Another Blondin Sermon. :-)

February 24&25

First reading  Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Psalm Psalm 22:23-31

Second reading  Romans 4:13-25

Gospel Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9

February 24&25

First reading  Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Psalm Psalm 22:23-31

Second reading  Romans 4:13-25

Gospel Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9

I begin with a story that most of us have heard at least once, if not all of us. It has been told over and over in sermons across the years. And why does this same story keep getting repeated? I would guess that it is because there is value in it. Value that is worth reminding each other of.

So, once upon a time there was a man named Charles Blondin. Some of us would call him down right crazy and others of us would prefer to simply refer to him as a daredevil. Mark Twain's words can't be repeated here. Either way, he was known for his tightrope walk across Niagara Falls in the summer of 1859. He crossed on stilts, on a bicycle, and one time even carrying a stove cooking an omelet. (I’m sorry, he ranks as crazy in my book!) 

The story goes, on July 15, Blondin walked backward across the tightrope to Canada and returned pushing a wheelbarrow. He asked his audience, "Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?"  Of course the crowd shouted yes, they believed! And then Blondin posed the question - "Who will get in the wheelbarrow?' Of course...no one did.

And as many pastors have reminded us, this is what faith is about. Will we get in the wheelbarrow? Just curious, anyone think they would have? I won’t lie, I would NOT have! 

I love the story and I love the challenge it leaves us with. My struggle is that I always tend to think of big things when it comes to getting in the wheelbarrow with God. Like going to a warzone to help those who are in desperate need. Or joining the peace corp. Or selling all my possessions and giving the money to the poor. I’m sure you could fill in a few things of your own.

When we preach about the faith of Abraham we preach about God calling him on this journey to who knows where. We preach about believing his ancestors will outnumber the stars. Maybe we should preach on the journey of life that Abraham is called to live one step at a time. Maybe we should preach on the love that he is called to continue to give to Sarah every day. When it comes to the big things, we find Abraham wasn’t so full of faith. He gives away Sara to protect himself for one.

And what about taking up our cross? Thanks be to God I don’t need to take that literally! What does laying down my life look like? Maybe it isn’t about big things. Maybe it's about everyday little things. 

Like loving my neighbor. And who is my neighbor? The person that is there in front of me. My friend, my sister, the man holding a sign looking for food.

Like washing each other's feet. This by the way is the most heart warming and humbling act I have ever experienced. And there was no real threat to life and limb in doing it!

 Like shutting the door to your prayer room and spending time with God. Probably won't make me famous.

Jesus says simply: love your enemies, pray for them, give to the poor, spend time in prayer,  forgive one another, don’t worry. (or fear not.)

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  And there is the wheelbarrow.

Gods kingdom: creation—plants, animals, people

God’s righteousness—-righteousness actually means right relationship, with all the kingdom. People, planet, God.

And there is the wheelbarrow. Will you get in and trust that all these things will be given to you as well?

As I was reading about Blondin, I found this snippet on the Smithsonian website. Not sure I ever heard this part in a sermon. But perhaps this says even more.

Sometime after the July 15th crossing Blondin started across again with Harry Colcord (his manager) clinging to his back. Blondin gave his manager the following instructions: “Look up, Harry.… you are no longer Colcord, you are Blondin. Until I clear this place be a part of me, mind, body, and soul. If I sway, sway with me. Do not attempt to do any balancing yourself. If you do we will both go to our death.”

And Jesus prays in John 17:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Until we clear this place be a part of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be a part of one another,  mind, body, and soul.

Amen and amen.

God's Self Disclosure February 18 @ Zion Lutheran Clinton Ia

First reading  Genesis 9:8-17

Psalm  Psalm 25:1-10

Second reading  1 Peter 3:18-22

Gospel Mark 1:9-15

As so often happens in the process of preparing a sermon, I begin with an idea regarding the readings and it somehow gets stuck in the head. I start to analyze and look up facts and references, and suddenly the spirit of the message gets bogged down in the head.

I always warn my friend who is a SAM (Synodically authorized minister) to preach from the heart not the head. And yet it seems inevitable that is where I often get bogged down. In the head.

