A People of Unclean Lips

May 27^th, 2018       “A People of Unclean Lips”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

Isaiah 6:1-8

         This morning is Trinity Sunday, one of those lectionary holidays that we would prefer not to celebrate.  Like Christ the King Sunday, this is a Sunday built on an idea, rather than a Sunday built on a text.  The idea of course, is the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The “three-in-one”.  The one God in three persons.  The holy mystery of the divine self.  Good luck finding a scripture that will explain it, (hint: there isn’t one!).

         I don’t have a lot to say about the Trinity, as I myself continue to be a student of its wonders and would not claim to have understanding of its mysteries.  And so, as we turn to our text for the day, the call of the prophet Isaiah, I think we shall focus on holiness instead.  For what is the trinity after all, if not humanity’s feeble attempt to describe the indescribable, the holy wonder of God?

         Isaiah begins his story by giving us a marker in history.  All these things happened in the year King Uzziah died, around 740 BCE.  King Uzziah’s death marks the end of the independent reign of Judah and from now on they will fall under the power of the Assyrian empire.  It’s not a good time for the people of Israel.

         Isaiah is a priest, and when he is in the temple performing his priestly functions he has a vision of God.  The temple was the place where the power of God connected with the earth, so it makes sense that it happens there.  It’s almost like Isaiah was able to see up into the invisible second story of the building, the throne room where God resided. 

         What Isaiah sees is terribly overwhelming and frightening.  The Lord is on the throne and the hem of his robe fills the whole temple.  There are sexual overtones in this imagery; God’s power is real big.  The Seraphs are in attendance, and these are six winged angels of fire.  This is where we get into those crazy Bible images of God that you won’t find in any Thomas Kinkaid paintings.   Isaiah sees fire angels with six wings; two that cover their faces to hide themselves from the power and glory of God, two that cover their nakedness (that’s the feet), and two wings to fly with.  So, Isaiah sees God with a big robe, and naked fire angels.

         Plus, everyone is singing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  And their voices are so loud that they shake the foundations of the building.  Plus the whole place is full of smoke.  Could be incense, could be the altar, or it could be those naked fire angels.  Whatever it is, the whole scene is so frightening that Isaiah is lucky he doesn’t pee his pants.

         Instead of losing control of his bladder, Isaiah just assumes he is going to die.  No one can see God and live, and whatever he has just seen, he figures he wasn’t supposed to see.  Even though Isaiah has lived within the elite priestly class, following all the rules of cleanliness, Isaiah is fully aware of his sinful state.  “Woe is me!” (Translate as “I’m gonna die!”)  “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

         Now that he’s yelling too, Isaiah gets noticed by the heavenly hosts, and a naked fire angel grabs a hot coal off the altar, (who even knows what’s on fire over there!!) and touches Isaiah’s lips with the burning coal.  Talk about being set on fire by the Holy Spirit!  The angel tells Isaiah, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”  (I guess that’s one way to do it!)

         Now Isaiah hears the voice of God, not talking to him, but talking instead to the others gathered in this heavenly throne room.  “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  Notice the plurality there, “us” and not “me”.  That’s why we read this on Trinity Sunday.  Isaiah is feeling the Spirit, and he just had his lips burnt off, his dirty mouth washed out with heavenly fire, and so he cries “Here am I: send me!”

         The lectionary stops here because this is a great place to stop.  We can easily connect with the wonder and awe of God in this story.  God is so big, God is so holy, and God is actually pretty frightening.  When we are faced with the power of God, we will cower in fear.  And yet when we confess our sinfulness, God offers us forgiveness.  We are cleansed from sin, and are free to answer God’s call to service.  That is an awesome sermon.  Too bad it doesn’t hold up.

         If we keep reading, we find that Isaiah probably should have kept his mouth shut until he heard what the assignment was.  God tells Isaiah to “Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.’  Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.”

         “Wait a minute, what?!?”  What is going on here??  God is asking Isaiah to tell the people not to understand, to tell the people not to see, to tell the people not to notice God.  God is asking Isaiah, to help the people turn away from God so that they cannot be healed.  It is a horrible request, it’s offensive.  And Isaiah’s not happy about it.

         “How long, O Lord?”  How long will Isaiah have to spread this awful message? 

