Sermons for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday

Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-35

March 24, 2016

Jesus knows what is going to happen to him.
he’s been telling everyone about this for weeks.
he knew what coming into Jerusalem would mean

for him, he knows the authorities are after him.

He knows what they do to people that cause a stir like him

and he knows that it’s not pleasant.

He prays to God to take his fate from him.

He knows that he will suffer.

When people feel threatened, they act in predictable ways:

It’s called flight or fight.

We normally run away or we lash out.

This goes when we’re in immediate danger or

ones that we just perceive.

We either quickly remove ourselves from the situation

or we lash out at things, often indiscriminately

at this point, even a minor offense can cause us

to overreact badly.

This is a primitive, automatic, inborn, chemical response

and it’s led to escalations of violence and hate.

It’s gotten a lot of people in trouble.

At these times, it’s almost impossible to think creatively,

and love takes a back seat to fear.

We’ve all been on the giving and receiving end of this.

But on this night, the last night of Jesus life

just minutes before he will be arrested

and the whole evening will unfold in

the worst kind of nightmare for everyone,

What does Jesus do?

Neither flight nor fight.

Jesus plans a dinner party with his friends.

He prepares a table in front of his enemies too.

He eats supper with those who will

carry his ministry into the world the same people

and with those who would betray and deny him.

And what he tells them is that

This is my body, this is my blood, take it.

The message he gives to everyone in this time of

great stress and threat is welcome, openness,

vulnerability, open your heart and your table to others.

And the most important message of Jesus table: forgive.

And after the meal he moves even beyond

openness, and forgiveness,

to serve those that are with him.

Even the much maligned Judas doesn’t leave

until after he’s had his feet washed by Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but at times I have found

it hard to even talk to people who I’ve got a beef with,

But Jesus lowers his defenses opens himself up

and washes the feet of those who that very night

will forget who had found them

and called them and set them free.

Foot washing and communion,

these things that we do here in churches

and in Christian meeting places,

the sacraments and rituals are not just

religious ceremonies that we do to fulfill

some obligation to God.

I venture to think if they if that’s all they would ever be,

that Jesus might suggest we don’t waste our time

doing them any more.

But these rituals are a practice.

And I mean practice in the rigorous

practice-makes-perfect

repeat and repeat and repeat until

it gets burned into your mind and your

body kind of way of practice.

We are practicing way that is different from the world

and different from our natural instincts.

We are practicing Jesus’ way.

As we say every time we do it together,

“in the night in which he was betrayed”…

this is what Jesus did this is how Jesus reacted,

this is what Jesus did in the face of his own death

with and to and for the ones who fell asleep,

the ones who ran away, the ones who

to the ones who tried to act like they didn’t know him,

to the one who would take 30 pieces of silver

in exchange for his life.

And we are told, “do this in remembrance of Jesus”

when you are betrayed, when you are faced with

fear or terror, disappointment, disrespect,

It is not being a doormat as some might say,

it is acting with the power of God.

And so we practice today what Jesus would have us do.

So we can do in times of peace and in times of war

and stress and death and

This is not just a religious action, this is a life plan.

We share with one another, we

humble ourselves and serve each other.

This is how we remember Jesus.

Good Friday

March 25, 2016

John 18-19

This is good Friday.

But this day seems like anything but Good.

Jesus died, and it was a very unpleasant death too.

We could certainly call this “terrible Friday”

Just like every day that there is tragic death and suffering.

Just like those days of terrorist attacks that area burned in our brains

just from the news and definitely

in the minds of people who were actually there forever.

Whether it’s a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.

What a terrible day that was.

Just like those days when our loved ones breathed their last.

Just like the day that everything changed from the way it was to the way it is.

What a terrible day that was.

But we are calling this Good Friday.

Not because the bad day didn’t happen.

not because it didn’t hurt,

not because Jesus didn’t suffer terribly, because he did.

But this day is Good Friday because

God, in the end, will have a hold of this day.

God has taken this terrible day today

and will give us something wonderful.

God won’t take away that bad day

that day still stinks, but God will  

make something good out of it.

Where something dies,

something beautiful will grow again.

That is God’s way.

And that is the story of this day.

God has taken the wilderness of the cross on Golgatha

and transformed it into something alive and life giving.

Something hopeful. A cross to a resurrection.

And that is not just a one-time deal.

The real Good of this day is that it is a promise

that God will take our very terrible days

And use them for something good, something better.

Our pain will not be wasted by God.

Today we hear Jesus last word on the cross,

he says, “It is finished” and that terrible Friday was.
But that was when God’s work was just beginning.

Christ Is Risen!

