Showing posts with label Rev Nadia Bolz-Weber. Show all posts

11 June 2016

Sermon on Paul, Silas, and the Prayers of My Mother 17MAI16

Link to House for all Sinners and Saints website

PRAYER, politics, compassion, faith, Christianity, judging and forgiveness, they are all in here and this is worth the time reading.

Sermon on Paul, Silas, and the Prayers of My Mother

May 17, 2016 by Nadia Bolz Weber

A Letter of Apology to Thomas, Faithful Disciple

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When my big sister was 6 she prayed and prayed every night for a baby sister. My mother Peggy had what is called RH factor , which there was no treatment for in the 60’s like there is now. Her blood created anti-bodies against the blood of her babies and it grew worse with each subsequent pregnancy. Peggy had beat the odds with 2 healthy babies and was told she could not have another – also she was on birth control…so every night when my big sister Barbara prayed and prayed for a baby sister my mom was like, “yeah…keep praying”. And then despite the odds and despite the birth control, Peggy got pregnant with me. And despite the odds and despite what every Doctor said, she gave birth to me. And despite the odds and despite fact that the nurses told her not to try and breastfeed me, since I wasn’t going to live and if I did she would only make me more sick, yes despite this all my mother nursed me and while she did she prayed and she sang hymns. When they finally took me home, they basically handed me to my big sister and was like, “here”.

At times I really believe that the only reason I am alive is the prayers and hymn singing of these two women. It is one of those things I believe and yet cannot fully explain.

I don’t think it’s my own faith or prayer that has in anyway saved me…but it is the faith and prayer of others.

Don’t mistake me, I would never suggest that if we pray hard enough we can keep our loved ones from dying. There’s a difference between thinking we can be like God and seeing in retrospect the way God has used the prayers of others to help and save us. But just because we don’t get to decide the effect prayer has in the world does not mean that prayer has no effect in the world. And this week I keep thinking about how perhaps we are being held in prayer, protected by prayer, and loved through the prayers of others in ways we don’t even perceive.

Prayer plays an interesting role in the divine jailbreak story we just heard from Acts, because it sort of feels like something out of a comic book – as if Paul and Silas have obtained superhero levels of faith. Superman can leap tall buildings in a single bound and Spiderman has heightened senses but Paul and Silas can cause earthquakes that free them from prison just by praying and singing hymns.

I really really really want to see myself in Paul and Silas kind of in the same way that I realy really want to see myself in Wonder Woman. I want to think of myself as having that kind of super-hero faith. The kind that, were I falsely accused, stripped of my clothing, severely beaten with rods, thrown into the depths of a first century jail cell and shackled, that I too would respond not by crying like a baby or being immobilized with fear and hatred but like Paul and Silas I would respond in the dark of night by praying and singing hymns. I’ve not been in that particular situation or anything vaguely like it and maybe in true hardship I would surprise myself, but given how I respond to even minor irritations, that super hero response feels unlikely.

Because if I’m honest I have to admit that if I pull a muscle and can’t work out for two weeks or even if I just run out of coffee at home, I lose faith.

I’ve never known what to do with messages that tell me to “just pray and have more faith and everything will be fine”. Because those kinds of messages never make me have more faith. They make me have more guilt for not having more faith. And then I just feel more stuck in this feeling of spiritual inadequacy.

My own spiritual inadequacy was in full force this week as I struggled in this campaign season to see the humanity in my ideological “other”. Along with much of the country I feel hopelessly shackled to my own beliefs and ideology and world view – a prisoner with everyone else in this culture war. I found this week that my own ability to access the better part of myself, the part that can see the other side as also bearing the image of God, I found this week that I am so filled with vitriol when I hear certain political figures speak that I can even feel it in my body. Basically if my only hope is my own stingy heart or my own mortal level of faith then I am hopeless.

And then I was tagged in a youtube video.

It was Thursday night and I was standing in the kitchen of a friend’s house when I saw a link to a video featuring a middle aged white guy in a goatee and a trucker hat – apparently a guy named Larry had made a video message to me.

Absolutely sure he was yet another arrogant conservative who felt the need to mansplain to me why I’m a dangerous heretic and not a real pastor I braced myself for a fight. Had I known what was really on this video I would have instead prepared my heart and not my fists.

Instead, I stood in my friend’s kitchen and listened to this self-described “former Marine, Biker, gun-toting, NRA member, conservative Republican” say how Pastor Reagan’s beautiful Sermon on Thomas made him cry….it tore him apart. He thanked us for helping to peel away the callauses on his heart and helping to make him love.

Larry is exactly the kind of person who all week I was feeling spiritually inadequate to love or even see as a brother in any way. And yet it was HIS faith, HIS broken and healed heart, HIS love that gave me the heart and faith I lacked. I didn’t create if for myself and yet there it was.

So, as someone who is not unfamiliar with the feeling of spiritual inadequacy, which character do I really relate to in the story of Paul and Silas in prison? It’s not really Paul and Silas at all, it’s the other prisoners. Verses 25-26 tell us: About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’schains were unfastened.

Everyone’s chains were unfastened. Not just the ones praying and singing. But everyone.

I love that it was only Paul and Silas who prayed and sang hymns and yet it was all the prisoners who were freed. Like somehow the faith of 2 was sufficient for the whole group. And later the belief of the jailer was enough for his entire household to experience salvation.

I relate to being in the dark. I relate to feeling shackled to certain ways of thinking and feeling and acting. I relate to not being able to free myself and yet still experiencing freedom. In other words, I relate to relying on the faith of others, the songs of others, the prayers of others.

So many of us have felt tortured by not knowing if we have enough faith or the right kind of faith. I’ve said this before but perhaps it bears repeating: faith is never given in sufficient quantities to individuals…it’s given in sufficient quantities to communities. Because this thing isn’t an individual competition, it’s a team sport.

God has provided in us all the faith sufficient for our freedom. We just have to take turns being the ones being lowered through the roof to Jesus and being the ones doing the lowering.

There’s enough. There’s enough faith. There’s enough love. There’s enough hymn singing. There’s enough freedom.

And for we who bear the name Christian prayer and love and faith and hymns are our birthright. Even if we don’t always know how to pray and we love poorly and have little faith and don’t like all the hymns…even then all of this is ours just as it has been the birthright of all the people I’d God for millennia. Even when we don’t have enough of our own, there is enough.

Even Jesus’ prayers for us surround us. As weird as that sounds.

