Our Glorious King

A Homily for the Feast of Christ the King

Texts: Colossians 1:11-20; St. Luke 23:33-43

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus the Lord, our King who hung upon the tree of the cross. Amen.

christ_king_of_kings_greece_c-_1600 — Christ the King

This is not what we expect from our king.

We turn to our rulers looking for certain things: elegance, a sense of power, safety, a show of force. We expect them to do mighty works. We want them to be great and to make us great.

How odd it is, then, that as we celebrate the reign of Christ our King, we don’t read about his miracles. Or the Transfiguration. Today, there is no holy dove descending from heaven, no voice of God proclaiming:

This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

Gone are the crowds that greeted Christ on the streets of Jerusalem with palm branches and shouts of: Continue reading “Our Glorious King” →

The Kingdom Yet to Come

A Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

Texts: St. Luke 21:5-19

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus the Lord, the coming King. The whole creation trembles at his approach. Amen.

column capital — Recreated Column of Jupiter in Ladenburg, Germany – The original is one of many traces of Rome’s former reach

There was a time when the Roman Empire covered the entire Mediterranean world and beyond – from Spain across the Straight of Gibraltar to the North African coast down to the Sahara, skirting north of the Arabian desert to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, rebuilding the ruined settlements of the Greek world, north over the Alps to the forests of Germany, and even up through France and across Britain into what is today Scotland. This expanse brought with it a sense of hubris: Romans described theirs even before the reign of Julius Caesar as “an empire without end” and their capital as “the eternal city.”

Even still today, tourists can enjoy pasta carbonara while looking out at the Coliseum, stop for gelato on their way to the ancient forum, or even worship in the temple to all the gods, the Pantheon, which still stands to this day as a Christian church. Aqueducts tower over cities in France. The outer limits of the empire still mark antiquarian borders in northern England and through Germany. Continue reading “The Kingdom Yet to Come” →

The Amazon Synod and the Future of Ministry

As the Synod on the Amazon came to an end, two big developments have dominated much of the news coverage (admittedly at the expense of other pressing matters both ecological and liturgical). The first has been passed out of the synod in their official write-up: the ordination of married men to the priesthood. The second was discussed but did not come to pass: it was expected the synod might recommend the ordination of women to the diaconate. (An important addendum: reports have circulated that an expanded version of the commission tasked with considering women’s ordination will re-convene following the synod.) Continue reading “The Amazon Synod and the Future of Ministry” →

Serving Lazarus, Serving Christ

A Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Text: St. Luke 16:19-31

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who lifts up the lowly. Amen.

I remember the first time I wore a clerical collar.

clericals — Honestly, even now I feel a bit like a superhero who transforms with a simple change of clothes

Having grown up a Methodist and in the “General Protestant” environs of military chapels, the black and white shirts always had an air of mystery about them. They seemed a bit foreign, of unknown origin. But, at the same time, when I saw one of my dad’s Catholic or Lutheran colleagues in the distinctive black shirt with the flimsy white plastic tab, I knew exactly who I was looking at.

My second year of seminary, after a rough first year of hospital chaplaincy, as I considered dropping out of grad school and the ordination process, I started field ed at a Lutheran church in Decatur and donned the collar. There was something very “official” about it. As though shirt itself granted me authority and confidence. It let the world know WHO I WAS. Continue reading “Serving Lazarus, Serving Christ” →

Tradition! Tradition!

A Homily for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Text: St. Luke 13:10-17

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who interrupts our world to show us the Kingdom. Amen.

To quote Fiddler on the Roof, “How do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition!” (Tradition! Tradition!) “Traditions for everything: How to sleep. How to eat. How to work. How to wear clothes.”

The musical gets it right. How far may I travel on the Sabbath? There’s a Tradition for that. How shall I pray? There’s a tradition for that. What does this text mean? There’s a tradition for that.

It’s difficult to overstate the centrality of tradition in Judaism. After a fifty-year exile and centuries under successive occupying empires, tradition played the same role it does today: preserving identity.

What does it mean to keep the Torah in Persia? Continue reading “Tradition! Tradition!” →

But Rather Division!

