Sermon for May 30, 2021

Day of the Church Year: Holy Trinity Sunday

A year ago on Holy Trinity Sunday, our nation was reeling from the death of George Floyd, a young man upon whose neck police officer Derek Chauvin set his knee for over 9 minutes in Minneapolis.  Not too long ago, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder.  When I heard the verdict, I was in a zoom meeting, of course, and I burst into tears of relief and gratitude—not because Derek Chauvin was going to prison—because the usefulness of prison for anyone is something about which I am skeptical (a topic for another time).  I burst into tears of relief and gratitude because Derek Chauvin was being held accountable for his abuse of power.  This week, as I thought about Holy Trinity Sunday and listened to podcasts and news reports reflecting on the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death, the Holy Spirit would not let me go.  I wanted to preach a sermon about wonder, about awe in the presence of a triune God, about how God enters into the world.  I really did. I had it all written and ready to go.  But the words I shared with you a year ago have arrested with me by their continued relevance for us and our nation.  And so, the following are many of the words I shared on June 7, 2020 which was also Holy Trinity Sunday.

The early Christians who first articulated the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, that is, God, Jesus, and Spirit eternally co-existent and in relationship one with the others, were people who remembered the persecution of their sisters and brothers in faith in the not so distant past.  For three centuries, Christians built community in secret, prayed in secret, studied in secret.  Those who practiced their faith publicly were imprisoned, stoned, thrown to the lions, crucified.  A few years after Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, people of faith publicly gathered to debate and discuss the nature of God—a debate and discussion that produced, among other doctrine, the doctrine of the trinity.  This was no ivory tower, no theological conference among professional theologians, no heady intellectualism.  To those who gathered to debate and discuss, the nature of God mattered.  The doctrine of the trinity mattered deeply.  People—and not just a few people—had died to proclaim and pass on to the next generation the good news of God in Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world.  Perhaps most controversial, most powerful, most counter cultural was this: God did not deign to take a body.  God embraced a body in order to be with us in Jesus. 

God embraced a body, the body of Jesus who, like every other body, hungered and tired, yearned and ached.  At the very center of Jesus’ story is the story of his body, that he, his body, is delivered into the world at Christmas, that he, his body, fasts 40 days and encounters the tempter in the wilderness, that he, his body, is beaten and suffers and is crucified on Good Friday, that he, his body, is raised and transformed on Easter.  Christians disagree on many details of doctrine, but I think we all agree on this: that Jesus’ body matters.  Upon the ascension of Jesus’ body to the right hand of God, God pours the Holy Spirit upon all flesh.   On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is incarnate, is embodied.  As Lutherans, we pray for and trust that the Spirit takes root in us on the day of our baptism, that the Spirit reveals itself through spiritual gifts and leads us in lives of faithfulness and love.  The Holy Spirit, who on this Sunday in particular we remember is the very same creator God, takes up residence in us.  Our bodies matter because God has poured out the Holy Spirit on our bodies, all bodies—according to the prophet Joel and Peter on the day of Pentecost. 

In these troubling days, when we witness across our country what I hope will lead to lasting change, when we witness yet another black body murdered without a conviction, without a trial, I pray that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity inspires us and leads us to say: Black lives matter.  Not that others’ lives don’t matter because, of course, every life matters, every body matters.  But in our beloved nation that strives to be a land of equality and opportunity and greatness, we continue to live in the stranglehold of racism.  I say stranglehold because racism is not just about what individuals say and do but about a system that is larger than any one of us.  Unfortunately, racism is so deeply embedded in US history that doing something other than unconsciously perpetuating it is difficult and requires much of us.  What exactly healing from racism requires, I’m honestly not sure, though I imagine it will be some combination of humility and listening, civic engagement and advocacy.  No matter how much we stumble as we go about this healing process, no matter how we feel, today, I hear in scripture and in the theological tradition of this church God calling us to care for bodies because bodies matter.  And the collective sorrow of our nation is that black bodies have never mattered, at least not in the way white bodies have. 

I was in college when I first read the work of Audre Lorde, a poet who taught at New York University, an activist, a mom, a black women.  In both her prose and poetry, she was a powerful, articulate writer.  This week as we communally grieved the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, I have not been able to get Lorde’s words out of my head from a paper she wrote and delivered in 1980 about the different experiences of black and white women.  She wrote: “Some problems we share as women, some we do not.  You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you, we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs upon the reasons they are dying.”  Dear friends in Christ, as we give thanks to God for meeting us in the body of Jesus and in us, the body of Christ, through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, let us not turn our backs on the reasons black bodies are dying. 