         God answers; “Until the cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate; until the Lord sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.  Even if a tenth part remain in it; it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled.” 

         This is not good news.  Isaiah is to help keep the people turned away from God until the people are all gone.  Until the land is desolate and abandoned.  God might have promised never to destroy the earth in flood, but God certainly seems intent on destroying the people of Israel in this reading.  I am sure Isaiah was heartbroken.  No one wants an assignment like this.

         It’s hard to find a hopeful place to hang on a sermon on with this text.  It’s hard to understand who this crazy super powerful, super holy, kind-of-mean God is.  When God is done talking to Isaiah, there is one line left.  The text says “The holy seed is its stump.”  It doesn’t have that part in quotes so it doesn’t look like God says it.  Almost like this is the line of the narrator.  Like whoever wrote this down was also bothered by what it said, and needed to find a kernel of hope in the story.  The holy seed is its stump.  God will burn it all down until there is nothing but a stump left, but the holy seed is in that stump.  Things will get worse before they get better, but there is new life in that stump.

         You know, King Uzziah’s reign was marked by economic prosperity for the nation of Israel but the people had turned away from God in their pride.  Isaiah will spend years preaching against the nation he is a member of.  He will accuse the nation of political arrogance, of spiritual pride, and of economic injustice.  The voice of the Lord will call the people to task, for all the ways that they have failed. 

         When I look at our world today, I know I am a person of unclean lips and I am certain I live among a people of unclean lips.  We are mired in sinfulness and corruption.   We are full of spiritual pride.  We are so busy worshipping ourselves and each other, that we don’t have time to worship God.  And don’t even get me started on economic injustice, let alone the political arrogance on display in our country today.  Oh boy, I am sure Isaiah would have some choice words for modern America.

         Some days I get a vision of hope, I see God in the ways we carry each other through this life.  But other days I am overcome by our sinfulness.  As a nation, are we getting better or are we getting worse?  I sure hope we don’t have to burn all the way down to the stump before we can find our holy seed.

         Isaiah was overcome with a vision of the holiness of God.  And he responded willingly when called, totally unaware of the near suicide mission he was going on.  God cleansed Isaiah and sent him on his way, to preach death and destruction to the people of Israel. 

         Like Isaiah, we look around at our world and ask, “How long O Lord?”  Let us hope that God’s answer isn’t until we reach the point of utter desolation.  Let us pray “come Lord Jesus”, root from the stump of Jessie.  Holy seed in the burnt out stump.  Help us Jesus to open our eyes, help us to open our ears, help us to look with our eyes and listen with our ears, and understand with our minds, and turn and be healed.  Please, God, let us turn and be healed.  Amen. 

        

Burn the House Down

May 20^th, 2018          “Burn the House Down”       Rev. Heather Jepsen

Acts 2:1-21 with Romans 8:22-27

(Listen to “AJR – Burn the House Down” – through 1:15) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozbnTScWups

         Whoa!  Is Pastor Heather drunk?  No, it’s only 11:00 in the morning!

         I’m attempting to get you into the true spirit of Pentecost which is about so much more than celebrating the birthday of the church.  I want you to feel the wonder and the amazement the first Christians felt that morning as the Holy Spirit took over the people of Jerusalem.  Like this morning people were shocked and upset.  Some of them kind of liked it and others hoped it would just end.  The wind of Pentecost is a wind that uproots and challenges.  The fire of Pentecost is a fire that will burn the whole house down.

         Imagine that morning.  The disciples were gathered together when suddenly a huge rush of wind blew through the place.  It was a gust of sound and violence, a shocking, jarring event.  It grabbed everyone’s attention and put everybody on their knees.  Fire came down from the sky to light atop everyone’s heads and all were filled with the amazing fire of God.  Words poured forth uncontrollably from shocked mouths as men and women, all of them, began to speak different languages. 

         The people rushed into the square and all those gathered around are shocked at the sight.  Aren’t these people Jews, how come they know all of our languages?  As the people babble on, sharing the good news of salvation, some onlookers grow excited and others grow upset.  What is this whole scene about anyway?  These people are drunk, or simply trying to get our attention.  Many believe that surely this is some kind of stunt.