Easter Sunday

March 31, 2013

Luke 24

I want to tell you about two people this morning.

To me, they are both Easter stories.

One is Spencer West, a man who was born with a congenital disease

that made his leg muscles unusable.

They removed his legs at his pelvis at three and

His parents were told that he would have no future.

that he wouldn’t have a productive or normal life.

(By the way, he just climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro this year.) 

He spoke at the ELCA youth gathering in 2009.

And another woman I have met personally.

Her name is Ronnie, 

she grew up with a really

cruel mother who abused her 

and kept leaving

her with anonymous men she knew

who did whatever they wanted with her

Then her mother finally abandoned her 

as a teenager

where she had to sleep on relatives couches

until she graduated high school and started to work.

The reason why they remind me of Easter is that

I heard something similar from each of them,

When they were asked whether they would trade

in their misfortune and change the past,

they each said NO they wouldn’t

because it made them who they are.

Spencer talked about his childhood about

being made fun of, and of physical harassment,

But he also said that he’s had great experiences in his life

that he wouldn’t have if he had legs like everyone else.

So he wouldn’t opt to be like everyone else, even if he could.

And Ronnie told me about just a few

of the many horrific experiences in her life,

I asked her specifically if she would change her past.

She said that her experiences made her strong.

And she is strong. And this strength has helped her

through illness, it helped her in raising children,

it made her who she is, but mostly she said,

she knows now that she can live through almost anything,

so she’s not afraid of anything.

Both of these people experienced suffering,

but their suffering has become a gift for them.

Their brokenness has become a benefit.

Now, I know that this isn’t always the case,

I know many people who would rather have

their dark days changed.

They would rather have those abilities they’ve lost,

or their past altered somehow.

But I do think that people who do stand like these two do,

are able to show us the power of God

and the promise of Easter.

Because this is the story of Easter.

Jesus came to this world

sharing the love of God for everyone.

And the world responded to Jesus in some terrible ways.

Jesus suffered and died it was awful for everyone who knew him.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Now God didn’t take that suffering away.

It is still there for us to see and remember

and mourn and repent over.

  

But God does do something with it.

Out of that suffering,

God makes a beautiful, glorious resurrection

a testament for the world .

People like Spencer and Ronnie

show us how God works.

God isn’t a magician who magically takes bad things away

God is a sculptor who molds the bad into something

better than bad, God makes something beautiful.

God takes these wilderness rocks

that we’ve been given, and makes them wonderful.

Think about your hardest experiences,

think about your worst times, your regrets,

your losses, your desperate prayers.

Even though you may not be like Spencer and Ronnie,

and you might  want to trade those times in,

Still, consider how God has used those moments

to shape you and mold you and make you

a better, stronger, or more compassionate person.

And if you’re still in the middle of those dark times,

know that God will do something with that.

Whenever we die, we rise with Christ.

The promise is whenever there is death,

something beautiful will be born too.

God will not waste our pain.

God will make our pain into something good.

And this promise isn’t just for Christians,

God is at work in everyone’s life in this way.

it isn’t just for the faithful or the believers.

Easter is a promise by God for the whole world.

It’s a promise for every city destroyed by war,

every country, even our own, divided by anger and politics.

Every person, place, and thing.
God will make something new again.

Easter is about hope for all creation.

The rock that was placed in front of that tomb

on that Friday afternoon was a heavy stone,

put there to put there to seal death up.

To make it permanent and unmovable.
But when those women came there,

early on Sunday morning,

and they found that rock had moved.

Now this moved rock and this empty tomb

are a testament about the power

and promise of God for us.

Christ is no longer dead, he is alive.

The tomb is still a tomb.

But the tomb is now empty.

That is the story of Easter in our lives.

With God, what is dead doesn’t stay dead forever.

With God there is life.

With God there is hope.

That is what those who draw strength

from their suffering show us.

That is what the empty tomb tells us.

That is what Easter means for you and me today.

That is why we celebrate this day above all others.

Because Christ is risen!

The Wilderness of Death

John 12:1-11

March 13, 2016

Lent 5

The poor you will always have with you.

The Anointing of Christ, Julia Stankova

Jesus was right about that,

as followers of Christ,

we will always be driven to the poor

and those that have need.

Jesus is not saying that in other circumstances we shouldn’t

sell all we have and give the money to the poor,

Jesus did give that exact advice at another point in the gospels.

But at the same time, Jesus did not want the disciples to

insult or humiliate the outpouring

of love and caring that Mary showed to him.

“You will be spending a lot of time with the poor in the future,

but I am with you right now, so take advantage of it.”

