Click here to hear the audio recording of this sermon.

Sorry for the delay in posting this week. For some reason I thought that I already had, but didn’t.

Matthew 17:1-9 • March 6, 2011

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

There are many scenes throughout scripture that center the story on a mountain. Moses, Elijah, David, Jesus and the disciples. I always struggle with texts that are on the mountain, because I’m not much of a fan of mountains. I don’t mind visiting from time to time, but for me – I am most at peace when I’m on the prairie. The rolling hills and ability to see for miles in the wide open spaces are home for me.

I need to come down from the mountain and re-center on the prairie. If I had to appreciate a mountain in order to fully experience God speaking to me in texts like we have in Matthew today, I’d be in big trouble. Our relationship with God is not about climbing a mountain in order to fully see Jesus or staying on the mountain in order to place a bubble around Jesus so nobody else can enter or be part of our club.

The transfiguration, that mysterious transformation of vision that is in today’s readings, is not in the trek up or down the mountain or the way Peter seems fixated on staying on the mountain so they won’t have to face what lies ahead or the fear that overtakes them during this mountain journey.

The transfiguration for me this week in this text from Matthew’s gospel is God’s voice and what God says in a bold and strong way. “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
Listen.

I’m a parent. And one of the greatest joys and challenges in my life is fulfilling my vocation as a parent. I’m guessing that any of you who are parents can relate very easily with the joys and challenges that I am thinking about and those of you that are not parents can relate because you have compassion for us who are and believe deeply in God’s command to love your neighbor as yourself.
Here is an example of one such joy and challenge of my vocation as a parent. It is a great gift for me to be able to spend time with my girls in the morning and drive them to school nearly every day.

Inevitably though, not all of these mornings are filled with joy and peace. Many important discussions take place over what to eat for breakfast, who got more milk in their cereal, how many and what kind of clips one is allowed to put in one’s hair, how long one should have to brush their teeth in order for their teeth to be considered clean, who will be wearing which shoes or a particular outfit, or which order the backpacks are supposed to be placed in the trunk of the car.

I think you know what I’m trying to share with you here. I mean, these are deep, meaningful, important, life-changing conversations and decisions. They are significant issues that must be solved if we are ever going to be able to get to school on time and get the day started.

Every once in a while, I, as the person called to serve in the vocation of parent during these intense situations, need to enter into these conversations and decisions. I need to be the voice that says, “Stop. Listen to what’s going on right now. What should be going on right now? Listen.”

Peter, James, and John seem focused on similar conversations and decisions many times in the gospels. Their plan in today’s text involves real estate development on the mountain for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah to have a vacation property to meet and discuss what’s new.

It’s God who steps in and says – “HEY! – wake up. Quit trying to climb the mountain. Quit trying to keep everything in the comfortable little world that you think you can create. Just knock it off! Here’s what you need to do – this is my son. I love him. Listen to him.”
Is Jesus the only one who is changed in this mountain top transfiguration? Or – are Peter, James, and John also changed.

I’d like to think that as I live out my vocation as a parent, not only are my children transformed in our encounters before school each day – but I think I’m transformed as well. I hope and I pray that every experience I have with my beautiful girls transforms us as sons and daughters of God who daily seek to follow the transfigured and risen Jesus.

Jesus relationship with his disciples changed over time as their relationships with each other changed and grew. I’d like to believe that the experience they shared with Jesus that day on the mountain transformed who they were as followers of Jesus. I don’t’ think they understood the journey that was before them, but they knew they had to listen as they followed.

Take a minute and think about some of the relationships in your life. Do you take time in those relationships to really stop to listen? Do you really turn off the cell phone or the iPad or the television to really listen? Do we take time in the relationships of our lives and the experiences that we share in those relationships to really hear God speaking to us?

God’s call to you and me today is not to build a new condo for Jesus to hang out with Moses & Elijah. Jesus is not kept on a mountain or in a building; he is present wherever we may be.

God’s call to you and me today connects us with this Jesus – “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased.” Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection we are called sons and daughters – children of God.

“Listen to him.” God’s call to you and me today is our response to this Jesus.

Listen.

As we begin another journey together this week through the season of Lent, take time to listen.

You don’t need to climb any mountains. You don’t need to put up any buildings. You don’t need magic tricks or special effects.

Just listen.

Listen in the people you will meet.

Listen in the experiences you will have.

Listen in the joy of God’s creation that is always around you.

Listen in your brothers and sisters in Christ, fellow children of God, sitting with you in this time of worship right now.

Listen.

Click here to hear the audio recording of this sermon.

Matthew 6:24-34 • February 27, 2011

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

A man was seen fleeing down the hall of one of our local hospital this past week just before his operation. A security guard stopped him before he could get out of the hospital and asked, “What’s the matter? Where in the world are you going in such a hurry?”
The man said, “I heard the nurse say, ‘It’s a very simple operation, don’t worry, I’m sure it will be all right.’”
“She was just trying to comfort you,” said the security guard. “What’s so frightening about that?”
“She wasn’t talking to me,” exclaimed the man, “she was talking to the doctor!”
OK – if we were this guy, you may agree that his situation would cause some of us to worry just a little.