Our Gospel reading is of Jesus’ prayer at the end of his ministry on Earth. He prays to the Father not just for his disciples, but for those who will believe as a result of his disciples’ testimony – um, if you’re doing the math at home….that means us. All that stuff we heard about Jesus praying that we be one with him and the father – that’s what all of this is. When we sing hymns we join our voices to those who have sung before us – Paul and Silas in prison and the early Christians in the upper room, and the dessert fathers and mothers escaping persecution and medieval monks carrying the tradition, and the civil rights marchers trudging the path of faith and resistance and Peggy in that hospital rocking chair and us together here tonight.

There is just so much prayer and faith surrounding us all the time and effecting us in ways we don’t even know and for this abundance in the face of my own insufficiency, for your faith and prayer and song which unshackles me over and over and for the God who made it all possible, I give thanks. Amen.

16 May 2014

Stop Saying the Church is Dying (a sermon from the Sarcastic Lutheran) 10MAI14

FOR those who worry the Church is dead, and for those who smugly say God is dead, here is a sermon from Rev Nadia Bolz-Weber reenforcing our faith and affirming the Church (and GOD) is alive and well. This was preached at the Rocky Mountain Synod of the ELCA meeting, but it applies to all denominations who are true to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Stop Saying the Church is Dying (a sermon for the Rocky Mountain Synod Assembly)

May 10, 2014 By Nadia Bolz Weber

Inside a cave church in Cappadocia with Sara Miles.

A week ago I was fortunate enough to be standing near a cliff in Cappadocia, Turkey taking in the view of hundreds of caves carved from volcanic rock in an alien looking valley. My friend Sara asked what I was thinking about. When I confessed that I was worrying about preaching at my Synod’s assembly next week, Sara didn’t hesitate to remind me sarcastically, “Oh, you mean that little text on how Jesus tells us not to worry?”
So, yeah, nothing like worrying about preaching a sermon on how Jesus says we should not worry to make ya feel like a schmuck.
As today got closer and closer I would tell myself “don’t worry, just come up with a plan”. I’d read the text, call my preacher friends, pray, repeat. And I am here to say that I did not, by worrying, add a single sentence to my sermon. Not one.
But I did become curious about what worry really is. And I began to realize that, on some level, worry is nothing more than fear. Fear that either I will not get something I want or fear that something I have will be taken away. And both of those fears seem to be centered on finitude. The fact that nothing lasts forever. That everything comes to an end. And Jesus says who by worrying can escape this reality? But also, worry is kind of all about scarcity…. because I don’t know about you, but I have never once worried that I would have more money than I need next month. I have never once worried that I might be happy and healthy and live a long life.
And we come by this fear honestly in a society in which a perceived state of scarcity is what drives the free market economy. But I think Jesus points here to a bigger reality than that. A reality he calls the kingdom of God. A reality he always seems to describe as being like things around us that are common, and small and insignificant and unimpressive.
Which is as good a time as any to talk about the Lutheran church. It’s no news to anyone here that there is a lot of hand-wringing these days about the longevity of the Lutheran church. And yeah – to be sure, we used to be bigger, more significant and more impressive. Sure, we used to own more property, have more members, bring in more cash and leverage more power than we do today. It’s hard to argue with numbers. But the thing is, buildings, numbers, money, power – and other aspects of worldly success may indeed be signs of A kingdom, but brothers and sisters, they are not necessarily signs of THE Kingdom.. I mean, were this denomination of ours a company, then for sure, investors would be scurrying for cover. But, people of God, maybe now is the time for us to take a hard look at the ways in which the church has tended to judge our success on a set of values that perhaps we had no business buying into in the first place. Namely our society’s free-market corporate American values of what success looks like.
If that is the case, then I repeat – we came by it honestly. Swept up as we were into having banked so much cultural currency in America. But those days have gone. They’ve gone.
And so, what are we left with if we are no longer the Lutheran church of 1964?
We in the year of our Lord 2014 have moved our bishop’s office from a fancy office space surrounded by PR firms and media companies in the seat of Denver’s power grid and into a slightly run-down church building in an unimpressive part of town. To some this may a sign that the “church is dying” but to others it is a sign that the church is living. Perhaps our definition of success can shift more toward what is foolishness to the world and yet life to those in Christ. Buildings and budgets and social currency will fall away. But what stands is the kingdom of God. Which Jesus tells us is the Father’s good pleasure to give to us.
Society will still have the Fortune 500 for profits, and non profits for service and day care centers for children and the ELKS Club for socializing and Starbucks for overpriced coffee and many other things we may not ever be. But we should never judge ourselves as the church according to these things because you know what the culture around us will NEVER do? Preach the Gospel, administer the sacraments and proclaim forgiveness of sins. You know why? That’s OUR job. That’s our main job and while we are free as the church, to participate in any number of other activities in the world that seem bigger and more impressive let’s remember: We are those who have been, and continue to be, entrusted with nothing less than the Gospel. And what I’m about to say is a shamelessly prideful (and being shamelessly prideful is, I have been told, “not Lutheran”) but in a world where people are constantly being fed spoonfuls of nonsense and told it is Jesus …we have a better Gospel.
So given what we’ve been entrusted with, we cannot be distracted any longer by a corporate American Empire version of success.
So let me be the first to say, if in your congregation, regardless of size, prestige or property, if the Word is preached and the Eucharist shared and water poured and forgiveness of sins received, then congratulations, your congregation is a success. So when the numbers crunchers and church consultants say the church is dying…may I suggest that we only say this when we forget what the definition of church is.
And when we forgot whose the church is.
Because as the prophet Isaiah said, the Word will do that for which God purposes it and people, regardless of what happens to institutions, and trends and property and budgets…even when the president of the United States stops inviting us to the White House Prayer breakfast – Even if there is never any such things as a White House Prayer breakfast and old church building are more often condos than centers for worship, God will be praised. God will continue to send for the Word which God has always sent forth. So let us step back from the worry of how the church is dying, because long after we have gone, the WORD will remain. Long after the ELCA is gone, even when my beloved House for All Sinners and Saints is gone, the church will not be dead because people will continue to gather in the name of the Triune God, hold up bread, say it is Jesus and that it is for the forgiveness of sins. Just as we will do here tonight so will it forever be done until the time in which we gather around the throne of the Lamb.
But let’s remember this, people of the Rocky Mountain Synod, that the Gospel is not just entrusted to you for you to proclaim, it is, to be sure, also intended for you to hear. So since we Christians are a forgetful people – and need to be reminded of that for which the church was even created in the first place – so…
People of God, do not worry because we have this Word-
That there is a God who created us and all that is, this same God spoke through prophets and poets, claimed a people to be God’s own and freed them from the shackles of slavery. This same God led those people through the wilderness to a land of milk and honey, and told them to always welcome the stranger and protect the foreigner so that they could remember where they came from and what God had done for them. Then in the fullness of time, and to draw ALL people to himself, God came and broke our hearts like only a baby could do and made God’s home in the womb of a fierce young woman as though God was saying, from now on this is how I want to be known. And as Jesus, God the Son kissed lepers and befriended prostitutes and baffled authority. Jesus ate with all the wrong people and on the night before he died, he gathered with his faltering friends for a meal that tasted of freedom. He held up bread and told us to do the same thing and he promised us so much: that he would be with us, that forgiveness is real, that we are God’s, that people matter and that death is done for and that after a tough resurrection, grilled fish makes an awesome breakfast.
Which is to say, God chose to enter the finitude we fear– enter into the uncertainty and danger of mortal human existence in order to point to something bigger. Bigger than what is fleeting and finite. In the incarnation God has given us nothing less than a small measure of eternity through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ. And made us an Easter people – not people who vapidly pretend that everything’s ok – but people who live in the Christ reality of death and resurrection. People who live in the reality of a God who brings live things out of dead things.
I say this as someone who a week ago was hiking in those desolate valleys of Cappadocia, a land that for 1,000 years was populated with Christians and now is not. That is to say, we are not the first group of Christians to worry about the decline of Christianity.
Sara and I would climb up into caves and look around at ceilings filled with Byzantine Christian iconography. A thousand years of Christianity and now only ruins left. Yes, the big, impressive, successful Byzantine Empire fell, and yet the church of Jesus Christ did not die, if it had, how could 2 middle aged women stand in old cave church 600 years later and sing Christos Aneste? Christ is risen. A song that no matter what, will continue to be sung, because worry not, the tomb is empty, and God will be praised. Amen.

