Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Grace to you and peace from God our
Creator and from our crucified and risen Christ. Amen.
"Dare to live God's
promise" is the theme of the Global Mission Event now
completing.
I must confess when I first heard
that theme, I started fighting against it inside of me. I finally
decided it had better be an issue I take it up with a therapist.
It must be some repressed guilt from that old childhood game,
Truth or Dare, and I probably lied when I said I told the truth.
Or I made a fool of myself not daring to do whatever the Double
Dare. Then I decided this wasn't a matter of psychology: I think
my resistance was a matter of theology.
Any theme that begins with
"dare to" for us Lutherans sounds like it's going to be
law, not gospel. It sounds like command, not promise. It sounds
like works righteousness, not gospel.
My agitation over the theme was
probably accomplishing precisely what the designers of theme
wanted it to do: Awaken us Lutherans from our lethargy,
complacency that can sometimes follow from our being so anchored
as we are in the good news that we are saved by God's grace for
Jesus' sake.
I recently was at an art fair in a
small town. As we were leaving I noticed one man who had obviously
had enough. He had sat down on a bench to read the paper but fell
sound asleep. What was disturbing was what was written on his cap:
"Live by faith not by sight."
And I thought, Please God, I hope
he's not a Lutheran: Living by faith but sound asleep in the face
of the world.
I wanted to shake him awake and
read him just a quote from Eherhard Jungel (Justification: The
Heart of the Christian Faith):
For believers know that since God
has done enough for our salvation, we can never do enough good
for the world. So we are justified by faith alone but faith
never stays alone. It strives to - it has to - become active in
love.
This isn't an easy time for us in
the institutional church to invite people to faith, because mighty
institution after institution, at least by virtue of the conduct
of some of its leaders, has fallen from trust in the eyes of the
people.
Yet it is the Holy Spirit that is
at work through God's promise. God's promise that nothing, nothing
in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord.
Friends, do you believe God's
promise? Friends, do you believe that promise?
Well, if we believe God's promise,
how dare we NOT share God's promise?
If you're waiting for some glitzy
new evangelism program to come out of Chicago; or our wonderful
evangelism strategy with some of our finest practitioners of the
church working to re-envision this church's evangelical work –
and they will do it well; but if we're going to depend on their
work to turn around the continual downward trend in the membership
of this church; then you are waiting in vain. For if every one of
the 5.1 million members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America does not dare to share God's promise by this week,
inviting, sharing and bringing with them to worship next week an
unchurched friend; so that that friend may hear and see and taste
how good God is, then we will continue to be a church in decline.
Okay, here's the "Come to
Jesus" part.
I bet that every one of you, this
week, will cross paths with someone you know who is not in worship
this morning. Think about that person's name. Turn to your friend
and name that person whom you will invite to church next week.
Do you believe God's promise that
there are no barriers to God's love or justice or mercy, not
hardship or distress, not persecution or famine, not nakedness or
peril or storm? Then, we must be in the midst of those realities:
testifying to, bearing witness to, getting caught up in God's
power to transform persecution into justice.
In a conversation last fall, I
acknowledged in front of a group of pastors that I didn't know for
sure what it meant to be presiding bishop. A little late,
probably.
But over coffee, a pastor came up
to me and she said: This is what I think it means; to be presiding
bishop means to call this church to stand at the walls that we
build up to divide ourselves from one another in the world, and
help us turn those walls on their sides to become tables. And then
invite all in this church to those tables, preside over our
conversation so they can be conversations of reconciliation, and
then send us into the world to invite all to the table. Preside
there just as you preside at the table of Christ's reconciling
presence.
How moving has been the testimony
this weekend of Suad and Bishop Munib Younan from the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Jerusalem. Like so many, they are trying to
live each day in the suffocating presence of the Israeli military
forces and the unpredictability of Palestinian terrorist acts. If
there ever was a situation where the natural response was to call
for retaliation, violent rebellion, it is that. But yet, the
Younans, like so many Jews and Muslims and Christians, have called
for, are tirelessly working for, reconciliation and peace.
How do they do it? Because they
dare to believe God's promise as we heard today: Let the wicked
forsake their way and the righteous their thought; let them return
to the Lord that the Lord may have mercy upon them and our God who
will be abundantly pardoning them.
If we believe the promise as we
heard it this morning, that God's invitation is for all: Come,
have milk; drink without price. Then how dare we say to the mother
who has just completed five years of public assistance: You're
done now, pay for day care on your own, do that minimum-wage but
not living-wage job, cover your education costs. If we believe
God's promise that God's kingdom is like a mustard seed that grows
into a bush that gives shelter to the birds of the air, how dare
we live as God's people among such affluence and not provide such
shelter to all the people of the land.