Last weekend, Pastor Tim challenged us to find a picture of someone who has been part of our life that is an example of faithfulness. I loved that request, because it was a pretty easy challenge for me. Almost immediately, I saw a picture of my grandmother.

My grandmother is a fantastic picture of faithfulness for me – but she is also the most extreme worrier I have ever known. As I worked through our text in Matthew this week, I spent a lot of time asking myself the question, “Is is possible to be a never ending worrier and be faithful?” In my grandma, my conclusion is a resounding yes.

Grandma has admitted several times that she will not sleep well for days before a doctor’s appointment or becomes nearly overwhelmed with worry when someone in the family is traveling. I’m guessing that it drove her crazy with worry when Wendy and I took our 9 year old girls on vacation to Mexico this past fall, although she never said anything about it to me directly.

One thing that she has said to me many times is that she believes that God is always with her. She believes very deeply in God’s right now promise of being with us and taking care of us. It may not lessen the things that she worries about, but by believing God is present with her in those things, she has been open to discovering the hope, love, and joy that flows out from her as of a follower of Jesus. Recently she has worried about making the transition out of her assisted living apartment. I think her faithfulness is revealing something new in this transition. Her worries about falling or caring for her apartment or keeping track of her medication or preparing a meal are no longer worries. Her faithfulness to God’s presence in her nearly 90 years of life, maybe most especially right now, today, is really quite beautiful.

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber from the ELCA congregation House for All Sinners & Saints in Denver asks a wonderful question about this Matthew text. She asks, “Have we spent so much time and energy and ink telling the world about God’s promised future of heaven that we have failed to embody God’s right now promise of food and clothing?”

I would guess that many of us sitting in this worship space today, can relate to the statistics given by stress management experts who say that only two percent of our “worrying time” is spent on things that might actually be helped by worrying. The other 98% of our worrying time is spent on things that never happen, things that can’t be changed, things that turn out better than expected, or on useless petty worries.

Every once in a while I come across a poem, or reading, or piece of music that I like to share during our worship together. A few weeks ago I discovered a beautiful poem from Robert J. Burdette called “Two Golden Days” that I’d like to share – today.

“There are two days of the week upon which and about which I never worry. Two carefree days, kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension.
One of these is YESTERDAY.

Yesterday, with all its cares and frets, with all its pains and aches, all its faults, its mistakes and blunders, has passed away forever beyond the reach of my recall. I cannot undo an act that I wrought; I cannot unsay a word that I said yesterday.

All that it holds of my life, of wrongs and regret and sorrow, is in the hands of the Mighty God that can bring honey out of the rock and sweet waters out of the bitterest desert – the God of Love that can make the wrong things right, that can turn the weeping into laughter, that can give beauty for ashes, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, the joy of the morning for the woe of the night.

Save for the beautiful memories, sweet and tender, that linger like the perfumes of roses in the heart of the day that is gone, I have nothing to do with yesterday. It was mine; it is God’s.

And the other day I do not worry about is TOMORROW.

Tomorrow with all its possible adversities, its burdens, its perils, its large promise and poor performance, its failure and mistakes, is as far beyond the reach of my mastery as its dead sister, yesterday. It is a day of God’s. Its sun will rise in roseate splendor, or behind the mask of weeping clouds. But it will rise.

I have no possession in that unborn day of grace. All else is in the safe keeping of that Infinite God that holds for me the treasure of yesterday. His love is higher than the stars, wider than the skies, deeper than the seas. Tomorrow – It is God’s day. It will be mine.

There is left for myself then, but one day of the week – TODAY. With faith and trust in the Lord any man can fight the battles of today and any woman can carry the burdens of just one day.

O friend, it is only when to the burdens and cares of today carefully measured out to us by the Infinite Wisdom and Might that gives with them the promise, “As thy day so shall thy strength be,” we willingly add the burdens of those two awful eternities – yesterday and tomorrow – that we break down. It isn’t the experience of today that drives us mad. It is the remorse for something that happened yesterday, the dread of what tomorrow may disclose.

These are God’s days. Leave them with Him.

Therefore, I think, and I do, and I journey but one day at a time. That is the easy day. That is my day. Nay rather, that is our day – God’s and mine. And while faithfully and dutifully I run the course, and work my appointed task on that day of ours, God the Almighty and the All-loving takes care of yesterday and tomorrow.”

For many years now, my conversations with my grandmother end like this. She says to me, “Pray for me.” And I say to her, “I will, but I hope you are praying for me too.”

I don’t pray that one day she will be able to be as active again as she was when she was 30 years old, but I do pray that she feels God’s presence no matter how active she is able to be – today.

I do pray that she knows God is clothing her and feeding her through those who surround her and care for her like her family and the staff in her new home – today.

I do pray that this beautiful child of God never stops believing that God is with her – today.

My grandmother is a worrier about more things and in more ways than anyone I have ever or probably will ever know. She is also an amazing witness of faithfulness. Faithfulness that you and I share as followers of the risen Jesus Christ, who reminds us once again on this day that God was with us yesterday, will be with us tomorrow, and is with us today – right now. Amen.