27 February 2014

Sermon on Jesus Rolling His Eyes (and also divorce) 16FEB14

FOR those who have suffered at the hands of the Church, from Rev Nadia Bolz Webber.....

Sermon on Jesus Rolling His Eyes (and also divorce)

February 20, 2014 By Nadia Bolz Weber

2014-02-16 NBW Sermon<—–click here to listen along (sermons are spoken events. So much of the meaning comes from the hearing of it.)
Years ago there was a project undertaken by Bible scholars whereby they were trying to ascertain what was really knowable about Jesus of Nazareth as a historical figure. The scholars would take the Gospels, verse by verse and vote as to which things they thought Jesus actually said and which they thought were made up later. They wanted to determine the historical accuracy of Jesus’ words and actions. Now, there was more to it and perhaps this is a legitimate academic endeavor – it’s just not a question I personally find at all interesting. I could care less what fancy Bible scholars say is more or less historically accurate when it comes to Jesus’ teachings. What I would be game for, is if scholars started voting on which of Jesus teachings were more or less done with his eyes rolled. I mean there are just some texts where I feel like I can almost hear the annoyance in his voice. Like when on the way to Jerusalem, he tells his disciples that he is about to be betrayed and handed over to the authorities, and condemned, beaten and die and then after 3 days rise again and they are like, “so when you come into your kingdom will I be seated at your right hand or will it be Steve?” – you know the guy was like…really?
I mention this because I wonder if this section from the Sermon on the Mount didn’t have an undercurrent of “I can’t believe I even have to say this to you” to it.
But he does. He does have to say these things to us. Because we, like those who first heard them, are a forgetful people. We need to hear what it means to uphold the 2 commandments that matter the most: Love the Lord your God and Love the neighbor as yourself. Because we so easily get bogged down in details, we can fail to see the big picture.
A couple weeks ago we were studying the 10 commandments in the catechumante class. The Thou Shalt Nots of the 10 commandments are pretty recognizable to even the least religious among us. Growing up I was taught that the law – especially the Ten Commandments – are there because they are God’s prescription for our lives. People would say that the word Bible stood for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Basically the importance of the Bible is that it gives us all the rules we have to keep so that we are right with God. God gave us these rules (and a bunch of others that the church added along the way) and they are there because God loves you and wants you to be happy.
But now I see it differently. Now I think the law is less about God loves you and wants you to be happy and more about the fact that God loves your neighbor and wants to protect them from you. And God loves and wants to protect you in so far as you are also someone’s neighbor. That is to say, that this strange God we have who created this world, and spoke through fiery prophets and freed a people from slavery and gave them a law and said they were his…this same God who came to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and loved people so completely, this God is strange, but what God is not – is distant. This God does not create the world, give us some rules and then leave us to it. Because what we see in the teachings and life of Jesus is that people matter. Human relationships matter to God. The way we are treated matters to God. So some laws are established for that.
But Laws are made for us, not us for laws. That is to say, there is a spirit behind each law that at times trumps it’s letter. I know that may sound like slipping dangerously into moral relativism, but so be it. Our obsession with moral absolutes comes from clinging to the letter of the law as though it can love us and save us when really that’s what Jesus is for.
And you know who got in trouble, like all the time, for breaking the letter of the law? Jesus. Hey Jesus, your disciples are not washing their hands. Hey Jesus, why are you eating with sinners? Hey Jesus, we saw you heal a guy and it was the Sabbath. And as we see over and over again, Jesus had no patience for this. The Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath, he would say. And that usually shut them up. You know, until the next time.
All of that is to say that: what Jesus seems to be doing in our text for today is reminding us of the spirit of the law so that we know how to love one another. That insulting people and being mean to them may not be murder, but it certainly does not uphold their dignity. And again, Jesus rolls his eyes and is like, “I can’t believe I even have to say this”
What Jesus seems to be doing here is reminding us of the spirit of the law so that we know how to love one another. That sexting and flirting and lusting over someone who is not our spouse may not be technically committing adultery but it certainly does not uphold our dignity, or that of our spouse or the object of our lust.
Jesus seems to be unfairly raising the bar on us, but in reality he’s just insisting that we not do violence to each other through loopholes. That we not put our relationship with the law above our relationships with our neighbor. And if that seems harsh and unnecessarily strict, know that he says all of this so that violence is not done to you as well. God loves you and wants to protect you.
Which brings us finally to the dreaded divorce text. This week I asked for your stories about how this text has shown up in your lives and on two occasions, the responses caused me to tear up in public, which as I’ve mentioned before is not exactly my favorite thing.
Now, I really try to not yammer on and on about the historical reality in the 1^st century. But what is important to understand is that at the time (if my memory of seminary serves), if a man divorced a woman it was often a death sentence. She relied on him for security and income. It’s not like today when she could just go back to teaching or work in a shop to make her way. She often would not be welcome back in her father’s home. So the reality of divorce for many women was that it sentenced them to a life of poverty and possibly begging or prostitution. So for Jesus to say, look, just providing a certificate does not get you off the hook, her dignity needs to be upheld – well, this was a way of saying that God loves you and your spouse and desires that cruelty and violence not be done to either of you. Jesus was wanting to protect women.
So, this week, as I read your stories, stories of being violently yelled at and slapped and choked and having church folk stand over you and say that God loves you only if you stay with the man who does this to you, when I read about another of you being a 24 year old woman who was literally abandoned by your husband and then how your church would no longer give you the Eucharist, when I heard of the shame felt by one of you as a divorced man who felt like he wore a scarlet letter D in church, when I heard of loveless marriages that went on for decades…I thought how the hell is it that the church can manage to take a text meant to protect people and make sure violence is not done to them, and then use this same text to do violence to so many for so long?
I don’t know what to say. I just know that it is real. And if Jesus rolled his eyes when having to re-orient his disciple’s understandings of things, I can only imagine his reaction to what has been done with his teachings about protecting people.
And so tonight, from this pulpit, and under the yoke of this stole and from the office of a clergy person and with whatever authority that still manages to hold in this world… I want to offer an apology. As a representative of the Church of Jesus Christ, please hear me say I am so sorry this happened. If you are someone who has had violence; emotional, spiritual, physical or otherwise done to them in the name of Jesus Christ (of all names under heaven), if you have been shamed or excluded or denied what is only God’s to give, if you have been made to stay in a situation that denies your humanity or kills your soul because someone said that’s what God wants for you,… on behalf of the church, I apologize.
And let me say this one thing more: We do not serve a distant God, but one who actually cares about how you treat people and how you are treated. People matter. Relationships matter. The diginity of human beings matters. May the church, of all institutions, uphold this truth and ask forgiveness when we do not.
Amen.

