Zelig’s Letter to the Corinthians

Sunday, February 8, 2009
Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Readings:
Isaiah 40:21-31
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39

Audio sermon file: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/34800BED-283C-77F5-5580-F762D094644A.mp3

In Isaiah, we run into the feeling of desperation, destinies & futures no longer in our control. Today, in a frantic world, you can also feel the desperation. You can taste it becaue it’s touched most doorsteps in one way or another. The message in Isaiah is still this:

No matter your current condition, God is SO beyond human understanding and He will deliver us … in His time.

Our relationship with God is not quid pro quo. It ALWAYS requires waiting. And not like the sign I saw two years ago in NY’s Penn Station “EXPRESS WAITING”. This waiting may actually “take some time”.

When you feel (and we all do at some point, usually “a low point”) like “Nothing ever changes!” …

In the waiting comes the strength. And in the strength comes the deliverance.

IF we don’t allow ourselves to be defined by the economic turndown, the diagnosis, the illness, we can wait for the that strength and deliverance. But when we “go it alone”, it’s too hard! When we’re surrounded by cynics, it’s almost impossible.

Paul even says, “There’s 2 kinds of people … and I’m going to ‘hang with both’ “. He’ll be whatever he needs to be to get this message across. Scientific research indicates that abbies of many species are often born resembling the father somewhat enough in order to keep him around the nest longer. We may be vain, but we “like to hang with our own”. Paul, like the Leonard Zelig character played by Woody Allen, “has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him.”

Paul will become lie the hungry if he has to in order to deliver the message. It’s too important. It’s time to win over those “on the other side”. The Good News is we ALL have the power to do that! The message is so big the whole town shows up for Jesus … and the message is too big for one town, so Jesus takes the show on the road.

The message is BIG … bigger than the squabbling we make over race, sexual orientation, sacrificial meats, religion, gender … WAY BIGGER … and the News today is you have the power to be the courier .

The Knee Bone’s Attached to the Hip Bone

Sunday, February 1, 2009
Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Readings:
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

Audio sermon file: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/292/27A4D042-92BA-8480-A9EA-6D96EEDF8348.mp3

“I don’t know anybody who’s picked this text for their wedding text. I don’t know anybody who’s picked this text for their funeral text.” So Pastor Mohn points out about today’s 2nd reading from Corinthians. It’s a text on which much preaching is apparently undertaken. It’s interesting. But Pastor Mohn takes it on with a unique perspective. We start, once again, by asking “Where’s the Good News here?”

We have people taking serious stances on “the eating of sacrificial meats” from other religions. Paul nearly becomes a Vegan for the Gospel as he sorts through the differing rationalizations run amok: it doesn’t matter because those “other Gods” don’t exist, it doesn’t matter at all, it’s only food, you name it. The disagreement is born over struggling “What’s the right thing to do?”

Paul says “It doesn’t matter. It’s not as big as we’re all making it out to be.”

“Did you ever have an argument whereby winning you ruined your relationship?”

When the need to prove one’s point overrides, we may pull out the stops. The argument can turn numerical, authoritative. Pastor Mohn points out that we’ve all walked in on conversations wed don’t feel qualified to be part of. Our reaction is to become “silent”. This is a text about living in community, about how we live together in the Body of Christ. What if the sp”qualified”. What we need to remember is without the spleen, there’s no one to recycle old blood cells without which the heart’s function is moot. We ALL play a role. And while we go about the futile enterprise of trying to measure the size of our roll, it’s the uniqueness that matters! There’s no room in a Church or any real community for the silence that accompanies someone trying to “make the argument numerical”. There’s no one who gets to walk in and say “I know more than you.” When we, collectively, have the gifts of all God’s people, there’s no room for exclusion. And our individual and unique gifts act in wonderous concert, or can, for the good of all. He knee bones connected to the hip bone.

The Good News is “We’re ALL chosen. We are ALL called.”

Even if you’ve felt “I should have been farther along. I took a wrong turn & I’m lost & way off course.” Where you are at THAT moment … God is THERE.