On the only Sunday in the church year where we lift up a doctrine, the doctrine of the trinity surprises us with its relevance.  Almighty God showed up in the body of Jesus, shows up in the body of Christ, and having met God in the beloved bodies of humanity, the doctrine of the trinity sets us on a path towards healing.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.  

The GLOW Show: A New Heaven & A New Earth

What does the Bible say about creation and humans’ role as part of creation? During the season of Easter on The GLOW Show, Pastor Sarah explored biblical stories and passages that reveal God’s posture towards Earth, God’s call for humans as part of creation, and the ways Jesus’ ministry was deeply embedded in creation. In this last episode, we explore Revelation 21 & 22 where John of Patmos shares a vision of a new heaven and a new earth. While we normally think of Revelation as a book detailing destruction, Pastor Sarah lifts up contemporary biblical scholarship that instead celebrates John’s vision of the healing of the nations through the tree of life and a God who makes God’s home on earth with mortals. Open your Bible to Revelation, and listen along!

Sermon for Sunday, May 23

Day of the Church Year: Pentecost Sunday

Scripture Passage: Acts 2:1-21

On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit blows through Jerusalem where Jesus’ disciples and Jews from the entire known world are gathered.  The Spirit rushes like a violent wind, burns like flames, and is heard in many languages speaking about God’s deeds of power.  The Spirit is poured out on all flesh, Peter preaches, a quote from the Old Testament prophet Joel.  The Jewish people had gathered every year for Pentecost and still do, celebrating the first fruits of the harvest and the giving of the law to Moses, and of course, Jesus’ disciples are Jewish.  They are gathered with everyone else to celebrate Pentecost in Jerusalem, but this year’s Pentecost is different than any Pentecost before.  This year, the followers of Jesus are moved to action by the Spirit, and the church is born.  After 50 disorienting days of Jesus risen and ascended, after 3 life-changing years of following Jesus, the disciples might have been ready for a little normalcy, a regular festival, like is done every year.  But that’s not what they get.  They get the Spirit instead, and then, instead of going back to the way things used to be, their lives change again.  Again and again and again.  For the Spirit moves them to preach and teach, to form communities of worship and study and prayer, to share all they possess with one another and to especially tend the needs of the most vulnerable among them, to even change their religious practices because the Spirit compels them to do so.

Sometimes on this Sunday, we sing Happy Birthday to the church.  We buy a cake and light candles.  We count the number of years we, the church, have proclaimed the good news of God in Christ.  The pouring out of the spirit births the church—and not only births the church but guides the church.  Just yesterday, a young couple were married here at Grace, and after the wedding, the mother of the bride commented to me, “When you walk into Grace, you can just feel the Holy Spirit.”  I heartily agreed with her; the people of Grace are a spirit-led people.  And while Pentecost is the birthday of the church, the pouring out of the spirit is not restricted to the church, not restricted to the disciples, not restricted to men, not restricted to Jews, not restricted to adults, not restricted to people of certain languages or certain lands.  On Pentecost, the spirit is poured out on all flesh, no restrictions.  So, besides the church, what else is born?  What else is the spirit doing? 

I ask the question because I think we forget that the Spirit of God is less concerned with whether something is “sacred” or “secular,” whether something is “spiritual” or “worldly.”  The Spirit of God is poured out on all flesh, on church folks like us, yes—but also on everyone else.  Now more than ever before in the history of the Christian church, at a time when the church needs radically to change or else will die in its present form, it behooves us to remember that the Spirit of God is not limited to what we do in this building of altar, organ, and stained glass windows.  On this, the birthday of the church, perhaps it is fitting to celebrate that we will find the Spirit of God at work wherever we go—not just at Grace Lutheran Church or First Presbyterian or Central United Methodist, but in schools and workplaces, in hospitals and libraries, in cities and small towns, in deserts and countrysides, and even in governments.  I know everyone was with me until that last one...

Our question of the day is: What is one way you see the Spirit of God working in the world, apart from the church?  To read reflection by the community, go to the Facebook Live worship feed for Sunday, May 23.