13 February 2014

And a Soul Felt Its Worth: a Sermon on an Overlooked Miracle 8DEZ13

Listen to this beautiful lesson for all of us from Rev Nadia Bolz-Webber......

December 10, 2013 By Nadia Bolz Weber

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner

2013-12-8 NBW HFASS Sermon<—-click here to listen along!

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’^* But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’^* The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born^* will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.
(we are working our way through the 1st chapter of Luke over the 4 weeks of Advent – a rare departure form the lectionary for us)

I wasn’t very good as a teenager at paying attention during church.
This week as the snow fell on Denver, a memory from a winter church retreat suddenly came to me – something that I had not thought of for 25 years.
We were at a retreat center somewhere and it was snowing outside, and we kids were all sitting on the cold floor listening to the speaker. I remember staring out at the beautiful snowfall, while the right side of my face was warmed by the fire next to me. The speaker paced back and forth holding an open Bible in one hand – it’s soft leather cover draping over each side of his hand like a rag. His wet boots leaving dark prints on the wood floor. The reason I remember all these details so well is because I had basically stopped listening to what he as actually saying soon after he started. Because his main point was about how God was waiting to see if we were grateful enough about Jesus’ crucifixion that we would start living in a very particular way. That is to say, waiting to see if we did not use swear words, or lie about anything, or listen to rock music, or have any kind of sexual inclination before we were married to someone of the opposite sex – if we were always cheerful, and never drank alcohol or were snarky then we would become worthy of God’s favor. How would you be living, the man with the floppy bible and wet boots asked us…how would you be living if you really believed
I believed, at least I think I believed, but I just never seemed to be able to make myself into something worthy of God’s favor. Perhaps if I had a personality more naturally predisposed toward clean living and clean speaking and clean thinking I could have pulled it off but as it was I was just me and all the guilt tripping in the world never seemed to change that. So instead I paid attending to the snow and the warmth of my cheek. I tuned out the youth minister in wet boots preaching to me about how my life should look. Because I just couldn’t say yes to what seemed like God’s conditional maybe toward me.
I mention this because this week as I watched the snowfall around Denver I kept thinking about Mary and the yes she gave to the angel that night he visited her.
Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am big on Mary. One of my favorite things about Jesus has always been his mom. She carried God in her womb. She’s the only girl we ever see in nativity sets. Next week we will hear about this completely amazing song she sings about overturning the social order. She is beautiful. She is the queen of heaven. She is blessed among women.
But what the text seems silent on is what exactly she did to earn God’s favor.
We have no idea what Mary was like before this night the angel visited her – this night she said yes-but here’s what I’m thinking: I seriously doubt that she made herself into a girl which God could favor because she took the advice of her youth rabbi and lived the way she should. I think God looked upon her with favor because it is God’s nature to look upon young peasant girls and prostitutes and tax collectors and adulterous kings and lawyers and prices and fishermen with favor. Because God’s just like that. Read the book!
When we think about the annunciation, this scene between the angel and Mary and how she is the girl who said yes, we think of what faith it took for her to believe that crazy thing that the Holy Spirit would knock her up and that her son… the illegitimate son of a peasant girl would have a throne and a kingdom…. but this week I started to wonder, were I in her place, Which would be harder for me to believe, that part or the part where the angel said I was favored? If an angel came to me and said Greetings favored one – I’d be like, you’ve got the wrong girl. There’s no way I would trust that the angel meant me.
But here’s where Mary has some real chops. Mary trusted this word form the angel. And maybe that is what made her favored. Because we may feel more comfortable with the idea that we can live a life that can make us worthy of God’s favor, but God’s Word is so much more powerful that our ability to become worthy of God. I mean, not for nothing, but if God can create the universe through speaking it into existence then I think God can make us into God’s beloved by simply saying it is so.
This, it seems to me, is an overlooked part of the Annunciation story.
An angel came from god to a town called Nazareth to a woman whose name was Mary the angel said her rejoice o highly favored for god is with you
And her soul felt its worth
And every other word fell silent
One of the amazing things about this story of the girl who trusted God’s word, was that she surly had to tune out a lot of other messages in order to say let it be with me according to THIS word.
I cannot speak to the worthiness of Mary before that night the angel visited her. But what I know is that she is a truster of Gods word. Knowing what little I do about the Bible and how God chooses to operate and who God chooses to operate through, I have to say that I think it was God’s word to her that she was worthy that made her worthy. Her response to the angel was not I will do everything in my power to be who God wants me to be. It was let it be with me according to Gods word. I trust that I am who God says that I am
Here’s where I want to take a page from Mary’s prayer book. Let me be what your word has claimed me to be. Let me become what you have said I am. Your word, oh God, and not the word of the school system or the word of my bank statement or the word of my family or the word of society or the word of the media. But your word O God, let this be what defines me. I will allow you alone to determine my worth.
A couple weeks ago, Steve Ludwig said something that took me a minute to wrap my head around. We were talking about the idea that Christ conquered death so death has no sting. Steve said, “Man, I wonder what my living would look like if I really really believed this. How would my life be different if I was not scared. If I really believed that I am fully and totally loved by god? He said “no wonder we have liturgy and Eucharist every week. I have to hear this at least that often” In other words – don’t be like me when I was a teenager – pay attention in church, people. Listen for God’s word
Because this question Steve asked how would my living look different if I was not afraid and really believed I was loved?” is totally different than the guilt inducting question what would your life look like if you felt sufficiently bad about Jesus having to die that you made yourself sufficiently good enough to be worthy of God’s favor.
When I say this, when I say that perhaps we should let it be with us according to God’s word, to be clear, this is not some Pollyanna high self esteem positive thinking BS.
To let it be with us according to gods word is not us trying to always remember a nice thought like Jesus loves me – something so abstracted that it frankly can feel meaningless in the face of actual life. No brothers and sisters. When I say Word of God I mean God’s address to us. God’s creating, redeeming and sustaining address to us that makes a claim on our lives. God’s yes.
We are used to conditional maybes.
But the faith of advent calls us into saying yes to God’s yes. A yes that created all that is, including us. A yes that underlies all of love. A yes that addressed a girl 2000 years ago a girl who dared to say let it be with her according to God’s word. A yes that walked among us full of grace and truth and who died and on the 3^rd day rose again. A yes that is offered to you in bread and wine every week so that you can become what you receive. It’s is God’s yes toward you and all that is that continues to define you and animate your lives. So when you are trying to decide what to listen to, tune out the static of all other claims. May it be with you only according to God’s will. May your soul feel it’s worth. AMEN