Fortunately I know a God who is always there for me. And sometimes I am even fortunate enough to listen. I had picked up my devotional book Friday morning (Everything Is Sacred, by Richard Rohr) and read this: 

The self disclosure of whomever you call God into physical creation was the first Incarnation…to put this idea in Franciscan language, creation is the First Bible, and it existed for 13.7 billion years before the second Bible was written.”

This led me to begin to think about the self disclosure of God. Everything from the Garden of Eden, to the rainbow, to the resurrection, to the moment yesterday when God placed me at the right place to meet up with an old friend who was in distress. And it caused me to trash the first sermon I had written. 

Paul writes to the Corinthians: For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

What is God’s weakness? You are. I am. God’s weakness is you and me and the guy down the road and the Israelite, and the Palestinian, and the family wading across the Rio Grande and your ex and so on and so forth. And it is in the very first explosion of light that God begins to self disclose his heart of love for us.

And of course the rainbow in the sky is a vivid reminder of that love. One that people stop whatever they are doing to enjoy. One that shows up in picture after picture on facebook. One that has come to symbolize love and hope and diversity and all those things that we have come to understand as the heart of God. God’s heart brought to us from beyond the written text.

Human history is layered in God’s self disclosure. Free will, free choice, as in the story of the serpent and the fruit tree. Why oh why would God tempt our ancestors so? Because in true self disclosure his desire was for the individual's love to be freely given, not robotically lived out. 

“I so desire for you to walk in this garden with me for all of eternity, but I want you to choose to do so. I want you to love me as I love you. Freely given love.”

And although our choices broke God’s heart and came with the consequences that choices usually come with, God did not abandon us. As I said, we are God’s weakness. The folly of his heart. (BTW I use the male pronoun because I am old and can never seem to incorporate another pronoun into my discourse. Do not assume I believe God is only male gendered. In full self disclosure I would say I am probably just lazy.)

He offers covenant after covenant with humanity hoping we might choose to renew our relationship with him. 

And of course the ultimate covenant of love, promise of relationship, is found in the blood of Jesus. “This is the new covenant of my blood shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin.”

I think I may have wandered off course a bit here and gotten a little ahead of myself. God’s self disclosure begins with an explosion of love so bright and powerful that it created the heavens and the earth. And God's self disclosure continues throughout the history of humanity.

Jesus tells us in his parables that God is a God that sweeps the house until that one lost coin is found. God is the God who leaves the many to find that one silly sheep. God is the God that allows his own creation, his own subjects, his own love to nail him to a cross. 

And in death what does Peter tell us this God does? He goes to those who are suffering the consequences of their own disregard of God’s love and sets them free. I don’t know about you but I am humbled. He goes to those who had broken his heart and caused him anger against all that he held most dear, to forgive and set them free.

Jesus is truly the ultimate self disclosure of God’s foolishness. God’s love for us.

Not only then am I humbled but I am also encouraged to hopefulness. As we face the consequences of our own disregard for what God has given us, I know that God will not abandon us. In climate change, in war, in greed, in self centeredness, in cancers and more, God dies so that he can set us free from the imprisonment of fear, and hopelessness. What a wonderfully foolish God.

So often we consider lent as a somber time. A time to navel gaze on our own sin and disregard of God. I would like to suggest another understanding of lent. Let’s change our minds, let’s repent from the old ways of perceiving God, and let’s receive the good news. That we are surrounded by a God who chose to become vulnerable enough to be ignored, taken for granted, and killed. That we are surrounded by a God who allows us to trample and misuse that which his heart created when it exploded with love. That we are surrounded by a God who would trade immortality for mortality so that we could know him. 

And let’s understand lent as a time to open ourselves to being found by that God. The one waiting for us to return to him in truth and even runs to meet us as we do. 

As we read our devotions, as we come together in scripture and worship throughout lent, let us stop and receive God as he makes himself vulnerable to us through self disclosure. Both in the written word and in the Word of life that we call creation.

In fact, I double dog dare all of us, to make ourselves vulnerable to the God who made himself vulnerable to us.