         Peter interrupts the scene of chaos.  This is no stunt, this is the power of God; a power to break down barriers that divide people and nations.  No longer will the Jews be the sole bearers of the love of God.  From this point forward, the Holy Spirit will rain down on all people; it will set fire to all of creation.  Young and old, men and women, rich and poor, slave and free; all our old walls of separation are blown down by the rush of a violent wind.  All the houses we hide in to separate ourselves from each other and from God will be set on fire.  God will burn this whole house down.

         As the church grows staid and settled in its ways we are tempted to forget about the fire of Pentecost.  We are happy to “celebrate good times”, eat a cupcake, and remember the church’s birthday.  That’s right up our alley and right in our comfort zone.  The church is nearly 2000 years old, how exciting can the birthdays be at this point? 

         We forget that the church was born in fire.  And we forget that more often than not, the power of God is the power to tear down existing structures and traditions.  God has always been about fire.  From the fire on the mountain as Moses receives the Ten Commandments; to John the baptizer who preaches sermons of fire warning that Jesus will baptize us with fire and the Holy Spirit.  God’s power is a power of radical transformation, and God is not afraid to tear down old temples to build a new church.

         God’s people have always felt dissatisfaction with the systems and structures of power.  We have always been longing and aching for more, for change.  When we pray that God’s kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven, we are praying for a rush of violent wind.  We are praying for God to burn down the house of unjust power to give birth to new life and the kingdom of God.  God changes the world in fire.

         In his letter to the Romans, Paul is addressing this longing for change.  He compares his people’s pain and angst to the pains of a woman in labor.  The whole creation is groaning for rebirth.  We ourselves, born of the Spirit in fire, feel those pains of creation.  With the creation we are groaning, laboring, working toward new birth and change in our world.  We are longing for justice; for the end of racism, sexism, classism, and all the other isms.  We are longing for peace between the people of Israel and the people of Palestine.  We are longing for just systems of government, where health care and the safety of all are priorities.  We are longing for a just economy with fair wages and the end of poverty and hunger.  With sighs too deep for words the Spirit cries for change and is groaning in labor towards a new creation.  We are eager for God to burn down the unjust house we have built, and raise us up a new and healed creation. 

         The message of Jesus Christ is always one that burns the house down.   Jesus was a threat to those in power, to the religious authorities and to the Roman government and it got him killed.  The powers that be never like change.  But God always challenges us to change, God always pushes our boundaries, God always mixes it up, does something new, and makes a new way in the world.  The flames of God burn down our walls of separation and division, they burn down our structures of injustice, and they burn down the temples we have raised to honor ourselves.

         God is always doing a new thing, and today we welcome and honor the newest members among us.  Ana, Amber, and Claire join the church today.  Sure, they are not new in the sense that we have known them for years.  But today we welcome them as equals, as fellow believers, and as leaders of this church.  Today we invite them to have the same voice and vote as any of us.  Today we invite them to tell us what they think about who God is and who God is calling this church to be.  Today our young women see visions and dream dreams about the future of God’s church.

         We don’t like change and we don’t like challenge.  On Pentecost we would rather sing “Happy Birthday” and go about our business and forget that the church was born in fire and that the church is called to live and breathe fire in our world.  If we are to be the true church, if we are to be true followers of our faith, then we need to be willing to burn the house down.  We need to be willing to challenge unjust structures and systems.  We need to be willing to do something different in worship.  We need to be willing to welcome the stranger.  We need to be willing to follow where the Spirit leads, especially when we are led into uncomfortable places.

         This Pentecost we need to remember that we are baptized in fire, we live and breathe fire, we worship a God who burns the house down.  God challenges our yearning for familiar comfort with a wind and fire from heaven.  God blows us in new directions and sets our hearts on fire to change the world.  This Pentecost I challenge you to embrace the fire of your faith.  Harness that energy, live that fire, change the world, and work to bring about God’s kingdom of justice and peace. 

Let’s burn the whole house down!

(Listen to “AJR – Burn the House Down” – to finish)

Ascension of the Lord

May 13^th, 2018     “Ascension of the Lord”    Rev. Heather Jepsen

Luke 24:44-53 and Acts 1:1-11

The Ascension of the Lord is one of those church holidays that we skip more often than not, probably because it always happens on a weekday and most of us aren’t here on weekdays.  The Ascension of the Lord is celebrated 10 days before Pentecost which means it happened last Thursday.  Another reason we often skip telling the Ascension story is that it is such a strange story to tell.