21 November 2013

Reformation Day Sermon on How Jesus’ Teachings Should Come With a Warning Label 27OKT13

REFORMATION DAY sermon from Rev Nadia Bolz-Webber. Not a celebration of the schism dividing Protestants and Catholics, but a celebration of our needs being met by God. Give a listen....

October 28, 2013 By Nadia Bolz Weber

If you got church problems, I feel bad for you son….

2013-10-27 NBW HFASS Sermon 2 <—– click here to listen along.
This week I began to think that Jesus’ teachings should really come with a warning label. Perhaps something like, Caution! Contents may cause extreme discomfort if actually ingested.
See, in our Gospel for today, Luke tells us that this parable was told to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and held others in contempt. The Pharisee in the story, a devout, tithe paying do-gooder – prays what can only be described as an EGO-cessory prayer, Thank you God that I am not like those people: adulterers, thieves, rogues, I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of my income to the church. Thank you that I am not like that filthy tax collector over there. Geez that guy is pathetic, don’t you think, God?
The Pharisee trusted in himself that he was righteous.
Typical.
If the Pharisees were around today…not the actual ones…I mean our stereotype of who the Pharisees were – priggish hypocritical religious leaders, don’t you think if they were around today they could get like, so much done on Facebook? I mean, think how Self-righteous they could be without even leaving their living rooms! They really were born at the wrong time, because I’m pretty sure Pharisees would love the hell out of Facebook.
And as someone who has often been held in contempt by those who trust in themselves that they are righteous I’ve recently found my tolerance for self-righteous comments on Facebook to be quickly dwindling. One more pious comment on my public Facebook page from some nice Christian who is “disappointed” in me for saying the bad words and I might just lose my you-know-what.
So, when I read that this parable was told to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and held others in contempt, who knew they were right because they could easily pick out the ones who were wrong in a spiritual line up I thought, “right on, Jesus, because man do I know those people!”
If you are paying attention, you might predict that this is exactly the point where that warning label about how ingesting Jesus’ teachings will cause extreme discomfort would have come in handy for me this week in a couple of ways
First, because let’s be honest. It’s takes a whole lot of self-righteousness to be that indignant about other people’s self-righteousness. So where Does that leave me now but to say “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner”?
Because honestly here’s an EGOcessory prayer that might be familiar: I thank you God that I am not like others: thieves, rouges, adulterers…people who don’t recycle. I thank you God, that I am not like those People who don’t sign up for jobs at church. Thank you that I always remember to bring my reusable grocery bags to Whole Foods, I have replaced all my incandescents with compact fluorescents and I have a rainbow flag sticker on my Prius. Thank you Jesus.
Well, THAT’S uncomfortable.
Especially if the other guy, the Tax Collector…the one who is a traitor to his people, the guy who is totally the one percent, who hordes wealth at the expense of others, the one who litters and tells racist jokes and buys over packaged goods and has gun racks and T & A mud flaps on his truck prays simply “God, have mercy on me a sinner”
As we know, the one who goes home justified is not the guy who bragged about doing everything right but the guy who was humble about doing everything wrong. So I guess that rather than the moral of the story being “try harder to be righteous”, the moral of the story is “try harder to be humble” right?
And there it is. Reason number 2 for why this parable should come with a warning label.
It is as though this parable is a trap and the bait for this trap is our desire to figure out the moral of the story. Because as soon as we reach for that delicious little one inch square piece of cheddar convinced the point of the parable is that to be really righteous, to be really good in the eyes of others and in the eyes of God is to be humble, then we find the jaws of this parable snap around us because the very next thing out of our mouths can only be: Thank you God that I am humble like the Tax collector and not a bragger like this Pharisee. Trapped.
Or in the words of Homer Simpson, D’uh!
Because the problem with always looking for the moral of the story in Jesus’ parables and especially in this parable: is that I start to assume the moral of the story will lead me to the virtue I can adopt to be righteous. And what is righteousness but movement from vice to virtue?
But the text says nothing of the tax collector moving from vice to virtue…the text mentions nothing of repentance or self-improvement. The text does nothing to uphold any of our cherished notions of who is righteous.
Which means that the parable Jesus tells of the Pharisee and the Tax collector is perhaps not a morality tale after all, but is meant to highlight the un-fair and totally baffling grace of a God who seems entirely unimpressed by our virtue. If there is some kind of promise here then it’s not that we can use our humility to become righteous before God, the promise is not in what the ones hearing the parable can do to become justified. The promise is in the one telling the parable….the promise for us is Christ. Meaning that, there is a solution to the problem of the Great Human Competition Extravaganza that we are continually engaged in. There is a solution to the endless one-up-mans ship that we are continually engaged in. There is a solution to self-righteousness but it’s not trying to be more humble. The solution was for God to be made flesh and walk among us, God’s own beloved bragging sinners. Because this changes everything. See, Jesus wasn’t a new Moses bringing a better law, or a new religion we’ll never live up to. Jesus isn’t just sitting in heaven waiting to see if we can pull off the impossible and then condemning us for our inevitable failure. Jesus subverts the entire paradigm because, if the Reformation brought us anything it is that this isn’t about a spiritual ladder in which we learn how to move from vice to virtue. This isn’t about moving from the vice of being a tax collector to the virtue of being righteous as we might think. But it’s also not about moving from the vice of being self-righteous to the virtue of being humble. This Christianity thing is not about moving from vice to virtue. If anything we move from virtue to Christ. This means that Christ and not ourselves is the source of our righteousness. The righteousness we do have is not our own, but that of a Merciful and gracious God who comes to us in vulnerability and suffering of all things. And the thing is….when our righteousness is not our own but is that of Christ, there is no extra credit to be obtained. There is no basis on which to compare ourselves to each other because what qualifies us to receive this grace is not our virtue, but our need. And we are all equal in our need.
It’s all pretty offensive really. The fact that God loves me as I am right now and not just as I could be if I only got everything right seems foolish. My ego holds out for a me-based solution that I can either boast about or despair in. But the solution isn’t me-shaped. It’s cruciform.
So in the end, humility is not a virtue that makes us righteous. But it’s not unimportant either, because humility is just admitting the truth of being human…humility is the naked state in which we stand before a righteous God who sees us as we are – sees every jealous inclination, every racist thought, every selfish desire every good deed done for the wrong reason and God sees all of it through the lens of the cross and says to us you are free. Free from all of it. No one is keeping score. You are already justified, You are already righteous. You are already God’s new creation.
So, brothers and sisters, You do stand in righteousness before your God, not due to your virtue, but due to the cross. Only a God who slips into skin taking on flesh in all it’s broken glory – only this God of foolish love who dies a scandalous death without even lifting a finger to condemn the enemy – only this God can love you where you are. Right now. Because in the world according to God that’s how things work. Tax Collectors are justified, the last are first the first are last, our virtues become vices and our need of all things, our need becomes our greatest asset. Amen.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2013/10/reformation-day-sermon-on-self-righteousness-and-humility/

