April 8, 2013

“Christ is Risen. Prove It.” Sermon 04.06.2013

By Bishop Craig Schweitzer
English: Jesus Christ - detail from Deesis mos...

English: Jesus Christ – detail from Deesis mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

John 20:19-31 • April 6, 2013

Click here to hear an audio recording of this sermon.

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

Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed)

Is he?

Today is the second Sunday in the season of Easter. It is also known as “low” Sunday because historically it’s one of the lowest attended Sundays of the Christian calendar. I always find that interesting because, of course, it just happens to be the Sunday that immediately follows one of the highest attended Sundays of the church year – Easter Sunday.

And the other interesting piece about this Sunday is that it includes the same gospel reading that we have before us today from Saint John every year on this day. A gospel reading with disciples cowering in fear behind locked doors, a lonely disciple named Thomas who has for centuries been given the awful title of “Doubting Thomas”, and gospel writers concluding thoughts on why he bothered to write his gospel in the first place.

In his book “Wounded Lord”, New Testament professor Robert Smith says, “On the Sunday following Easter, when all the disciples including Thomas are together behind closed doors, Jesus comes just as before. ‘He stood among them and said to all, ‘Peace be with you.’’”

I don’t know about you, but in the world in which you and I live today, peace isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

Do you know what one of the fastest growing and most profitable industries in North America is today? Security. Anything to do with security. National security. Personal security. Home security. Financial security. Internet security. We invest abundantly in “Lifelock” and “Lifealert” and “ADT Home Security” – hoping to safeguard our financial and physical and really every aspect of our lives. It’s an effort to contain the chaos of the universe and lock ourselves safely in rooms that we think we have complete control over.

In John’s gospel, Jesus appears to his disciples locked behind closed doors. Despite the vision of the empty tomb, despite the version of the resurrected Jesus that Mary Magdalene had reported to them, despite all that they have seen and heard as they have walked with Jesus, the disciples were still shuttered up and shuddering in their sandals – clamped down and closed off from a threatening world.

Jesus blasts through their ADT security system, blows out their LifeLock walls, stands before them, and says “Peace be with you”.

Here’s another thing that I think is so amazing about the opportunity we have to receive this gospel reading from John every year on the second Sunday of Easter. In the other gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – we are told almost nothing about the disciple Thomas except his name. In John’s gospel, he emerges as a distinct personality, even though only 155 words are written about him.

Thomas helps everyone who has ever claimed to be a follower of the risen Jesus Christ to take very seriously two of the most challenging pieces of our life together in Christ: belief without seeing Jesus and a radical message that you and I are called to proclaim from Jesus that says peace be with you.

You see brothers and sisters, the resurrection is way more than showing up for worship somewhere on Easter Sunday, way more than just inviting Jesus into your heart so you can carelessly say that you believe Jesus loves you, way more than trying to put up as many walls of security as you can. Remember that Jesus doesn’t just say to the disciples “Peace be with you.” He also says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t say to me – “Prove it to me pastor. Where’s you proof that God exists? Where’s your proof that Jesus rose from the dead?”

As I think about questions like those, I also think it’s important to remember that by the time John’s gospel is written, there is probably no one left alive who has seen Jesus – alive or resurrected.

I just finished reading a wonderful book called “When ‘Spiritual but Not Religious’ Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church” by Pastor Lillian Daniel. I think the first Christians that initially heard Thomas’ story, who first proclaimed the peace and good news of the risen savior of the world even though they had never met Jesus in person may have appreciated what Pastor Lillian wrote in this book from 2013. I hope you appreciate it as well. Here’s what she wrote in the chapter “I Don’t Have to Prove It”.

“I can’t prove to you that Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected, nor that he healed people on the Sabbath or that he forgave his tormentors. I can’t prove to you that one God can also be three in one, and that together that force has parted the waters, burned bushes, and fed thousands on short rations. None of this can I prove. But I can tell you that I have faith in it.

I can say it because ‘faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.’ I can hope and believe in what is not before my eyes. I don’t have to be logical, and most of all, I don’t have to prove it. Not to you, not to anyone.

In our culture, it seems like people of faith are always on the witness stand being asked to prove things, and we Christians tend to cooperate. We come up with the search for the historical Jesus and scholars who vote on whether Jesus said this or that. or archaeological studies that will finally prove whether or not Jesus was resurrected. Documentaries on the History Channel draw us in, as if finally we might look reasonable to the viewing public, as though finally we will get our proof.

I’m tired of playing by that dull and pedestrian set of rules, which has everything to do with a litigious, factoid-hungry culture and nothing to do with following Jesus. I don’t come to church for evidence or for a closing argument. I come to experience the presence of God, to sense the mystery of things eternal, and to learn a way of life that makes no sense to those stuck sniffing around for proof.”

Christ is Risen! (He is Risen indeed)

Christ is Risen! (He is Risen indeed)

May you hear Jesus saying to you this week, “Peace be with you.” May that also be proof of the resurrected Jesus that you share with others. Amen.

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March 3, 2013

“Bear Good Fruit” 03.03.2013 Sermon

By Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Luke 13:1-9 • March 3, 2013

Click here to hear an audio recording of this sermon.