         In our church year we celebrate quite a few happy holidays.  My personal favorite is Christmas when we celebrate the coming of our Lord as one of us in the form of the baby Jesus.  And we all love to celebrate Easter and the coming of our Lord afresh in our lives as the one who has conquered death on our behalf.  And most of us even love to celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, because that is the Sunday when we sing a little louder and clap a little more.  By the way – don’t forget to wear red next Sunday for our celebration.  But the truth is, no one wants to celebrate the ascension because it is not about the coming of anything good; in fact, the ascension is all about saying goodbye.

         Of the gospel writers, only Luke tells the story of Jesus being carried bodily up into heaven after his resurrection.  Though he is the only one to tell this story, Luke gives a spare account of what happens.  Jesus gives a final word to his disciples, lifts up his hands in blessing, and then is carried up into the heavens.  Even though we don’t consider the ascension often, I think we all have a collective picture of this in our heads.  Almost every church that has stained glass windows has a window of the ascension; we don’t of course, but many churches do.  I am sure most of us here can imagine Jesus, his body hovering just feet above the disciples’ heads, his hands outstretched toward them in a blessing as he is raised up in a sunbeam and transported into the clouds like he’s riding some sort of holy escalator.

         The only other place we read about the ascension is in Luke’s other book, Acts.  In Acts, Jesus teaches the disciples that the Holy Spirit is about to come upon them, foreshadowing the day of Pentecost.  Then as they watch he is lifted up into the clouds.  The disciples sit there staring at the sky with their mouths hanging open until they notice two angels with them.  The angels say, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven?” as if staring into the sky is not the proper response to having just seen someone float up into the clouds.

         It’s hard to imagine what this moment was like for the disciples.  Here was Jesus, saying goodbye to them all.  Of course for us, living without the physical presence of Jesus is pretty normal.  We would be much more shocked and surprised if Jesus was suddenly physically present with us than we ever are at his absence.  It has been almost 2000 years since that day the disciples stared up into the blinding sun and by now we are pretty used to the fact that Jesus has physically left the earth.

         Preacher Barbara Brown Taylor points out that the ascension is so hard for us because it is such an abstract idea.  She writes,

“Almost everything else that happened to Jesus makes sense in terms of my own life.  He was born to a human mother; so was I.  He ate and drank and slept at night; so do I.  He loved people and got angry with people and forgave people; so have I.  He wept; me too.  He died; I will die too.  He rose from the dead; I even know something about that.  I have had some Easter mornings of my own – joy found in the midst of sorrow, life in the midst of death.  But ascending into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God?  That is where Jesus and I part company.  That is where he leaves me in the dust.  My only experience of the ascension is from the ground, my neck cranked back as far as it will go, my mouth wide open, my face shielded from the sun by the cloud that is bearing my Lord away.”

As a church holiday and as a story of our faith, the ascension is so easily ignored by us simply because we have nowhere to file it away within our own experiences. 

         Now in his gospel, Luke says that after the ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem with much joy and that they were continually in the temple worshipping God.  Now I imagine this was true to some extent but after a point I am sure they lost a bit of their enthusiasm.  Having never really known a long term absence of Christ, they would constantly be wondering when he was coming back.  As days turned into weeks, then months and then years they must have wondered just where Jesus went.  How many of them died carrying a deep disappointment that the Lord had not returned within their own lifetime?  Goodbyes are never easy.

          If we look at the role of the disciples that day, we see bits and pieces of our own lives; for we all know what it is to say goodbye, and we all know what it is to feel an absence in our lives.  To feel an absence there must first have been a presence.  Absence is that silent house after the kids have gone off to college; we see it in the too quiet, too clean bedroom, and in the overstocked fridge.  Absence is reaching our arm across the bed at night to find our beloved’s spot empty and cold.  Absence is the first time out at a favorite lunch spot, missing our recently departed friend and knowing exactly what she would have ordered if she was there.  Absence is that lonely return home to an empty yard and a discarded chew toy after the loss of a beloved pet.  We all know absence.