Sermon for All Saints Sunday: Small Acts of Love 3NOV13

A few weeks ago, on a warm Friday evening I was with friends on their deck after sharing supper with them. We were enjoying each other, wine, their chiminea. We were discussing anything and everything and as the lone Protestant in the group I asked about the Catholic practice of Communion. I learned a lot as they may have from me. We discussed differences, but without superiority and condemnation. This is why I love this group of friends, because we really do love each other. This sermon from the Sarcastic Lutheran reminded me of them, and of all the Saints I have known in my lifetime, a good lifetime because of them and the family and friends still with me. Do yourself a favor and listen to this sermon....

November 4, 2013 By Nadia Bolz Weber

Click here to listen along——-> 2013-11-3 NBW Sermon hfass 2-1
A stanza From the great hymn For All The Saints:
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, but they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

So, I’m a sucker for a good saint and many of you might not know this but when this church was starting I had a stack of saint card – saint cards are like trading card for Catholic saints, their picture on the front, and their stats and like, spiritual powers listed on the back…well I had a stack of these but they were all of the same saint – St Dymphna who’s my favorite. Not exactly the most famous of the saints but there you go. Saint Dymphna was the daughter of a pagan Irish king and his Christian wife in the 7th century. Sadly, she was murdered by her father. But before her death she is said to of founded a home for the ill and many crazy people reportedly became a lot less crazy around her.
That’s right…St. Dymphna is officially the patron saint of the nervous, the patron saint of the emotionally disturbed, the patron saint of the mentally ill, and the patron saint of those with neurological disorders.
That is to say, she just really seemed like our kind of saint.
Today is a day set aside in the church year to remember the saints. But not just the ones who have trading cards since it is technically All Saints Sunday and not just Some Saints Sunday. To be clear, this isn’t like a cult of saints or anything…we don’t need special saints to intercede for us because God listens to them more since they were just basically better Christians than we are. What we celebrate when we celebrate All Saints is not the superhuman faith and power of a select few but is God’s ability to use flawed people to do divine things. We celebrate all on whom God has acted in baptism, sealing them, as Ephesians says, with the mark of the promised Holy Spirit. We celebrate the fact that God creates faith in God’s people, and those people through ordinary acts of love, bring the Kingdom of Heaven closer to Earth. We celebrate that we have, in all who’ve gone before us, what St Paul calls such a great cloud of witnesses and that the faithful departed are as much the body of Christ as we are.
It is quite a thing, really. That we are connected to so many. Connected to so much faith. So many stories. So much divine love. Especially in this day and age of alienation and trying to find community and belonging in smaller and smaller ways. I mean, I may think that the basis of me being connected to other people is in having theology or political beliefs or denominational affiliation or neighborhood or musical taste or Facebook groups in common. But none of that is what connects me to the Body of Christ. What connects me to the body of Christ is not my piety or good works or theological beliefs. It’s God. A God who gathers up all of God’s children into the church eternal.
So, today let us remember all the deeply faithful and deeply flawed saints of God’s church through whom the glory of God has been revealed is being revealed and will be revealed. Let us remember Mary Magdalena and Peter the fisherman and the glorious disciples. Let us remember St Frances and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. Let us remember Lindsey’s mom, and Moose’s brother and my friend Suzanne who took me in when I was messed up kid trying to get sober. Today let us thank God for gathering so many into the church eternal, some of whom still light our own paths.
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, but they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Many of you have come here today to honor someone you have loved who has died. Your hearts are heavy with the loss of someone dear. Many of us have our own beloved dead to remember this day. People who we’d frankly rather still have here in this room as a living person and not as a photo on a white table at church the first Sunday of November. We’d rather be standing behind them in line for communion than adding them to the litany of saints.
Some of you know that this last May Julie asked us to pray for friends of hers who had lost their son Drake to suicide. Drake was 12. He was an animated child who was different from other boys. He was on the state championship cheerleading squad and loved weaving, knitting or crocheting scarves for his friends. And for all of this and more he was bullied mercilessly. Drake, a baptized, beloved and beautiful child of God is gone but here, today we will speak his name. We will speak his name with the names of others who have departed this world since the last All Saints – expectedly, unexpectedly, peacefully, violently. And all of them now taken into the embrace of the God from whom they came in the first place.
When I met Julie for coffee a few weeks ago and she spoke of how much she’s understandably struggling to make sense of Drake’s death, I told her as I have so many of you, that I don’t have any easy answers. And that there is seldom an answer to the question of why there is such senseless suffering. But there is meaning to be found in it. And for me that meaning is connected to being part of this mystic body of Christ because it means that death is never the final word because in both life and death we, like Drake are very much connected to God and to one another. The letter to the Ephesians we heard earlier calls this the inheritance of the saints, That God somehow gathers us all up into the divine love of Christ and makes us a body both now and in the life to come. That even those whose names are eventually forgotten are always and forever held in the light of God in glory. Because while death is a wrenching painful reality to us, it’s meaningless to God.
Not that God is impervious to the pain of death, mind you – after all,
Jesus had real friends who died, and he stood outside the tomb of Lazarus and wept. And then, of course, he raised Lazarus from the grave – as though before Jesus was to defeat death for good he needed to just gave it a really good slap in the face first. God in Jesus was so moved by compassion and love for those who others rejected, those like young Drake, that his hand was ever extended to them, a God who, in Jesus was so full of grace that he went to a cross we built for him, a God who in Jesus descended to the dead as though to say to us “even here I will find you and not let go” because death has no sting – death is rendered meaningless to a God of resurrection. And lest we forget, it is a God of resurrection who we worship.
At that coffee with Julie I said I didn’t have answers but I did know that All Saints Sunday was coming up and we could have a little shrine for Drake…. Yet one more Saint that has gone before us with whom we are still inextricably, united in the body of Christ.
So what can we do but also give thanks for this table we are about to gather around – a foretaste of the heavenly banquet around which the saints are already gathered. We give thanks that around this table we are tied to the whole communion of saints – united with all who have ever received bread and wine and told it was Jesus and it was for them. We are joined here with angels and arch angels cherubim and seraphim – we are joined with the church on earth and the church in heaven and all who have called on the name of God. And we are connected to God.
I saw Julie again a couple days ago and in her bag was a picture of Drake and also a scarf he had woven for her. She asked if I could wear it as my stole when we gather around the table today and remind each other of the night before Jesus defeated death. Yes, of course I will and it will be my honor.
So for this we are also giving thanks, that saintly acts are always just really simple acts of love. And that we give thanks for all those who have come before us handing on the faith and being used by God for simple acts of love. Building homes where the crazy can be less crazy, giving food to those who hunger, taking in a kid trying to get sober, changing a child’s diaper, weaving a scarf for someone you love.
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, but they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia! Amen.