When we believe as we heard today
the promise that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and God's
ways are not our ways; how dare we with such certainty equate one
nation's foreign policy, one economic system with being God's way.
If we believe God's promise as we heard it today from Isaiah, that
you shall call nations that you do not know, and that nations you
do not know shall run to you because of the Lord your God, the
Holy One of Israel, who has glorified you; then how dare we, as a
nation, support only those nations who are in alignment with our
military objectives, who provide expanded markets for our
businesses, who are in our strategic self-interest, and turn our
backs on others. How dare we call some nations axes of evil, but
then fail to repent of our own complicity in evil.
How I wish everyone here could have
heard the moving testimony of the three women from Tanzania. They
live amidst such seemingly overwhelming odds that HIV will destroy
a whole continent. But they work with absolute resolve like the
woman in the parable, leavening the loaf with the yeast of their
hands and their education materials, and their minimal medical
materials, bringing health care and education to villages and
providing homes for AIDS orphans.
Why do they persist? Because they
dare to believe God's promised invitation: everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters; and you who have no money, come buy and eat.
If we dare to live God's promise,
then perhaps in an act of solidarity with them the next time you
go to your clinic, bring along two signs, place them on two empty
chairs, one that says "Reserved for a patient with
HIV/AIDS," and the other "Reserved for a neighbor who
cannot afford health care." It will be a message to all who
enter that clinic, that no matter what the doctor says about your
health, we are not all well until all have access to medication
and health care across this land.
People of faith, we know there are
people among us who dare to live God's promise. Will we ever
forget the moving story Bishop Stephen Bouman told of that tragic
day at Ground Zero, September 11, where the volunteer fire
department chaplain stood at the face of the towers and anointed
with oil and the sign of the cross upon the foreheads of the
firefighters as they ran up the stairs to their death, hoping that
they might bring others to their life. I thought of that quote
from St. Francis of Assis: In baptism we have died the only death
that matters, leaving us free to die every other death for the
sake of life. Bishop Bouman said that for a time such as this, we
were baptized.
Oh yes, people of faith. Do dare to
live God's promise. This congregation, Central Lutheran Church,
rich in its history, centered in Word and sacrament worship, is
placing itself in the city, being guest to the new residents
coming from all over the world, saying: You are welcome here,
welcome us into your lives and together we will build a city into
a community of justice and peace. Witness the results of the
ELCA's Hunger Appeal which is reducing hunger and hunger-related
deaths in the world.
My friends, I fear we will not be
as daring and bold as God expects us and the Holy Spirit gifts us
to be if we don't find some way to hold one another accountable.
And for that task we do need our global companions to accompany
us.
I will never forget traveling with
my colleague Bishop Mdegela in the Iringa Diocese of the
Evangelical Lutheran church in Tanzania. We would go to a village
and worship. Oh, how we worshiped! Singing God's praises,
clapping, dancing, praying. He proclaimed the story of God's love
in Christ, shared the bread and wine of Christ's presence. And in
that moment of ecstacy, with our voices still ringing and our feet
still dancing, he said: Please be seated. And he called the
congregation to account. Is your health clinic still open and do
you have enough supplies? Are your children in school every day?
Show me the trees you have planted as part of reforestation? Name
the crops that you have diversified so that you might have a more
balance diet. Which neighbor have you told the story of Jesus to
this week? And – this is my favorite – are you giving one
Sunday's offering a month to our shared work of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Tanzania?
Daring to live God's promise means
trusting God's promise that we will receive the power and the
gifts of the Holy Spirit necessary for the task. Not the task of
calling attention to our daring deeds, but the task of getting
caught up in what God in mercy and love and justice is doing for
the sake of the world.
God's promise is that the crucified
and risen Christ is present here today, in the Word being
proclaimed and the bread and wine as it is shared. But God's
promise is, Christ is present not just for us but the whole
creation. So send out for more wine. Bake some more bread. Make
room at the table for all. The feast will not end until all have
been fed.
Friends, isn't it time? Is it not
past time to put to rest once and for all the tag line that
Garrison Keilor has justifiably given us: Shy Lutherans? Garrison!
I hope you're listening. Because let it be known from now on the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is 5.1 million, Holy
Spirit- filled, Christ-centered people, daring to live God's
promise in and for the sake of the life of the world.
Amen!
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