If you know a lot, come and share what you know. If you think you know nothing, come and share yourself. Your very presence will stir someone to say something that may reveal to you what it is you are really there to provide and share.

This can’t be preached … or taught, only experienced.

Wherever you are … up or down, down or out, lost or found, God will find you … and bring you home.

I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Second Sunday After the Epiphany
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Readings:
1 Samuel 3:1-20
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51

Audio sermon file: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/A2A56F7E-E0B7-4998-28F9-10DA6FD6657C.mp3

In the movie Clerks, Dante Hicks is called in to cover for his supervisor on his day off. Pastor Mohn affectionately recalled his calling cry: “I’m not even supposed to be here today!” This is so often our response when we are called to something more than we feel we are ready for. Often, she admits, this battle cry is heard as the prelude to “a call”.

The thing about Samuel was “He wasn’t supposed to be there at all”. He wasn’t supposed to be born even! But God put each of us here for a purpose, each of us a blessing to the others, each endowed with an incredible gift. But to find out what that gift is? Or when God would have us use it? This is quite another thing. And we are come to know our calling through several ingenious devices …

1st … We are often “placed” in new situations, ones often not of our own choosing, often not ones we would ever willingly choose. Places “we weren’t even supposed to be in” … In dealing with these new surroundings/happenings/circumstances, we come to discover something new about ourselves …that we were, in fact, meant to “be there” for some express purpose. In the book The Alchemist, a small shepherd boy sets out to find the meaning of his life and discover “a treasure”, only to return full circle to where he began. It is here he discovers the treasure that only having traveled away would provide the perspective needed to “see” the treasure.

2nd … A call is often “echoed” in community, seen and recognized by fellow disciples, friends, … family. It isn’t often until someone else notices the gift we have that we are able to see it ourselves as they echo it back. We hear God’s calling for us in the echo of community.

3rd … It’s OK to “say no” at first. People are often surprised when God calls … “Can I do this?”

You can almost bet on a call from God being a challenge, unexpected, something that will take us out of our comfort zone ...

… and require an echo from community.

The many characters called in the Bible often refused the call the 1st time, the 2nd time … but God continues to knock on the door. God will call again … when the time is right … when we’re ready.

Samuel is called to “give his boss the very bad news” …
Abraham’s asked to sacrifice his son …
Mary’s asked to bear Jesus …
Jesus is asked to live & die for us …

When we find ourselves saying “We weren’t even supposed to be here today!!”
That “here”? … God is “there”!!!

No matter how lonely that “here” feels, we are never alone!

So when you’re ready to bust out, “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!”

…. Oh, yes, you were …

It's A CAN!!

Sunday, January 11, 2009
Baptism of Our Lord

Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Readings:
Genesis 1:1-5
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

Audio sermon file:

http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/9B933839-BA3F-E06B-AE17-7011027F9C23.mp3

In the beginning was Genesis, the story of creation. God is The Big Cheese who’s still creating the universe. His creation is not measurable in human terms. Much as this creation finds a microcosm in the development of a single child, from a formless void, shape; from chaos, order. Last Reformation Pastor Mohn said something very similar byextolling “all the possibility” held in the Confirmands’ lives about to unfold, the excitement of all they can and will become, the shaping of themselves by God as he continues his Creation odyssey.

Pastor Johnson took us back to when he was 7 years old, taken in by the Pastor at All Saints Lutheran at 152 DeSoto on the east side of Detroit. He was invited “to get baptized”.

“What I didn’t realize behind my itchy tie on a hot summer day was that my life would never be the same.”

It was the moment you signed your Eternal Life Insurance policy with Purgatory Indemnity, Inc. In Baptism, you are offered more than salvation from purgatory. It’s not about what you’re asved ffrom as much as what you’re born into … you are anointed into a community of believers, a family like no other. Pastor Johnson was taught conformation by a Paul Johnson, and confirmed by a Pastor P.T. “Cal” Johnson … all in the family, so to speak. At this particular crossroads in his life, his family found themselves homeless, yet taken in by a Church. Oh, and college? The debt paid down by a scholarship from the Lutheran Church of America. These are the things a family does … provides shelter and money for education, to shape a life wherein Creation marches on.