Honestly, I am thrilled that the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh, that the Spirit of God cannot be limited to the work of the church, that I will find the Spirit working wherever I go!  If you know me, you know that Pentecost is my very favorite day of the church year, and it’s for this reason: that the universal pouring out of the Holy Spirit assures me that, no matter where I go, I can expect to find the spirit there!  I saw the Spirit of God at work yesterday morning when I volunteered with Sonoran Prevention Works, a harm reduction agency, people committed to love and non-judgment, healing and hope for people who use drugs.  I see the Spirit of God at work in my neighborhood where people know each other’s names, help each other, and actually share their resources.  I see the Spirit among those who gather to listen to others’ poetry at Lawn Gnome Publishing along Roosevelt Row on Wednesday evenings, an audience completely respectful, loving, attentive, without a single cell phone open, all eyes on the brave poet at the microphone. 

Even though the Spirit is poured out on all flesh, we the church have a particular call on our individual lives, on our collective life: to be the hands and feet of Christ, to do God’s work with our hands. While the Spirit is poured out on everyone, everywhere, we who actively seek the Spirit’s guidance, on the birthday of the church, we get to have the cake and eat it too. We receive the Holy Spirit, and then, we get to do what the Spirit compels us to do.In this unique moment in the life of the institutional church, I wonder where the Spirit will lead us next, how the Spirit will bring together us church folks with all other folks, how the Spirit will bridge the gap between sacred and secular in order to bring about the world God desires. I wonder. I don’t know how that will work, but I’m sure the Spirit will lead us. Thanks be to God!Amen.

The GLOW Show: Jesus, One Embedded in Creation

What does the Bible say about creation and humans’ role as part of creation? During the season of Easter on The GLOW Show, Pastor Sarah will explore biblical stories and passages that reveal God’s posture towards Earth, God’s call for humans as part of creation, and the ways Jesus’ ministry was deeply embedded in creation. Today in particular, we explore how Jesus was profoundly embedded in creation and how he used elements of creation in his teaching and preaching.

Help Wanted: Social Worker!

After nearly two decades of serving as our Sunday morning social worker, Jeff Jirak is stepping aside. We will miss you and your family, Jeff!

We are looking for a social worker who can join us three Sunday mornings per month in order to connect our guests with health and human services. Interested? Please see the job description below and then reach out to Pastor Sarah with your resume and references at pastorsarah@graceinthecity.com.

Grace Lutheran Church

Social Worker Job Description 

Mission Statement: By God’s grace, we are in the city for good!

5 Biblical Guiding Principles

1. Jesus is Lord!

2. Pray, seek, and follow God’s will

3. Share the good news of Christ

4. Embrace God’s challenge to love and serve others

5. All are welcome

Supervisor: Pastor

Salary: $85 per Sunday

Hours: 3 Sundays per month, 7:15 am-9:30 am

            Available for occasional phone consultation, weekdays

Job Summary

The social worker refers pancake breakfast guests to human services and creates a safe, hospitable environment at the breakfast.

Position Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in social work or related field

• An awareness of human services in Phoenix for people experiencing homelessness

• Integrity and Trust: Is seen as trustworthy by others; practices direct, honest, and transparent communication; admits mistakes; responds to situations with consistency and reliability; respects the autonomy of each individual

• Interpersonal Skills: Works well with people; uses diplomacy and tact; is approachable; avoids triangulation

• Emotional Intelligence: Demonstrates strong and appropriate personal boundaries in relationships; can maintain a non-anxious presence in the midst of turmoil; can stand in the presence of others’ strong emotions without taking responsibility for them or reacting to them externally or internally

• Personal Resiliency: Can shift gears comfortably; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty; is flexible

Principle Accountabilities

• Inform and educate pancake breakfast guests about services available to them, including but not limited to housing, medical concerns, and addiction

• Keep a count of how many community members for whom s/he provides referrals or with whom s/he is in intentional conversation or counseling

• Help create a safe and hospitable environment for the pancake breakfast

• Answer Grace staff questions about community services and help Grace staff problem-solve about how to best support guests struggling with homelessness, addiction, and mental health concerns when requested

• Help orient new Grace staff to our homeless community

• Other duties as requested

To Apply

Send your resume and at least two references to Pastor Sarah Stadler at pastorsarah@graceinthecity.com.  For questions, you may reach Pastor Sarah at the Grace office at 602-258-3787.