         And like the disciples, we all know the absence of God in our lives.  We feel that sense of longing, that sense of reaching out for more.  It is almost as if we feel that we were once connected with God but we no longer are.  There is a void in our lives, and a constant desire to get closer to God.  Through prayer, study, and attending church we are trying to get ourselves right with God, to get back to that place where there was no space of absence between us, only a sense of presence.

         I think the message the angels had for the disciples that day is also a message for us.  “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”  Why do you spend all your time staring into space looking for God?  Why do you search for something which is gone and will never be the same again?  Instead, look down and look around you.  For God is here among us, we can find God in each other and we can find God here in the church.  We can know God in a new way.  We don’t need to spend our time looking up, for God is everywhere around us.  

The ascension teaches us is that we should stop looking for God in the clouds and look for God instead here amongst each other.  Last Sunday the choir sang that “We are not alone, for God is with us.”  God is with us, in the hearts, hands, and hugs of our neighbors.  If we want to reconnect with God, to lessen our sense of absence, then we need to reconnect with each other.  We need to reach out to each other in love, for we all have a piece of God within us and it is together that we can do God’s work in the world.  Like waking from a dream of separateness and self-isolation, we can come to realize that we are not alone in this world.  Rather we are connected to each other and connected to God; and that this connection is the kingdom of heaven.

         As we gather at the table, we celebrate the kingdom with joy.  The table is a place where we gather with believers of every time and place.  Yes, Jesus ascended into heaven and left the disciples behind staring at the sun.  But he also gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit that binds us together here at the table and out in the world.  This is the feast of celebration, the table that is now and the table that will be when people gather from the far corners of the earth to be together in celebration of the risen and ascended Lord.  The kingdom of heaven is here at the table and this table looks forward to the kingdom of heaven fulfilled.

Next Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost, the arrival of the Holy Spirit and the fire that gave birth to the early church.  But today I think we should hang out in the in-between time with the disciples.  We should ponder the lifting up of Christ into the clouds, and consider what it was like for the disciples to stare into the sun that day.  We should sit with them as they first experience the absence of their Lord.  And we should listen to the voices of the angels who tell us we should not look for our God in the sky, but rather we should look for God here, in our hearts together, at worship and at the table.  Amen.

Joyful Living

May 6^th, 2018     “Joyful Living”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

John 15:9-17 with Acts 10:44-48

         Last year during our Stewardship season I preached a series of sermons on joy.  From compassion and forgiveness to generosity and gratitude, we reviewed several practices that would help us achieve more joyful living.  Jesus’ teaching in our gospel reading this morning is right along that same line of thinking.  In fact, we could have included it in our study of joy.  Love each other as I have loved you, Jesus commands, and in doing so Jesus promises our joy will be made complete.

         Our reading for this morning looks a lot like our text from last week all about love.  This year as the lectionary bounces between Mark and John we will often find that our John weeks get pretty repetitive.  Like a long winded orator, the writer of the gospel of John latches on to an idea and then spends page after page expanding on all his thoughts.  So here we have Jesus in his marathon last supper sermon, continuing to expound on the ideals of loving our neighbors.  Basically a re-hash of what we discussed last week.

         The challenge for the preacher of course is finding something new to say each Sunday about subject matter that we just went over.  Today, of course, I am thinking about joy.  If we follow Jesus’ prescription for life, if we keep the commandments and abide in love, then the joy of the Christ will be manifest in our hearts and our joy will be complete.

         When I think of joy, my first thought is the exhilaration of moments of pure happiness.  I think of holding new born babies, and riding my bike really fast down a hill, I think of the sun on my face and the pleasure of watching flowers I’ve planted bloom, I think of the pride I have in my children and the simplicity of playing music with my friend Lorraine, I think of time spent with friends and the deepening bond of family relationships; all of these things are joy to me.  So how does that connect with what Jesus is talking about?  Jesus suggests that this feeling of happiness and love, this joy in my heart, will grow and spread if I am able to abide in God and follow the commandments given.

         Jesus makes it clear that he isn’t focused on all the rules of the Bible in this search for joy.  For example, this isn’t about following all the Levitical codes to achieve happiness.  Rather, this is about one commandment, the commandment that Jesus gives.  “Love one another as I have loved you.”  And how has Jesus loved us?  “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

         Once again we come to the core of the Christian message.  The gospel we preach and practice is to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to put the needs of others before our own needs.  This is a love that is primarily interested in the well-being of other people, and when we shift our focus in this way, then our joy will be made complete.