Baptism isn’t about “ should so I won’t go to Hell or Purgatory”. We’re not baptized into the Church of the Shield of Eternal Damnation, the Church of the Limited, but the limitless; not the stain of original sin, but the Church of Daily Forgiveness. It’s about God not being able to stand not being close to me, as a parent not being able to stand not being close to their children, those in whose creation they played a part. As Mark in verse 10 says, God will “tear apart the heavens” to get to us. Upon 6 days of creating God looks it all over & says “This is good”. This, the work of His very hands, even, he will tear apart … the order out of chaos, the shape out of void, he will tear apart to “get to us”

In our human families, as parents, we can be a very positive influence on our kids’ growing up. We can also be too easy on one kid, too hard on number 2, too absent for number 3. Baptism is God’s reminder that He can continually shape you, form you, grant you infinite access to His grace. God won’t be too easy, too hard or too absent. There is, through God’s infinite grace, always 2nd, 3rd and 100th chances … infinite possibility that we can be different, better tomorrow. Baptism means life can never be the same again.

Your Baptism is not “a Should”, it’s “a Can”!!

Our failings do not define who we are, who we might yet become.

I am not the sum of my mistakes.

Baptism wipes the slate clean each and every morning. You’re baptized into The Church of 2nd Chances, a community that cares if you’re in the hospital, that believes in the power of possibility, that believes the future holds “a better way” … and for that possibility, that future he will tear apart the very heavens and proclaim “This is My Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

K-Mart Saves Christmas

Sunday, January 4, 2009
First Sunday After Christmas
Sermon: Pastor Kendra Mohn


Jeremiah 31:7-14
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:1-18

Audio sermon link:

http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/FD4BFF81-E8F6-127D-B6A8-F9E9DD36A36F.mp3

It’s ten days after Christmas and the lights are starting to come down. More and more houses are shedding their nighttime signs of the season. Down and deflated are the pump-em-up Santa Clauses and even the lit up Nativity crèches. And, as witnessed in Pastor Mohn’s neighborhood, Santa on his Harley. Off the air are the “K-Mart Saves Christmas” commercials extolling the discount giant’s contribution to an otherwise deflated shopping talley. Commercial Christmas, having started immediately upon the heels of Halloween, is over. My wife said to me yesterday, “Don’t laugh … the swim suits are out already”.

Yes, commercial Christmas is gone, but in The Church, Christmas still persists. In fact, the twelve days of Christmas starts on Christmas Day and continues until the Epiphany. In the Church, we have as ense that Christmas needs to go on, needs to continue. Christmas is much bigger, much longer than we can cram into one day.

Christmas isn’t a day … it’s a season.

It’s a season to celebrate the light that has come into the world in the baby Jesus.

Pastor Mohn mentioned that while she’s amazed God sent His only Son to be born among humans, she’s even more amazed that He stayed!! His own did not accept him. But God is persistent. He didn’t come to stay for a day. He came to stay.

Parents of newborn children know the feeling. You prepare for 9 months for the miracle to arrive. Then you bring them home and the next morning, they’re still there! And the next, and the next, and all the next days. Your life is NEVER the same again.

So when the Santa on a Harley is deflated, where will the light of the real Christmas be? The Good News is … YOU’RE the light. WE’RE the light … for one another. In the apparent & real loneliness that often accompanies the dismantling of the lights of commercial Christmas, in the anti-climax of the hullabaloo of the shopping season, we are, all of us, sent out in to the darkness of the Monday morning world awaiting us again. We are sent into that darkness to BE His light for one another.
God sent Jesus, then the disciples, now us … to be lights for one another.

I was reminded of this watching and listening to my youngest child pray throughout Advent, but most especially AFTER Christmas. Often the dinner prayer started:

“For Barack Obama’s grandma and Pastor Mohn’s grandma … (who both passed away in November). For Santa who was bitten, that he’s OK (yes, NPR reported that a cat in New Jersey bit the Jolly Ol’ Elf only weeks before his fateful ride through the skies was to occur). And for the kids missing … that they find them.”