Sermon for Sunday, May 16

Day of the Church Year: 7th Sunday of Easter

Scripture Passage: John 17:6-19

Always having been a Lutheran kid, my mental picture of nuns is shaped by movies.  By nuns, I mean, yes, Roman Catholic women who enter into a convent, live in community, and devote themselves to God.  I imagine Whoopie Goldberg in Sister Act, using music to reach out to the convent’s neighborhood and the world.  I imagine Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking, running an after school program for kids in her New Orleans neighborhood and visiting a man on death row, a story actually based on the ministry of Sister Helen Prejean.  I imagine Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, sent as governess to live with and care for the Van Trapp family.  In real life, I have never personally met a nun though I’ve certainly heard many stories from friends who grew up Roman Catholic.  What’s interesting to me is the dual narrative of nuns’ lives.  One narrative is women living in isolation though in community, praying for hours a day, married to God, and largely restricted from any interaction with the outside world, even through technology.  The other narrative is about strong, radical women using the freedom and energies of single life to pour themselves into works of justice and acts of deep love for humanity.  Though, like I said, I am not an authority on the realities of committing oneself to a convent, the dual narrative of nuns’ lives reveals the confusion that I think many of us Christians have about our relationship to the world.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus prays for his disciples on the night before his death, and he prays about this question: how the disciples are to interact with the world.  By the time John’s gospel was written, Christian persecution was in full swing: lions’ dens, crucifixion, stoning.  In this terrifying context, how are Jesus followers meant to understand and engage with the world?  Jesus asks God to protect the disciples, and he acknowledges that the world hates the disciples.  But, in verse 15, Jesus says, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.”  A couple verses later, Jesus declares, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”  The world, in the gospel of John, is a place God loves.  Remember that John is the gospel where we hear: For God so loved the world…, John 3:16.  In John, the world, the cosmos, though certainly a mixed bag of sin and righteousness, light and darkness, is not an entity to ignore or avoid or think ourselves better than.  Jesus sends the disciples into the world even though that world, literally, historically hated the disciples.  Jesus sends the disciples into the world to share the life they know in Jesus, that others may abide in him, that all people may come to love one another. 

Jesus prays that God would protect his disciples as they enter the world into which Jesus sends them, so we can only assume that Jesus sends us later Jesus followers into the world God so loves too.  Of course, Christians’ relationship with the world was one of those hot topics in theology back in the day, say, mid-20th century.  We know we’re not of the world.  Perhaps we are in the world and meant to escape unscathed.  Some of the theological reflection produced in seminaries and universities has led Christians of many traditions to try and remain unstained by the world, to read only Christian books, to listen only to Christian music, to refrain from profanity.  (I’m not saying I want to hear profanity from any of you, just being clear.)  We assume when we speak of the world that it is with disdain.  The world and its values oppose us and our values, is how the story goes.  There is a clear line drawn between Christians and non-Christians, between those who are of the world and those who are simply in it.  I think this is a grave misunderstanding of our sacred scripture. 

For one, we Christians are not somehow more pure than other people.  Just last week, someone commented to me, “It’s a good thing you weren’t here earlier, pastor.  I had some choice words about this situation.”  The person who said this to me was apologetic, implying he was not acting as a Christian should.  But the situation was genuinely frustrating, fraught with practical difficulty.  We are Jesus followers, and we are also just people living in a complex, imperfect world.

Even more importantly, the gospel of John reveals a God who so loves the world that God shows up in the flesh—in Jesus.  God does not remain unstained by the world.  God comes here, to get mixed up in all that the world is.  God enters the world, not to condemn the world but to save it, love it, feed it, heal it—to save, love, feed, and heal us.

Jesus sends us into the world, I think, like nuns into a lifetime of service to God.  We live in community because Jesus following can be hard, and we rely on each other for strength and encouragement.  Our question of the day is: What is the most spiritually fortifying part of church life for you?  Perhaps the part most fortifying for you is related to worship or perhaps to a way that you serve others here.  Perhaps it is Bible study or relationships that you have with people at Grace.  To read reflections from our community, go to the Grace Facebook live stream feed for Sunday, May 16.

We are nourished by weekly worship and prayer, music and Holy Communion, study and discussion, acts of service and relationships.  But once we are strengthened and encouraged, we go back out into the world to follow Jesus wherever he leads us, to works of justice and acts of deep love for humanity.  We go out not to condemn the world but to love it as God does...or as best we can approximate.  The world God so loves is the world where we live.  We, alongside Jesus, pray that through us and guided by the Spirit of God, all the world may know the love of God.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

The GLOW Show: The Glory of Creation

What does the Bible say about creation and humans’ role as part of creation? During the season of Easter on The GLOW Show, Pastor Sarah will explore biblical stories and passages that reveal God’s posture towards Earth, God’s call for humans as part of creation, and the ways Jesus’ ministry was deeply embedded in creation. Today, we rejoice alongside the psalmist in the glory of creation by reading Psalm 104. Grab your Bible and enjoy!