         This is a fine sentiment but things get tricky in practice, because of course, loving our neighbor does not come easy.  We see this in our reading from Acts.  Peter is speaking to the crowds in Caesarea and the Holy Spirit falls on all the people, Jews and Gentiles.  The Jews that are with Peter are astounded, amazed, and dumbfounded.  How could the gifts of God be poured out on the Gentiles, on the Romans, on those who would persecute God’s people?  It doesn’t make sense.  Doesn’t God know who the good people are and who the bad people are?

         Peter himself has been wrestling with the idea of what is good and what is bad according to the Lord.  A few days prior to this, Peter had a dream in which appeared before him a smorgasbord of all the worlds’ tasty delicacies that were off limits for good Jews.  God commands Peter to eat of that which had been previously prohibited and Peter is unable, claiming never to have crossed that line.  Then a voice comes from the heavens, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  Peter awakes from his dream to be sent to the Gentiles.

         In the book of Acts, we find that the love of God will no longer be limited to a certain group of people.  Through the nature and person of Jesus Christ, all are invited to be the chosen people of God.  God’s promise of grace and mercy is open to everybody and everybody becomes our neighbor.  Suddenly the list of people I have to be willing to lay down my life for gets pretty long.

         There is so much division in our modern experience that it is a lot easier to write certain people off when it comes to this commandment to love one another.  I came across a great story this week about Sally Kohn, a liberal commentator who often appears on Fox News.  She has recently published a book, "The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity" in which she writes about seeking to connect with people with whom she vehemently disagrees, some of whom have written hateful things about her online.

She writes, "I found my answer in my aunt Lucy who lives in the middle of the country and is a conservative Republican.  She loves me and my partner and our daughter and welcomes us with open arms at every family occasion we manage to attend.  The few times we have cautiously talked politics, Aunt Lucy has been curious and kind.  Aunt Lucy watches Fox News, and eventually it dawned on me that most Fox viewers are probably just like her - decent, curious about the news, intending to learn and do something good with the information.  I started to picture my aunt Lucy when I would go on Fox. ... It made it easier for me to think and talk and act from a place of kindness, not hate - not to essentialize the invisible people on the other side of those screens but instead imagine my Aunt Lucy, someone I love and respect."

         This is just one small example of how we can love our neighbors, even those on the opposite side of the divisions in our country.  For Sally, imagining her aunt Lucy who she knows and loves helped her to love all the neighbors who watch Fox news, some of which may respond to her with unfriendly comments.  Her neighbors didn’t change, but the way Sally thought about them did.  The same was true for Peter, the Gentiles themselves didn’t change, but the way Peter thought about them did.

         So too, we can change the way we think about those who are different then us.  I have many friends on both sides of the political spectrum, and though we often disagree we can also find common ground in our friendship.  When I am interacting with those who aren’t my friends who might truly offend me with their political sensibilities, I try to think of these friends who I know and love.  If I can change the way I think about those on the other side of the aisle, then I can recognize my neighbor with love.

         This calls for work on our parts, and it calls us to step outside our comfort zones.  This is how we lay down our lives.  We put aside our opinions, we put aside our desire to win an argument, and we put aside our need to be “right” (whatever that is).  We lay down ourselves and listen to and respect our neighbors.  It doesn’t mean we agree, but it does mean that we go forward with love and not anger in our hearts.

         And here is where we get to the joy.  When we are able to offer others grace, when we are able to make friendships with those across the aisle, then we are able to let go of the anger and negativity that swirls in the climate of our country.  We are able to allow space for more joy in our lives.  When we are able to see and love others, then we abide in God, and our joy is made complete.

         We could call this compassion, this empathy and loving kindness toward others, and I would remind you from our stewardship sermon series that compassion is a root of joy.  Science says that compassion is good for you.  Practicing compassion releases endorphins in our brains and lights our reward centers up just like when we eat chocolate.  Oxytocin is released when we are compassionate, which leads to a reduction of cardiovascular inflammation.  Compassion is literally good for your heart and it feels like joy!  We are most joyful when we are focused on others.  When we are self-centered, thinking only of me, me, me; is when we are the most depressed.  When we are thinking of others, when we are helping others, when we are practicing compassion, that is when we are most joyful.  When we are able to lay down our own life’s desires for our neighbors is when our joy will be made complete.

         So once again this week we have Jesus telling us to love our neighbors.  We also have Peter reminding us that our neighbors will not be what we expect or who we even desire to spend time with.  But, if we are to abide in God’s love, then we will recognize these strangers as our friends.  Jesus has told us to love one another, and in doing so; our joy will be made complete.  This is the secret to joyful living.  Amen.

        

God is Love

April 29^th, 2018                             “God is Love”                       Rev. Heather Jepsen

1 John 4:7-21

         Unlike most 40 year olds, I spend a lot of time thinking about my funeral.  As a person who often offers prayers at funerals for people I know and people I only know through the stories of others, I often find myself imagining my own funeral.  I hope it’s a long time away, and I won’t be able to attend of course, but I have some ideas about what I want it to be like.  I want us to sing “In the Bulb There is a Flower” that we sang in worship two weeks ago, that is one of my favorite hymns and it has such a good resurrection theme.  As far as other hymns there are so many I love I can’t choose today.  I do know what scripture I want read though, I want this one, 1 John 4:7-21.  This is my religion and this is my life.  I have crafted my world around this scripture reading, so if I die before you do, please remember to read this at my funeral.

         Like a lot of books in our Bible, we don’t really know who wrote 1^st John.  The general consensus was that it was probably an elder in the early church community that may or may not have been connected to the gospel of John.  While 2^nd and 3^rd John are clearly letters, 1^st John is more like a sermon.  Personally, I like to think of this as a sermon written for the early church community.  And what a sermon it is!  This is a great little treatise on theology, the person and nature of Jesus Christ, and the true marks of the Christian community.  This is wonderful writing that is still powerful and meaningful in our own time, thousands of years after it was written.

         This writing is so good that it doesn’t make sense for me to read it all to you and then proceed to talk to you about it for 15 minutes like I do most weeks.  Instead, I would like us to examine it together to find out what it says.  So everyone open your pew Bibles to page 991 and we will let the author speak for himself.

         (Read 1 John 4:7-12)

         What a marvelously rich paragraph!  God is love.  And this God is one who spends and expresses that love on us.  God loved us and expressed that love in the nature and person of Jesus Christ.  Because we are loved by God, then we are able to love others.  The author wants us to understand that our ability to love comes from God first; it is not something we are able to do on our own.  We don’t love others and then are loved by God.  Rather, God loves us first and then we are able to love others.  In addition, it is in showing this love to others, it is in living this love in the world, that we are then able to know and comprehend God. 

         This experience of love is a new birth; it is a new opportunity for every person.  Some may say they don’t know the love of God.  For these people, the chance to be reborn into the love of God remains.  When we are reborn into God’s love, when we see and know God’s love, then we are able to fully love others.  We cannot see God, we cannot know God, but we can see and know each other.  And when we love others, then we see and know God who lives in us and in them.  God is love, and when we live lives of love, then God is within our hearts.  We are made perfect in love.  This is grace and the forgiveness of sin.  Once we were broken, but now we know love and we are able to love others, now we are made whole.

         (Read 1 John 4:13-16a)

         You can see here how similar this writing is to the gospel of John.  This reading sounds a lot like what Mary read about the vine and the branches and about how believers must abide in Jesus Christ.  We find lots of language about abiding, and the author continues to spin text around this idea of love. 

Here the author is also expanding things theologically.  The whole of the trinity is addressed in this passage.  It is the work of the Father to send the Son into the world to teach us how to love.  It is the work of the Son to show us what love is, thereby offering us salvation.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit to move within us to help us see the love of God and accept that love within our own hearts.  That same spirit enables us to live the love of God and share that love with others.  You can see the working of the Trinity here, enabling us to know and live the love of God.

         (Read 1 John 4:16b-21)

         Here is where the rubber meets the road.  Again our author reminds us that God is love and it is this very love in our hearts and in our world that is the presence and power of God within our midst.  Our author has already told us that this love is perfected when we love our neighbors.  Now the author takes time to counter false theologies.