Even after Santa had been good to him, after the presents and the anti-climax, there was still Santa’s recovery, grandmothers’ souls, and missing children’s safety to ponder before a meal and at day’s end. My son’s voice in that moment is a light for me. I am obliged to Pay It Forward and contribute to the cost of the joint ride … to show concern, volunteer time and talent and treasure, to be there to bear a cross of those with more to carry than myself. Often a kind word and a smile will even suffice.

My son brought back memories of the children’s chorus in the Catholic Church where I grew up singing …

This little light o’ mine
I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, Let it shine, Let it shine …

The Good News?

K-Mart doesn’t need to save Christmas … because God sent Christmas to save us!

Mary Did you Know?

Sunday, December 14, 2008
Third Sunday of Advent
Service of Lessons and Carols


Isaiah 40:3-5
Isaiah 11:1-5,10Isaiah 42:6-9
Isaiah 9:1-3
Ephesians 2:11-18
Isaiah 7:13-15
Luke 3:1-6



This week we celebrated the Service of Lessons & Carols. While I was really moved by all the music, there’s a piece that gives me goose bumps, Mary Did You Know.

Mary Did You Know
That your baby boy
Has come to make things new
The child you deliver will soon deliver you

Mary Did You Know
That your baby boy
Would walk where angels trod
And when you kiss that little baby
You have kissed the face of God

Mary Did You Know
That that sleeping child you’re holding is the Great I Am

It begs the question. If we are asking Mary if SHE knew, do we?

Audio music link:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1oHJR2g7Tw

God Logic 101

Sunday, December 7, 2008
Second Sunday of Advent
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/292/D847594C-6D00-3C64-4AB8-942879958631.mp3

God’s plan is hard to understand and often difficult to accept. Instead of the flood or the fire, He comes in mercy. Mountains will be leveled, but there will most assuredly be peace after the storm, rough made smooth, crooked made straight.

The world is a cynical place. It invites us and rewards us for dividing up rather than communing. One thing’s for sure:

There’s always someone who doesn’t fit in.

God’s time frame is not ours, clear, but not so simple. To God 1 day is as 1000 of our years. In his book, The Science of God, Gerald Schroeder offers this tantalizing realization from the world of physics. In Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, time scales ar different at high speeds approaching the speed of light, a speed very close to that of the expanding universe at and near the moment of the Big Bang. If you enter the numbers into the equation scaling time, 16 billion of our years (the time since the Big Bang or roughly the age of the universe as we perceive and understand it) is equal to roughly 6 days … the six days of creation?

Wouldn’t it just be fascinating if the relations Einstein imagined were the language of God written in the stars. Someone had to be “just crazy enough to see it”. God is patient with us and wants to wait until as many of as possible get on the right course before He comes again to finally clean things up and make things right.

He is patient because …

He wants everyone on The Ascension Train

… and He’ll wait for everyone, 6 days or 16 billion years, if you will.

God logic doesn’t make sense to us. We’re not about waiting. We’re about justice, and swift, if you don’t mind. I recall a preacher who admonished once:

If what you’re after is justice and not mercy, you’d better not make any mistakes!

Remember, Pastor Johnson reminds us, you find Jesus in the very worst parts of your life. John the Baptist was a weird character yelling out in the wilderness. But sometimes it takes a character to get our attention. And sometime it takes a month to step aside from the anger, the clamoring for retribution, from the vengeance vs. forgiveness. We are not baptized into vengeance, but into mercy.

Out there today it’s very hard in ways that 2 generations have never known. But around the corner, God is waiting patiently to show He is abundant, hopeful, merciful, forgiving.

What’s coming? What’s coming is an abundant, merciful, forgiving baby. The baby of 2nd, 3rd, and 100th chances. The baby comes for broken relationships, fractured families, the ones who don’t fit in. Prepare yourself for that gift, a gift it’s almost impossible to understand.