A Homily for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Text: Hebrews 11:29-12:2; St. Luke 12:49-56

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who has surrounded us with a great cloud of witnesses Amen.

Let’s start with that recurring question that pops up time and time again in response to Jesus’ teachings: how is any of this possibly “good news”? Christ says he has come to bring fire to the earth, that he does not bring peace but division, that he will divide family member against family member. This seems more like “Good News for People Who Love Bad News.”

We might suggest that Jesus is being metaphorical somehow, that there is some less pessimistic meaning hidden in the text, but we see this literal division and violence lived out in the experience of the early Church. Our reading from Hebrews makes pretty clear that the going is gonna get tough. After listing off some folks who managed to escape suffering and oppression, the author quickly notes: Continue reading “But Rather Division!” →

Look to the Heaven and Count the Stars, If You Are Able

A Homily for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Texts: Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; St. Luke 12:32-40

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, the one we are waiting for. Amen.

Before Father Abraham had many sons, before he was Abraham, when Sarah was known as Sarai, the Lord came to this wandering family and made a promise:

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

And at the time, it seemed like a ridiculous thing to say. Both Abram and Sarai were advanced in age, past their child-bearing years. More than that, they were homeless nomads; who were they that the Lord should take account of them?

As time passed, the divine promise was long-delayed, enough so that Abram and Sarai had reason to doubt. More than that, Abram’s many shortcomings became readily apparent. The family ended up in Egypt, where the Pharaoh took notice of Sarai. Fearing for his own life, Abram asked his wife to pose as his sister; for his own safety, he sent her to live in Pharaoh’s palace as a royal spouse. (Oddly, this part of their story didn’t make it into that old VBS song or the Sunday school felt board, and I don’t think I’ve seen that episode of Veggie Tales.) Continue reading “Look to the Heaven and Count the Stars, If You Are Able” →

To Welcome the Stranger

A Pastoral Letter Regarding the Churchwide Assembly Vote to Become a Sanctuary Churchbody

Dear friends in Christ,

In the middle of last week, the Churchwide Assembly voted to designate the ELCA a “sanctuary churchbody.” Over the next several days, news organizations picked up the story; the coverage was mostly vague.

When I returned home from worship this afternoon, I learned that Fox News aired a short panel discussion on the Churchwide Assembly’s decision. I assume that this piece will make the usual social media rounds over the coming days, and I write to you today in hopes of addressing any concerns that might be raised by the segment.

Continue reading “To Welcome the Stranger” →

That Could Be Enough

A Homily for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Texts: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-23; St. Luke 12:13-21

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who blesses us with more than enough. Amen.

I didn’t want to listen at first. My sister told me to. My brother-in-law told me to. And eventually I was pressured into it. Suzanne gave in and then got me hooked. Three years ago, we started listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit Hamilton. (Yes, this sermon will be full of references and quotes, which is about what it’s been like to live in the Lewis household for the past three years.) It tells the story of an orphan “dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor” who “grow[s] up to be a hero and a scholar” and traces this oft-neglected Founding Father as he goes from a “young, scrappy, and hungry” immigrant to war hero, cabinet member, and political wunderkind. From drinking in rowdy pubs with other young leaders in the American Revolution to the climatic duel with Aaron Burr, Hamilton is determined to “rise up” and leave behind a legacy.

In the midst of the Revolutionary War, though, young, cocky, womanizing Alexander Hamilton meets one Eliza Schuyler at a winter’s ball. From a prominent and wealthy New York family, she is “never…the type to try and grab the spotlight.” And as Hamilton’s quest to “fly above [his] station after the war” inevitably gets him into trouble, he returns home to his pregnant wife, who tells him: Continue reading “That Could Be Enough” →

Hevel Havalim

A Homily for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, following mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio

Texts: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-23; St. Luke 12:18-23

melancholia — Melancolia – Albrecht Dürer

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, the one who has conquered the grave and has set us free to be the Kingdom of God erupting forth in this violent, deathly world. Amen.

Know that this is not what I intended to say today. I have an entire other sermon that I will post and make available to y’all online. But as we went to bed in the aftermath of one mass shooting and woke up to reports of another, I feel compelled by the Holy Spirit to address the news today.

“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” Continue reading “Hevel Havalim” →