         First, the theology of fear.  I spoke a few weeks ago about how much fear acts as a motivator in our lives.  We also know that for many people fear is wrapped up in religious beliefs.  There are many churches that operate on a theology of fear, convincing people that our God is a God of judgment and wrath.  This religion teaches that God is one who desires suffering and death for all people who do not fit some mold of perfection.  Following this is the idea that Jesus was created to suffer this punishment and death on our behalf.  Who gets to decide what life is forgiven or what life meets the requirements of perfection?  Often their idea of perfection is not gleaned from the scriptures, but from the political leanings of the religious leaders of these churches.  Follow our rules and toe the line, these churches teach, or suffer the wrath of God.  While fear is certainly a strong motivator to get people to attend church, I don’t think this is a theology that the author of 1^st John would support. 

         I think this text challenges a theology of fear and judgment.  The author tells us that if we have the love of God in our hearts, then we need not fear judgment.  If we are living a life in love, we will not be judged for we are one with God.  There is not some standard of perfection that needs to be achieved.  Instead there is freedom in love.  It is love that is our salvation, it is love that frees us from judgement, and it is love that frees us from punishment.  There is no room for fear when we are awash in the love of God, as perfect love casts out fear.  Do not let fear be a religious motivation for you.

         The other false theology that is challenged here is that we should love only certain people.  Again, there are churches that tell us that some folks are worthy of God’s love and our love and others are not.  Our author warns us against such teaching.  If we say we love God but do not love our neighbors, all of our neighbors, then we really do not have the love of God in our hearts.  If we are to love God, then we must also love those we meet in this world, our brothers and sisters on this planet.  This is not a task we can achieve on our own.  Rather, this is a gift from God.  We love because God first loved us; it is not something we can take credit for. 

I started this sermon by telling you that this scripture reading is the core of my theology.  When people ask what I believe about God and religion I can point them to this scripture.  This is what is within my heart and this is how I try to live each day.  This is my religion and it really is quite simple “God loves us, and so we love others.  When we love others, then we love God.”  That’s it!

This mantra of religion is easy to understand but it can be difficult to put into practice.  It is not something we will understand or achieve overnight.  Rather this is the work of a lifetime of faith.  One is always trying to do better, to love more, and thus to get closer to knowledge of God.  This is an area where my heart is always growing.

In my own life, I practice this by trying to think about love.  I try to have love at the forefront of my mind and heart when I am interacting with others.  Sometimes it is easy, like when I am at church.  On Sunday’s I put love on like a comfortable shirt and can wear it everywhere easy as pie.  In other places of my life it is not that easy.  When I am running errands, I often forget about love in my hurry to get things done.  I am focused on my to-do list and so I don’t notice my neighbor as easily and I don’t love my neighbor as well.  When I am in traffic and someone cuts me off, I lose sight of love as I curse the other driver as a fool.  When I am tried after a long day and someone comes to the church asking for money, I lose sight of love because I just want to go home and be done with the world.  When it is Monday morning and I haven’t had any coffee yet and the kids are nagging me and each other, I lose sight of love as I lose my temper. 

Just like you, I am not perfect.  I think of my life as a workbook of love, a project of love.  I know that love is hard, and I know that I will fail.  God is love, but I am human.  I can live love in some moments, and in others I will miss the mark and live sin instead.  But I rest in the assurance that God forgives me; if perfect love casts out fear than I live without fear of judgment.  I also try to practice love by offering myself forgiveness for my failings.  I try to start each day each moment as a fresh start in love.  I accept God’s offer of grace and I am reborn in love each morning and each moment.

I want this read at my funeral because this is the most important text for me.  This is the core of who I am and this is how I try to live each day.  When I die I don’t want folks to be comforted with thoughts of heaven, while a lovely sentiment that is not how I live.  Rather, I hope friends would be motivated to be born afresh in their own hearts, to be persuaded to try this religion of living love.  Funerals are more about how we lived then how we died and if this is my last day on earth, which I certainly hope it’s not, but if it is . . . then I want to have done my best.  I want to have tried.  I want to live love without regrets.  If this is all there is for me then I want to love you, because God loves you and God loves me.  Love is the only thing that matters.  I believe that, and I hope we can live like we believe it together.  Love is the only thing that matters.

This morning, our scriptures remind us that God is love, and those who abide in love, abide in God.  It really is that simple.  May we all strive to practice living lives of love in our messy world.  And when we die, may they say of us, that person loved well.  Amen.