Jesus had been telling the disciples that he was going to die.

And that it would happen soon.

He would be taken by the authorities and be killed.

The disciples knew that the authorities were looking for him.

Some sympathetic Pharisees had warned them about it

and told Jesus to leave town.

They knew that there was a lot of focus on him

after raising Lazarus from the dead.

And yet, it seems like they just don’t grasp the reality

even at this late stage in the story.

So when Mary takes the expensive oil that is reserved

for sacred and religious purposes and anointed him with it,

Judas feigns some self-righteous outrage

at the amount of money spent.

 Now, this gospel explains it as Judas’ greed,

but the earlier gospels have all of the disciples

protesting the expense.

Death is a stressful time,

I have watched quite a few fights, arguments

and tension between families at funerals, at receptions,

even shouting matches over hospital beds.

The arguments between the disciples at this point are common.

It’s as if the rose colored glasses that we’ve been wearing

have been ripped off of us when someone we love is dying

and it hurts to look at reality.

Death is something that we can stare in the face,

and yet not believe it’s true until it happens in our lives.

·         What has been the hardest death in your life deal with? Why?

·         What worries you about your own death?

Paul writes in Romans

If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Prepared or unprepared for death,

we know that Christ is with us and that we will be with Christ.

Mary is sharing one of those moments that

we wish we could have with people who are not here anymore.

The gifts that we wish we could give someone

if we only knew and were fully prepared and accepting

they were going to die.

Death is a sacred time, a time when we come so close

to God’s promises, we can almost feel them coming true.

In Christ, death has no dominion over us.

The Wilderness of Decisions

Luke 15: 1-3,11-32

March 6, 2016

4 Lent

So Jesus tells us this story about two sons. And by the end,

the younger son has gotten himself into a terrible place.

You could call it a rock bottom.

He’s found himself as a slave to a pig farm

and he’s jealous of the pigs

because at least they have something to eat.

That’s pretty low.

His recent life has been a series of bad decisions.

You can map them out in the story:

He asks for his father for his whole inheritance

which is just kind of rude, like saying,

“Dad I’ve been imagining what it would be like if you were dead

and I was thinking the money would be nice.”

And then he leaves the care of his father at a young age

which is another thing he shouldn’t do.

And then he goes out and spends all of the money.

Not on good things either that he can sell or cherish,

but on dissolute living,

which is gambling, drinking and general frolicking.

Like some people do when they suddenly find themselves

with a lot of money.

Then he has no more money and he goes to the

pig farm and he’s at rock bottom.

These decisions were clearly bad.

He had options he could have taken that were better

and he did not take those paths.

But most of our decisions aren’t as black and white as that.

Sometimes we’re forced to make decisions based on

the circumstances that we’re given, and the options are not great:

We are laid off from our job and we have to get a new one.

We have to go into a nursing home instead of staying in our own.

Some people even turn to crime or underhanded

activity because they feel they have

no more options left to take care of themselves or their families.

Sometimes there are no good decisions to be made

every option is bad in its own way.

And lots of times, we go into our decisions with the best intentions,

with hope and expectation. Then the marriage falls apart,

the investment wasn’t good, the new job doesn’t work out,

the new house starts falling apart.

Sometimes we only understand our bad decisions in hindsight.

·         What was the best decision you’ve made?

·         What was the worst decision you’ve made?

·         How are you at forgiving other people’s bad decisions?

·         How are you at forgiving your own?

Our lives are full of decisions.

Not all are so clearly delineated between right and wrong.

But one thing is clear from Jesus story here:

Even in the case of horrible, mean, foolish decisions,

The father forgives.

The son who squandered his inheritance

came back to his father’s house, not with repentance

in his heart, not wanting to change his foolish ways.

He came back looking for a free meal.

 

He’s drawn back to his home because of his own need.

And still, the father runs out to meet him

in the middle of the driveway.

He’s so happy to see him and welcome him back.

Even though the sons decisions were

blatantly disrespectful and selfish,

he is welcomed and forgiven.

And God forgives our bad decisions.

Whether they were made innocently,

hopefully, naively, or selfishly.

God just wants us to come home again.

God forgives.

But then we have that older son.

That reliable one who always does what he’s supposed to.

That one that thinks this whole situation is unfair.

The one who was mad because he’s done everything

he was supposed to, he’s made all the good and

responsible decisions and he didn’t get fatted calf

Who here has ever resonated with that son?

I think we are all that son.

Until that time when we’re the younger son.

Until we see that our decisions have turned out bad.

Until we need to rely on God’s mercy and grace.

Until we need know that God will welcome us home.