Sermon for Sunday, May 9

Sunday in the Church Year: 6th Sunday of Easter

Biblical Passage: John 15:9-17

Note: On May 9 during our sermon time, we discussed this complex biblical passage together. Jesus’ words raise more questions than they provide answers. If you are reading this sermon for the first time, I invite you to open your Bible and read John 15:9-17 and then truly consider the questions I raise during this sermon. To find some of the community’s reflections on these questions, go to the Grace In The City: Grace Lutheran Church Facebook page and find the May 9 live stream worship feed. As always, if you would like to discuss these questions over the phone, email, or in person, I would love that! Feel free to contact me.

In the gospel of John today, Jesus is gathered with disciples, his closest companions.  The message he shares is for them, not for the Pharisees, not for the crowds, for the disciples.  He is gathered with them the day before his death, calling his disciples friends, naming them intimate companions.  No one knows Jesus better than the disciples as he himself says here: I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.   What is this intimate message Jesus shares with his closest friends?  I invite you to actually open your Bibles to John 15:9-17 and walk through this passage with me. 

First of all, our passage begins in the middle of a paragraph at the beginning of which Jesus declares: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.  A few verses later, Jesus says: I am the vine, you are the branches.  Jesus tells his disciples that they rely on him for nourishment and that they and he have the closest of connections for the branch cannot survive apart from the vine.  The disciples’ connection with Jesus connects them also to God, the vinegrower.  In verses 9 and 10, we hear a similar sentiment.  Jesus’ love for us is similar to God’s love for Jesus.  Jesus then connects abiding in his love with following his commandments.  First of all, how do we abide in Jesus’ love for us?  Secondly, how does abiding in Jesus’ love empower us to keep Jesus’ commandments?

Then, in verse 12, Jesus repeats a command he shared with the disciples earlier that evening after he washed their feet.  “Love one another as I have loved you.”  How did Jesus love the disciples?  What implications does this have for how we ought to love one another?

Jesus, of course, knows that he will die the very next day, that he will lay down his life for his friends.  So, after telling them to love one another, he tells them that great love involves laying down one’s life for one’s friends.  And, in case you didn’t know it, disciples, Jesus says, you are my friends.  I lay down my life for you.  Is Jesus calling us to go and do likewise, to lay down our lives for our friends?  Are we expected to be capable of such great love?

I don’t know if Jesus meant for his followers to literally lose their lives for the sake of their friends.  I do know that losing your life for a friend was not simply Jesus’ definition of great love.   In the broader first century culture, philosophers of old heralded the virtue of laying down one’s life for one’s friend. 

However, the reality today is that we are rarely called upon to lose our lives in order to save the lives of others.  For us, the more relevant questions are: Will we lay down being right? Will we lay down popularity? Will we lay down our comfort? …to better steward Earth, to support public policy that creates wellness for the greatest number of people, to end structures that discriminate against some more than others.

Jesus is not done.  He tells the disciples: You did not choose me but I chose you.  We know Jesus picks who he wants to follow him.  He doesn’t put an announcement in the bulletin that reads: Disciples Needed for ministry.  If you’re interested, please talk with Jesus after service.  No.  Jesus goes and picks who he wants to follow him, and they do.  He’s chosen us too—in Holy Baptism.  And he tells the disciples further: I appointed you to go and bear fruit.  Clearly, in this passage, the fruit is love.  We, the branches, are called to grow and blossom and bear the fruit of love. 

In verse 11, Jesus tells the disciples: I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.  I rarely consider Jesus’ countenance, his general mood, his attitude.  But here, he speaks of being joyful and wanting to share his joy.  If we were to abide in his life and bear the fruit of love, how does this bring us joy? 

Of course, the news is always good for us if it’s from Jesus.  Even a command is good news for this command to abide in Jesus’ love and to bear the fruit of love catapults us into a life of joyous love—for ourselves, the world, and God—and then to receive that love right back.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

The GLOW Show: Awe & Humility

What does the Bible say about creation and humans’ role as part of creation? During the season of Easter on The GLOW Show, Pastor Sarah will explore biblical stories and passages that reveal God’s posture towards Earth, God’s call for humans as part of creation, and the ways Jesus’ ministry was deeply embedded in creation. Today, we explore humans’ relationship to God through the lens of creation by looking at Job 38 & 39 as well as Psalm 8. Grab your Bible and enjoy!