Drake’s scarf.

Sermon: Field Notes on Grace from 10 days on the Road a Sermon on Faith, Doubt, and Mustard Seed Necklaces

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2013/11/778/

17 October 2013

Thank You. (a sermon) 13OKT13

POWERFUL AND HUMBLING, listen to it, click the link.....

October 15, 2013 By Nadia Bolz Weber

2013-10-13 nbw HFASS sermon 2 <—–click here to listen along.
This week one of you apologetically mentioned that you have been meaning to write me a thank-you note about something – and given our Gospel reading about the grateful leper who came back and thanked Jesus, I began thinking about what a terrible thank-you note writer I am. Not for lack of trying on my mom’s part, I mean, Peggy did everything she could. And like every other kid who received a 10 dollar bill in their birthday card, I was expected to send a thank you note to Grandma. But it never felt like a natural outpouring of my gratitude. It felt like an obligation. An obligation I sometimes would gladly give $10 to get out of.
The very worst thank you note writing experience I ever had was when Matthew’s church gave us a baby shower when I was pregnant with Harper and we received a large hardback book – some kind of comprehensive guide to Christian parenting published by Focus on the Family. 12 different people pitched in for this. Which, you guessed it…meant 12 thank you notes for a Focus on the Family book. Just shoot me.
So yeah, there have been times in my life I’ve not been so grateful that it naturally flowed into a note to someone.
But our text for today tells of a leper who Jesus heal returning to praise God and give thanks to Jesus.
And this week as I thought about the grateful Leper I began to realize that perhaps I do not praise God as I should. I realized how much easier is was for me to talk last week about lamenting and complaining to God and how much trickier it feels to cut loose and praise God.
It is so much easier for me to long for what I want, to resent what I have lost than it is for me to be thankful for what I have. I’m not alone. I mean when is the last time you heard a newscaster say “not a single school shooting in America this week. Praise God.” Or “the Nation is grateful this week for all the successful cancer treatments that have left thousands of people with a clean bill of health” We generally don’t find a lack of trauma to be worthy of comment, much less to be worthy of gratitude.
I wrote page upon page this week about what praise is and what it is not. How praising God it isn’t just stroking God’s ego, sycophantically telling God how awesome God is – as though God has low self-esteem and created us for just this purpose. How thankfulness is not an obligation like the thank-you note to Grandma was – but is an act of freedom that doubles the joy of what was received.
I mean, seriously, I had pages and pages of exposition on praise and thanksgiving. And not a single word of actual praise and thanksgiving and that felt telling to me somehow.
So rather than talk about praise, I thought that what I really needed this week on a spiritual level was to actually praise God. But you are totally free to listen in.
¹¹On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.
That you O God, are one who comes to us in the regions between – the un-categorizable spaces that we often fail to notice or we fear altogether. I thank you. Thank you for those who bring water in the desert danger of border-crossing. Thank you for the space between my wakefulness and sleep where what I foolishly call intuition kicks in. Thank you for the fluidity of gender and sexuality. Thank you for being in the regions between we try to pretend are not there.
¹²As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, ¹³they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
For your approachability in Jesus, O God, I give you thanks. Thank you for coming to us in the most vulnerable way possible – contained in human skin. Thank you for revealing your glory in the person of Jesus Christ whom lepers approach.
¹⁴When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
That you see me O God, I give you thanks. Thank you for seeing that which I try to hide. Thank you for seeing my hurt and my fear. Thank you for seeing my heart and my humor. Thank you for seeing that I am stronger than I think and that I am also not nearly as strong as I think. Thank you for seeing this broken-ass world in all it’s beauty and most especially thank you for seeing all of these things and then responding in nothing but completely mad love.
Thank you for how you have sent these your people to show themselves to me and– in sending the gay kids and babies and retired folks and suburban moms and depressives and corporate guys and social workers and students that you have shown yourself to me. Knowing as you do that without the stories, gifts and scars of each of these people I would never see enough of you.
And as they went, they were made clean.
That healing happens in community O God, I praise you. Thank you for the way in which you bring your people together to be healed. For the ways in which we harm each other instead, forgive us.
¹⁵Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.
Praise you God for the ones who turn back. Thank you for all the people in my life who speak your name, who bravely point to you as the source and ground of all goodness, who dare to recognize you as God and who remind me that you are real and you are actively redeeming me and them and all of creation.
¹⁶He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? ¹⁸Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
Blessed be God the Word who came to his own and his own received him not for in this way, God glorifies the stranger. Thank you for revealing yourself in the foreigner. I think. I mean, it’s one of the less comfortable aspects of following you, Jesus. But thank you for loving me too much to allow me to stay comfortable for too long. Thank you for interrupting my pride and refusing to leave me as is. It’s uncomfortable as hell but in your faithfulness you always lead me through death to more abundant life.
¹⁹Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
For all the things that in going on my way I have failed to even notice I give you thanks today. Thank you for this community. Thank you for the chaos of children. Thank you for that tree up my block that suddenly this week became 8 different colors all at once as though it was showing off. Thank you for friends who text me back. Thank you for coffee. Thank you for the person in my 12 step meeting who reminded me that when in doubt just say Thy Will be Done because I totally had forgotten about that part. Thank you for clean water and safe roads and electricity and garbage pick-up. Thank you for 21 years of sobriety. Thank you for the babies. Thank you for never leaving me. Thank you for that lunch I got to share with my teenager this week. Thank you for all the people who manage to make me laugh. Thank you for creating us to sing. Thank you for the fact that I didn’t have to get on an airplane this week. Thank you for my dog. Thank you for Tracy’s new job and the baby growing inside Duffy that already feels like it belongs to us and the 30 people at the welcome brunch yesterday and for Jennifer who teaches our children about you, and for Jamie’s voice and for Seiji’s ability to cook us delicious food. Thank you for the way in which I am fed at your table of grace and for allowing me to speak behind it and tell the story of the night you were betrayed. Thank you for this bread and wine which we are about to receive. Thank you for giving me one more day to sing your praise. And for every other gift I am too blind to see that totally comes from you -Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen.

