Elk River Lutheran - Sermons
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February 7, 2010 Pastor Cyndi Ganzkow-Wold
January 31, 2010 Pastor Cyndi Ganzkow-Wold
January 24, 2010 Pastor Cyndi Ganzkow-Wold
“LIVING IN EXPECTANCY FROM NOW ON” by Cedric Olson
Text: Luke 3:1-6
Preached to new ELCA at Trinity Episcopal, 12/6/09, 2nd Sunday in Advent
Here we are tonight at Trinity Episcopal. Roger Ostby informed me that many moons ago, Central had its charter service at Trinity. Kind of surprising that we meet here again, but then again God is full of surprises for us.
Back when I was just into Junior High School, I remember a family get-together event, that caused some real problems in our family. An uncle of mine was a kind of practical joker. They had what I remember was called a car bomb. When you started the car, there would be a bang and lots of smoke. It was harmless as far as the car was concerned. This one uncle placed it under the hood of my other uncle’s car. Well it went off, scaring my uncle, and he got really mad at my other uncle. For two years the one who had the trick pulled on him wouldn’t talk to my other uncle. It was really strange at family get-togethers that they would sit in different rooms. It really tore at the fabric of my family.
Within the family of Central, differences on some issues has torn at the fabric of our church family, and don’t we feel very much like John the Baptist, that we are wondering around in a wilderness? So we feel a sense of floundering and lostness. We have varying degrees of sadness and hurts. So we need to come together to cry together, to talk together, to hug together, to worship and pray together.
So we turn to this text about John the Baptist, and we find it dated in history. It occurs in a time when Tiberius was emperor, Pontius Pilate was governor, and Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. So we have both the political and the religious leaders. The Word of the Lord came to John and we quote from Isaiah: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways make smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” Though we find ourselves in the wilderness, we know that we have a faithful God for the Word of God comes to us. In these verses from Isaiah, God’s voice comes to us as that of a desperate lover: “I will come to you, “ God says. “Nothing will keep us apart. If mountains stand in the way, I will level them; if the valleys stand between us, I will fill them up. I’ll straighten all the crooked places and smooth off the rough areas. I will do whatever must be done. God is intent on breaking into our world and nothing can stop him. This is pure Gospel.
I hope we can see that in a new way this year. So often we kind of matter of factly approach Advent as the preparation for Christmas. We kind of take it for granted. Then suddenly Christmas is here and gone. Now that’s all over. Can we see that something exciting is happening? God is breaking in on us in a new way this year. One of the most inspiring songs in the musical Godspell is the marvelous opening lyric titled “Prepare Ye The Way Of The Lord.” While sitting in a theater, listening to the emotional melody and words, one can be carried away with excitement. A seminary student who once experienced the power of the words attributed to Isaiah and John the Baptist wanted to preach on the theme: “Becoming John the Baptist.” A cryptic note from his homiletics professor simply said: “Nice idea but John the Baptist was truly unique. Try again.” Only the incomplete on the top of his paper convinced him that his task was simply to help people to see Christ in his own day and to turn hearts and eyes to the one who had come and who promised to come again. John the Baptist he could not be, but being a witness to Christ was an opportunity.
John the Baptist was not the Christ, but pointed to him. And we are not the Christ or John the Baptist, but we too can point to the Christ. That’s why we bump into John the Baptist before Christmas that we might look beyond the manger-born baby to the manger-born man and get down to brass tacks about Jesus’ agenda and our vocation as disciples. Jesus does not fit the traditional messianic script, no fire and retribution. It will take a lot of unlearning and new learning to come to terms with Jesus. The fact is the way of Jesus stands over against our cultural definitions of the good life, our love affair with guns and violence, sectarian arrogance and walls that divide.
So let us live with a real sense of expectancy. Let me take you to a chapter from the book THE SHACK. In reference to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit(Sarayu) speaks saying, “I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active and moving. I am a being verb. And as my very essence is a verb, I am more attuned to verbs than nouns. Verbs such as confessing, repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, singing, and on and on. Humans have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules: something growing and alive dies. Nouns exist because there is a created universe and physical reality, but if the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless “I am,” there are no verbs, and verbs are what make the universe alive.”
The Spirit goes on: “For something to move from death to life you must introduce something living and moving into the mix. To move from something that is only a noun to something dynamic and unpredictable, to something living and present tense, is to move from law to grace. May I give you a couple examples? Then let’s use your two words: responsibility and expectation. Before your words became nouns, they were first my words, nouns with movement and experience buried inside of them; the ability to respond and expectancy. My words are alive and dynamic---full of life and possibility; yours are dead, full of law and fear and judgment. That is why you won’t find the word responsibility in the Scriptures. Religion must use law to empower itself and control the people who they need in order to survive. I give you an ability to respond and your response is to be free to love and serve in every situation, and therefore each moment is different and unique and wonderful. Because I am your ability to respond, I have to be present in you. If I simply gave you a responsibility, I would not have to be with you at all. It would now be a task to perform, an obligation to be met, something to fail.”
“Let’s use the example of friendship and how removing the element of life from a noun can drastically alter a relationship. Mack(the name of the man in the book), if you and I are friends, there is an expectancy that exists with our relationship. When we see each other or are apart, there is expectancy of being together, of laughing and talking. That expectancy has no concrete definition; it is alive and dynamic and everything that emerges from our being together is a unique gift shared by no one else. But what happens if I change that expectancy to an expectation? Suddenly, law has entered into our relationship. You are now expected to perform in a way that meets my expectations. Our living friendship rapidly deteriorates into a dead thing with rules and requirements. It is no longer about you and me, but about what friends are supposed to do, or the responsibilities of a good friend.” Doesn’t the thought of expectancy sound exciting? God is here. That’s why we can live with a real sense of expectancy. That means that we live have an exciting future. That’s the heart of Christmas.
And so in the words of our Bishop Mark Hanson, “we go forward in confident hope because in these past eight years we have matured as a church body in our engagement with questions of human sexuality and now we have the opportunity for faith-filled witness to the larger human family that struggles with division and yearns for healing and wholeness that is real and true. We live in a polarized culture that equates unity with uniformity and sees differences as a reason for division. We have the opportunity to offer the witness of our unity in Christ---diverse, filled with different-ness and differences, broken in sin, and yet united and whole in Christ.
We go forward in confident hope because our hope is grounded in Christ. For we finally meet one another not in our agreements or disagreements but at the foot of the cross, where God is faithful, where Christ is present with us and where by the power of the Spirit we are one in him.” So as we join our Bishop at the foot of the cross, let us live in expectancy of what God can and will do among us. Amen.
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