness, we are prevented from receiving the grace and mercy that God our creator longs to give. We are blinded to the fact that eternal life has begun. We are less than human.

Repentance means turning away from all that. It means re-turning to the God of grace who created us.

And so, I invite you into this holy season of Lent, which is filled with grace! God uses the themes of this season to invite us to repent; to return to God; to become the human beings God created to be. The result of such repentance is deep joy!

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

What The Spirit Can Do, When We Fast! Ash Wednesday February 6, 2008

(First read the text for this sermon: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21)

Lent is a time of baptismal renewal. Lent is a season of dying to yourself, so you can live to God. To use one of Luther’s images about baptism, the “old creature” in us must be drowned, so that the “new person” in us can arise!

This is something that needs to happen every day, according to Luther. In the Catechism he asks, “What then is the significance of such a baptism with water?” He answers, “It signifies that the old creature in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily contrition and repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

This life of righteousness is lived one day at a time. It’s lived in the same way that a recovering alcoholic stays healthy: by choosing health one day at a time, and by being utterly honest with himself. Did you pay attention to these words, in the Prayer for Ash Wednesday? “Create in us new and honest hearts, so that, truly repenting of our sins, we may receive from you…full pardon and forgiveness….”
Each day, when we are altogether honest with ourselves, and open to the Spirit, we receive power to put to death the old creature within us, so that the Spirit can raise each one of us up to be the person God created you and me to be!

That’s the day-to-day baptismal life. It is the daily life of repentance. It is the daily life of turning away from self-centered self-gratification, and becoming the new person.

This is the fundamental focus of Lent.

The Spirit can work through the Lenten discipline of fasting to raise up the new person within us.

The Ash Wednesday reading from Matthew presents Jesus teaching on three practices of the spiritual life: giving away money to meet the needs of the poor (that's what "alms" means), and prayer in a spirit of humility, and fasting. Classically practiced, fasting means to deprive yourself of food. To change the metaphor slightly, when we fast, the Spirit is able to starve the old creature so that the new person within us can arise!

If you’ve explored the web site of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, it could be that you’ve come across a wonderful essay on fasting. The author quotes a verse from tonight’s Matthew text: But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you; and continues: “Jesus taught and expected his followers to fast as a spiritual discipline. But if our pride allows us to tell others of our fast, so as to impress them with our devotion to God, we have lost our focus on God and the impact of the fast goes with it.” The point is repentance! In this case, repentance means to turn away from self-absorption, and to focus on God. As the author continues, “Fasting…helps to break us out of our self-centered world. When we stop satisfying our every craving and desire, we can more easily open ourselves to God and to the needs of others.”

Listen to what Gordon Lathrop writes: "The point of Christian fasting in Lent should not be to demonstrate our supposedly spiritual athleticism, our gnostic ability to rise above mere flesh and its needs, as if that were any virtue. Exactly the contrary. The deepest biblical conception of fasting is that it demonstrates our own need in concert with our neighbors, with others who are wretched and hungry, with a whole world in need, as if the fast were an enacted prayer to God. Fasting is about not hiding from your own flesh.… Not hiding from mortality, telling the truth – those are the outlines of the discipline. And such a discipline may come to expression best by fasting from pretense, from self-righteousness, from misuse of the earth, and from acts of injustice as well as from self-indulgence."

This is helpful, for me, in broadening the whole concept of fasting! The Spirit can transform you when you fast from food – if it is food that is preventing the person God created you to be from arising within you. But perhaps it’s not about food!

From what do you need to fast?

For instance, are you struggling to open to God, who would like to create in us new and honest hearts, so that, truly repenting of our sins, we may receive from God full pardon and forgiveness? Are you, instead, hiding behind pretense? In what ways do you deceive even yourself – as if you’ve got it all together; that you can handle it; that you don’t need any help from anyone else? Think of what the Spirit can do when we fast from pretense – and honestly reveal our weaknesses, to ourselves, and to others who desperately want to help us do better the work God has called us to do together! What joy there is, then, when the old creature within us is starved, and the Spirit is able to raise up the new person within us!

Think of what the Spirit can do when we fast from self-righteousness; the need always to be right; and instead receive the grace and forgiveness that comes with healthy humility. What? You mean the world does not revolve around me! What a relief! I can relax! And so, what joy there is when the old creature within us is starved, and the Spirit is able to raise up the new person within us!

Be honest now. Where is it, each day, that the old creature within you is not subdued, with the result that you are distracted from God who is at the center of life?

Is the old creature the anger that comes when you’re feeling the anxiety that there is too much to do, when you’re believing the lie that it all depends upon you? A way of fasting from that anxiety is to stop during the day, for a period of non-productive, “waste-of-time” prayer; to hear from God the reminder that it is God who has given you your work to do, and that God will enable you to do what needs to be done! Imagine what the Spirit can do when you and I fast from the conceit that it is all up to us, and, instead, when we repent by practicing humility!

I find that the old creature within me that needs to be drowned again and again is the compulsion to be productive – because that’s rooted in the lie that it is all up to me, and that I’m not working hard enough, and that I’m not doing a good enough job. (How did I internalize all of those destructive messages?!) At those times, the spiritual discipline for me is to fast from multi-tasking! I repent. I return to words written by Gerald May: “Do one thing at a time, with complete, immediate mindfulness. Don’t do it to get it done so you can get on to the next thing. Do it for love. Do it fully, sensitively, openly. Do it now. Then do the next thing.”
Do you know what? I find, then, that I am more centered in the purpose of the work that God has given me to do. And – I find that I am more productive, and with less anxiety, because I am doing each thing well, with the attentiveness it deserves! I rejoice in what the Spirit can do when I fast from multi-tasking, and starve that old creature within me, so that the new person can arise, the person God created me to be!

Have you ever fasted from e-mail? What a wonderful spiritual practice that is! On those days when I discipline myself to check e-mail only once a day – and after I have done the more important work for that day – I am much more centered in God’s presence and purpose in my work.

The list goes on and on, when you let your imagination loose! From what do you need to fast, so you can repent, turning from that distraction, and returning to God’s grace and forgiveness?

What will the Spirit do with you this Lent?

How will the Spirit move, as you practice the Lenten disciplines – of giving away money to meet the needs of the poor, of prayer, of fasting?

Pay attention!

And let me know what the Spirit is doing, as we journey through Lent!

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia