Bishop Craig Schweitzer

John 20:19-23 • June 8, 2014 • “Forgiveness. Fire. Fear.”

Click here to view a video of this sermon.

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

There are many times when I think that some of the best theologians of our time are writers of cartoons and comic strips –Charles Schultz, the creator of the legendary comic strip Peanuts is a great example of this.

In one strip Charlie Brown stops by Lucy’s psychiatrist help stand and confesses, “My trouble is I never know if I’m doing the right thing. I need to have someone around who can tell me when I’m doing the right thing.” Lucy says, “OK. You’re doing the right thing. That’ll be five cents, please!” Charlie Brown walks away with a smile on his face.

In a few minutes, he returns with a frown. “Back already?” asks Lucy, “What happened?” Charlie Brown says, “I was wrong. It didn’t help. You need more in life than just having someone around to tell you when you’re doing the right thing.” To which Lucy says, “Now you’ve really learned something! That’s be another five cents, please.”

In our gospel reading from Saint John today, the disciples are locked in a room in fear, Jesus comes to them and says “Peace be with you” – not once, but twice. He also says, “As the father has sent me, so I send you.” And if that wasn’t enough, Jesus challenges his followers with a seemingly impossible task by saying, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Did you hear that? If living in peace, being ok with the fact that you and I are sent by God into a broken world, and forgiveness are what it means to follow the risen Jesus, I think I’m with Charlie Brown in thinking, “You need more in life than just having someone around to tell you when you’re doing the right thing.”

Because what you and I experience in life often has a whole lot more to do with division and hatred, not peace; judgment and blame, not forgiveness; and fear of everyone and everything, not great explosions of the fire of the Holy Spirit sending us out to let everyone know they are loved unconditionally by God.

On this Day of Pentecost, the Christian church celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit. Notice that the disciples don’t ask Jesus to give them the spirit. They don’t go out and prove themselves worthy before Jesus. And they sure don’t seem to have let go of their fear before Jesus breathes on them and sends them into the world.

In his newest book, We Make the Road by Walking, Brian McLaren argues that the disciples on that Day of Pentecost didn’t try to explain what was happening or think it through before letting it happen or do something to stop it from happening or become perfect in order for it to happen at all. McLaren believes that the disciples simply let the Spirit of God come. And as the spirit of God came to them, their lives, and really the lives of every human being to ever live changed.

Good Shepherd’s Transformational Ministry Leadership Team has been reading a book by Pastors Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken called Renovation of the Church: What Happens When a Seeker Church Discovers Spiritual Formation. In this book, the good pastors offer a great reflection that I think relates well to our celebration of Pentecost.

They write, “We’d be better off if we just admitted it. It is sufficient for us that Jesus has forgiven our sins and secured our eternity, leaving our daily lives relatively unaffected.” The pastors continue their insight by stating that, “We are still the self-absorbed spouses we’ve always been. We continue to have a miser’s heart. We use anger to overwhelm our opponents. We are trapped in lust. We manipulate and control to get what we want. We trust our political party more than Jesus. We ignore the poor. We have personal policies that are categorically opposed to the teaching of Christ. But we aren’t bothered enough by these disconnects to put forth the effort to cooperate with the Holy Spirit because, in spite of what we claim, we really don’t believe transformation is that important.”

Pastor Carlson and Lueken conclude by saying, “Its good [transformation] when it happens, and perhaps we should be more diligent at pursuing it, but it is not a natural or necessary consequence of salvation.”

What I hear them saying is that just because you believe the spirit of God is in you, doesn’t show others that you are a follower of Jesus any more than standing in your garage will show others that you are a car. Jesus sends us out with the spirit of God – you and I should behave and look and be different in the eyes of the world because of that.

So the question that each of us should probably be asking on this Day of Pentecost is, “How has or better yet, ‘how does’ the spirit of God coming make any difference at all?”

How does the spirit of God coming to you change how you look at a sunset or hold a newborn baby?

How does the spirit of God coming to you change how you ask someone for forgiveness or receive forgiveness from someone after years of hurt and pain?

How does the spirit of God coming to you change how you celebrate the noise of dozens of children running through the hallways of Good Shepherd during Day Camp this past week?

How does the spirit of God coming to you light you on fire in ways that destroy every fear you have ever had?

How does the spirit of God coming to you send you from this time of worship to share God’s love that is a gift for all of God’s children?

How does the spirit of God coming to you change you, change me, change the world?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the spirit of God is upon you – which is way more significant than someone who tells you when you’re doing the right thing. May you be blessed as the spirit of God comes to you, and may you bless someone else, as you share the spirit of God with one another in this walk along the road of faith. Amen.

John 14:1-14 • May 18, 2014

Click here to view a video of this sermon.

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

I want to lift up a couple of random thoughts I’ve had about today’s gospel reading from Saint John.

Even though we are in the season of Easter, take note that this text comes before the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

And the first six verses of this gospel reading are among the most beloved words in the history of the Christian church. At Good Shepherd, we hear these verses most often during funerals.

And finally, this conversation between Jesus, Thomas and Philip actually begins because of a question that Simon Peter asks Jesus just a few verses before today’s reading. In chapter 13:36, Simon Peter asks, “Lord, where are you going?” What we hear in chapter 14 is not only Jesus answer to Thomas and Philip’s questions, but also the continuation of his answer to Simon Peter’s question from chapter 13.

John’s gospel is unique in many ways, especially when we compare it to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There is no Sermon on the Mount or parables or even a nativity story. Professor Karoline Lewis offered a brief theological summary of the gospel of John this week that I thought might be helpful for our time together today. She writes, “Jesus’ farewell words to his disciples in this discourse anticipate and assume the events that lie ahead: the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension. Each one of these realities is the result of the primary theological event in the Gospel of John, the incarnation.”

Jesus – the incarnation – God’s son coming into the world. I don’t know about you, but the incarnation is one of the most comforting parts of my journey of faith and at the same time one of the hardest things for me to fully understand. I don’t think the disciples in today’s gospel are any different. They seem to be having a hard time understanding what Jesus is trying to say to them, not only about what is to come, but also about what has already come, and who already is standing before them as the incarnation.

Now I have to be honest with you. You all look like a pretty intelligent and hip bunch of folks.

I mean, if you see this in an email or text message, LOL, you know what it means right? “Laugh out loud.”

How about this one…. IDK. Of course you know that that means, “I don’t know.”

Or, here’s a little tougher one…AFAIK. It means “As far as I know.”

Wendy and I were recently at the annual gathering of Senior Pastors from Large ELCA Churches. One afternoon Wendy struck up a texting conversation with one of our daughters back in North Dakota.

Being the creative, hip, modern parents that we are, of at least think we are, Wendy’s text message conversation was about one of our dogs needing a bath while we were away. She sent this text message “WWGSABATK.” You all know what that says, right? No. Believe it or not, even our teenage daughters didn’t understand it.

WWGSABATK says, “We will give Sadie (one of our dog’s names) a bath after the kennel.” Of course it says that. How could anyone miss that?

If you’ve ever tried to have a complete conversation via text messaging, especially with a teenager, you can relate. It’s almost like Jesus is trying to have conversation with the disciples via text message. His closest friends, who really should be getting it by now, still don’t seem to get it. Still don’t understand who Jesus is and why he is here. Somewhere along the line the text message got too complicated for the disciples to understand.

In an effort to finally understand what Jesus is saying, Philip blurts out and says, “Lord, just show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” In a text message, it may have looked like this – “LJSUTFAWWBS.”

Philip and the other disciples, and in many ways you and me today, don’t get the fact that the Father is already with them and they have seen the Father through Jesus.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it’s really important to hear Jesus’ words. They are a whole lot less about a place that we hope to go to when we die and a whole lot more about relationship: our relationship with each other, our relationship with Jesus, and our relationship with God the Father through Jesus.

One last text message.

“BBGG”

This past February while I was in El Salvador with a mission team from Good Shepherd, I had the great joy of meeting and working alongside one of the newest members of Good Shepherd team – Pastor Dell Sanderson from southwest Minnesota. Pastor Dell and I were sharing stories about the congregations we serve and how exciting it is to see God at work in the midst of Jesus disciples in our congregations. We talked about moments in our congregations that literally take our breathe away. Moments that drop us to our knees in prayer. Moments that bring overwhelming joy to every part of our being. Moments that stretch our faith to the point that we struggle to even believe God exists. Pastor Dell and I believe that all of those moments – the good and the bad – are sacred. They are holy times with God and God’s children in ways that we simply will not be able to fully understand in this world.

Pastor Dell called these moments in time being “Blindsided by God’s Grace.”

I think that’s one of the things happening to the disciples in this section of John’s gospel. They are blindsided by God’s grace. They may not see it or understand it, and they will continue to cry out for proof in order to be satisfied, but it’s there. God’s grace is always there.

And I believe that that happens to you and me every day in our life in Christ too. So when you are blindsided by God’s grace this week, don’t try to understand it or explain it or rationalize it or tuck it away in a dark closet. Don’t be afraid to be Blindside by God’s Grace. Just receive it. And be blessed by it.  Amen.