17 July 2013

A lamentation of sorts for Sunday July 14th, 2013 (the day after the Zimmerman verdict)

MANY have had much to say about the verdict in the george zimmerman trial. I do not agree with the verdict. I believe he wanted to have the "experience" of actually killing someone, and Trayvon Martin was in the wrong place at the wrong time giving zimmerman the opportunity to fulfill his fantasy. I do not believe justice has been served, but I do believe it is important to use this tragedy to promote nonviolence, racial harmony, compassion for all parties involved, and to motivate people to become active politically, to vote for candidates who will review and amend "stand your ground" laws and support reasonable gun control. Here is a great sermon on the trial and verdict and our nation and each of us from Rev Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Sarcastic Lutheran, and I recommend you listen to as well as read her message......

July 14, 2013 By Nadia Bolz Weber

(My intern, and not myself is slated to preach this evening. But as the pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, I wanted my voice to be in the room. I’m certain it will be a shaky voice.)

click here to listen along ——> 2013-07-14 NBW sermon on Trayvon Martin

I would like to take this opportunity to “stand my own ground”.

I would like to stand my ground as a voice for anti-racism and non-violence.

For gun control and a justice system that actually hands down justice.

I would like to take this opportunity to say something defiant and super clever and something that would be memorialized for the next 48 hours in Facebook memes.

There are a million reasons for me to want to stand my ground but every time today that I have tried, I am confronted in the following ways, by, of course, myself.

1. I want to be a voice for non-violence but the reality is that this morning on NPR when I head George Zimmerman’s brother say he rejects the idea that Trayvon Martin was unarmed because the teenager was actually armed with a sidewalk on which he broke George’s nose, well, when I heard that, my first reaction was not to reach through the radio and offer that man a sign of peace, my first reaction was to reach through the radio and offer that man a punch in the throat.

2.Yesterday I heard that a Federal Law Enforcement officer at my mom’s church has shown up the last 3 Sundays carrying a concealed weapon. Which is insane and something I would normally want to post a meme about on my Facebook wall for all the liberals like me to “like” except for the fact that that law enforcement officer a) is my brother and b) carried that weapon to protect his family ever since my mother’s life has been threatened by a crazy man who wants her dead. A man who was escorted out of church last week by police. So when I heard that my brother was armed to protect my own mom I wasn’t alarmed like any good gun control pastor would be…, I was relieved… and now what the hell do I post on Facebook? What do I do with that?

3. Despite my politics and liberalism when a group of young black men in my neighborhood walk by I brace myself in a different way than if they were white and I hate this but it’s like 44 years of having every message I hear in the media and culture around me say that I am superior – superior by accident of birth well, 44 years of that cannot be erased completely by my university education and progressive beliefs. So if I said that there is not residual racism in me that I simply do not know how to escape I would be lying. Even if I do have an “eracism” bumper sticker

I want to stand my own ground but this morning all I could do was quite literally stand in my own kitchen and cry. Cry for all my own inconsistencies. Cry for all the parents of kids with brown and black skin who feel like their children can now legally be target practice on the streets of suburbia. Cry for a nation divided – both sides of which hate the other. Cry for all the ways I silently perpetuate the things I criticize. Cry for the death threats toward my family and the death threats toward the Zimmerman family. Cry for Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton whose child was shot dead and were told yesterday that it was more his fault than the fault of the shooter.

His mother Sybrina, is a woman of faith and her first public statement was a prayer

“Lord during my darkest hour I lean on you. You are all that I have. At the end of the day, GOD is still in control. Thank you all for your prayers and support. I will love you forever Trayvon!!! In the name of Jesus!!!”

So tonight I want to use her prayer as our own.

Let us pray,

Lord who taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, in our darkest hour help us to not lean on self-righteousness but to lean only into the sweet arms of our loving savior. You are all we have. Help us to believe, even when it is hard, even when it seems like there is nothing but anger and despair, that somehow you are in control. Thank you for those who pray. When we cannot pray for our enemies may the prayers of others suffice. And help us to love. It doesn’t come as naturally as we’d like to believe. But help us to love wantonly, extravagantly, and fearlessly as you love us. And in times as dark as these help us to boldly speak the name of Jesus. The name above all names that demons fear and angels sing. It is in this name we pray, Amen.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2013/07/a-lamentation-of-sorts-for-sunday-july-14th-2013-the-day-after-the-zimmerman-verdict/

NORTON META TAG

11 June 2016