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

A little boy runs across a farmer who has a truckload of cow manure. The boy asks him what he is going to do with all of that cow poop. The farmer tells the little boy, “I’m taking it home to put on my strawberries.”

The little boy looks up at the farmer and says, “I don’t know where you come from sir, but where I come from we put cream and sugar on our strawberries.”

I’m not sure how much that joke has to do with our gospel reading today or even the sermon for that matter, but I’ve been gone for a few Sundays and thought it was kind of cute, so I figured I’d share it anyway.

This is the third Sunday in the season of Lent. In our gospel reading today, the crowds are saying some pretty crazy things to Jesus, aren’t they? About Galilean blood being shed in the temple by Pontius Pilot and intermingled with the blood of animal sacrifices on the altar because of their sin or a tower collapsing and killing innocent people because of their sin. But, we don’t say things like that anymore, do we?

During his first interview after this year’s Super Bowl, a reporter asked Ray Lewis from the Baltimore Ravens, “How does it feel to be a Super Bowl Champion?” Lewis responded, “When God is for you, who can be against you?”

Excuse me? God had a favorite team in this year’s Super Bowl? You mean God liked one of the Super Bowl coaches, the Harbaugh brothers, better than the other one?

Or how many times have you and I heard someone say or even thought this ourselves.

“The poor are poor. It’s their own fault. They should get a job.”

Or “The sick are sick. Maybe they should have taken better care of themselves and then they wouldn’t have gotten sick.”

Or how about those preachers on television who proclaim that natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy or Katrina happen because of the sins of people on the east coast or in the city of New Orleans.

Don’t those things sound a little like the crowds who confront Jesus today in Luke’s gospel? Evidently things haven’t changed much over the past 2,000 years.

I think Lent might be the most misunderstood season of the Christian church year. It often feels more like New Years Day to me rather than a season that walks us to Jerusalem and death on a cross. During Lent many of us give something up like chocolate or fast food or we try to exercise more or get more sleep. Like most of our New Year’s resolutions – many have all but disappeared by the time we reach week three.

You and I really want to change, and Lent always seems to be a pretty good time to give that a shot, especially because we’ve usually already abandoned our New Year’s resolutions by the time Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. But year after year, Lent after Lent, it comes and goes and the blood of old issues remains, buildings of bad attitudes continue to fall and hurt innocent people, and addictions continue to halt the bearing of good fruit from our trees.

Maybe instead of focusing on giving something up, we should look more deeply at what Lent may actually be calling us to be about. Especially in light of the text that we have before us today.

We often fall into the trap of assuming that our relationship with God through Jesus Christ depends upon us becoming something or changing into some sort of super hero Christian that is vastly different from who we actually are. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

I think sometimes Jesus needs to knock us upside the head and remind us of that once in a while. Remind us of all of the crazy things that we say and do and tell us, “You’ve got it all wrong.”  Or as Jesus says in verses 3 and 5 in our gospel today, “No, I tell you; but…” The “buts” in these two verses are important. They signal a turn, a turn away from worrying about the sins of others; and a turn to think about our own sins and our own life.

Jesus says, “No, I tell you: but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did!” In the 13th chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus turns the crowd away from a discussion of other people’s sins and turns it to focus on their own need for change and repentance. For your need for change and repentance. For my need for change and repentance.

I found an insight from Pastor Todd Spencer helpful this week. He wrote, “Part of the adventure of Lent is recognizing how we have participated in unfruitful ways.” And he went on to say, “So we ask God who created us to forgive us, so that we may begin anew.”

Humorist Garrison Keillor eloquently stated a long time ago that, “You can become a Christian by going to church just about as easily as you can become an automobile by sleeping in a garage.”

During this week in Lent, and at all times in our life together in the Body of Christ for that matter, Jesus calls us to repent. And repentance is not about feeling a little bit bad or guilty for something we may have said or done with the hope that we will do a little better next time. Repentance is a radical reorientation of oneself; literally a “turning around” – a complete change of heart, a total change of direction.

So you and I shouldn’t worry necessarily about Lenten resolutions, because we’re being invited into something that is far more than that during Lent. We’re being invited to fully believe and live in the paradox that Jesus offers. In light of the chaos and calamities that can happen to any one of us at any time and in light of all sin that still exists in our world today, you and I are invited each and every day to call upon God to repair our own brokenness. Don’t assume that because you are still around on this earth it’s because you bear good fruit all the time and have no need to repent.

The world may want to blame the withering tree for its inability to produce fruit; or the sin of someone else causing our own problems; or the sins of many causing horrific events like towers to fall or hurricane winds to blow. After all, at least then the world has a superficial explanation for why these things occur and someone else to blame.

The good news of the life, death, and resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ is not found in our ability to blame others for our own sin. The good news is that this Jesus offers you and me forgiveness, reaches into our very lives, reminds us of our roots, nourishes us with unconditional and abundant mercy and grace, and allows us to bloom, to flourish, to freely share our gifts with everyone we meet.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus calls you and me to repent. May that be the fruit that we bear during this third week of Lent. Bear good fruit. Amen.

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