My sermon for the evening Thanksgiving Eve Service.

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Matthew 25:31-45

It’s interesting, when you look at Jesus’s words in this parable, often called “the Sheep and the Goats”, how, at the end of time, when he judges the world, how those who get resurrection and eternal life are not those who were the most pious, devout, religious, law-abiding, proper, upright citizens (what we normally think a “good Christian” should be), but those who did for the “least of these of my family”. This includes the hungry, naked, poor, and in prison, among others.

I have seen so much Christianity that has become all about avoiding temptations, vices, and feel-good-but-bad-for-you things, while ignoring the larger suffering of the world. I’ve come to the conclusion that Jesus cares a lot less about how prim and proper and appropriate you are in life, than about what you do for the people at the bottom of our society. But, to make that change in attitude is hard, because embracing “the least” in society comes with all sorts of risks - to safety, reputation, potential loss of membership and on and on. But, it also comes with the reward of eternal life, and the promise of new life and hope for the least, not just that their socio-economic situation may improve, but that they know Christ.

Posted by Lars under Sermons | 1:26 pm | comment (0)

The Church of the Beloved, in Edmonds, Washington has just come out with one of the best new Christian albums I’ve heard in a while. And, in the spirit of the emerging church, they’re giving away the music for free here.

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Our bishop, Stephen Talmage, preached at Our Saviour’s this weekend.

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I got a picture published online at a group called “nowpublic”. It was this one, done at the encounter service a while back, where we planted paper poppies in remembrance of lost loved ones.

See the full online article here.

Posted by Lars under News, Photos, worship ideas | 9:37 am | comment (0)

Revelation 7:9-17

All Saints Sunday is the day we remember the Christians who’ve gone before us, recently or long ago. It’s also the day we remember those men and women who have lived particularly exemplary lives of faith.

What’s both sad and inspiring about the saints, and the food they did, is that they weren’t trying to be special, or above anyone else. They didn’t set out to be examples. They just wanted to live like Jesus, actually doing what Jesus said, and following Jesus wherever he leads. Because Jesus’ real message is so radical, most of us can’t bring ourselves to really turn the other cheek, sell all our posessions and give it to the poor, associate with sinners and tax collectors etc. These are ideals that we uphold, live only partially, and look with awe at those who follow them. But actually doing them, we get caught up in practical considerations: how will we survive? Is it safe? What will people think? What about my reputation? What if I offend people? and and on. We get caught up in the realpolitik of community life and the endless worries that get ingrained in our heads, that we fear the consequences of following Jesus all the way. But that’s what the saints did. They followed Jesus completely, and they usually suffered for it in this life, but were admired for it after.

The Bible ends with these visions in the book of Revelations showing the saints and martyrs around the throne of God, having been cleansed from all the suffering of the world through the suffering they endured to bring the Kingdom of God to earth, and make Jesus’ vision of a just, peaceful and compassionate society real. They put our deeds today in perspective, the suffering of today in perspective, and the inconveniences of living a Christ-like life into a perspective that makes it all seem insignificant. The saints remind us of that - whoever they are, wherever they came from, whether we ever know their names or not.

Posted by Lars under Sermons | 11:43 am | comment (0)

Here’s a sight with some good ideas for creative prayers. I found it because they linked to my flickr account, where I was showing an old station we did in 2005 where we hung a white sheet of Muslin, projected a tree on it, and painted the tree of life - the reference from Revelation 22:1-4

 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; ⁴ they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads

After painting with simple tempra paints, we turned off the projector and could see our painting. Thanks to Delores Fricke, a member at Our Saviour’s who does a lot of our banners and liturgical coverings, for getting me hooked on Muslin. I’ve gotten several good ideas from her, including this one and the one where we write sins on fabric with special fabric pens, and wash them off.

 

But, when I traced the link back from my flickr account, I found a whole bunch of other great alternative worship ideas. Often, I find, youth ministers are the first to notice a lot of the trends in the culture, and experiment with new things.

Posted by Lars under Worship, worship ideas | 11:27 am | comment (0)

 

Last Saturday (October 25th) I went with Beyond and one of our college students to Saguaro National Park West. One of the beauties of Tucson is being surrounded by national park and national forest, all within an hour’s drive. Saguaro West is my favorite, mostly because it’s both close to home, and full of some of the most beautiful, giant saguaro cacti anywhere. This one, of course, is a good study in how these amazing plants can come back from almost nothing. Instead of branching out an arm 30 feet up, it has to branch out from ground level.

 Of course, I was able to get a few shots of the scenery.

Posted by Lars under News, Outdoors, Photos | 9:06 pm | comment (0)

For those who think that young adults only use tattoos as symbols of rebellion, here’s one that our musician, Jacob Acosta, had custom made to express both of his passions in life: Jesus and music.

Posted by Lars under Art, music, young adult ministry | 2:55 pm | comment (0)

We’re doing two Sundays on Luther and the Reformation at encounter this year, mostly to give the topic enough time to be able to expand on themes and engage them in greater depth than in just one day. We did some things traditionally. For example, Jake Acosta, our musician, did a cool rendition of Luther’s Mighty Fortress. We also read from Galatians and talked about Justification by Grace Through Faith - the core doctrine of the Lutheran Church. The trick with justification, however, is that the context in which Luther experienced it, and our context today, are so different that the doctrine needs to be reframed, and understood in new ways - ways that are true, but that highlight different aspects of it not emphacized by Luther. So I asked myself, “how do we experience, or not experience justification today?” What I came up with was that we tend to justify our actions and behaviors in our own sight, while living with the guilt from the consequences they cause. And in a world of moral relativism, it can be difficult to ascertain right or wrong, except for consequences. And….what about the consequences? How do we come clean from the guilt?

The corollary to that is that we still seek justification, we still seek to be approved and validated and made right in other eyes, but that a lot of that approval is very conditional: you have to be thin/smart/attractive/rich enough to be justified in the world. This justification is a treadmill, where you’re always having to work harder to earn an approval that’s conditional. True acceptance/approval/justification should be unconditional. That’s what it is with Christ, and that’s what I was hoping to convey.

So, we did a couple meditations. One I call “Meditation in self-justification“, a reading of short narratives on self-justification, with music in the background. The other was called “If only” - as in “if only I was (blank) I would be justified in others’ sight.” We also added a new station, where we took the big, old cross made of desert ironwood (originally made for vacation Bible school two years ago) for confession. It’s an easy station, where you take scraps of fabric, and washable fabric pencils or markers, and write your sins on them and hang them on the cross. When done, you just run the fabric through the wash and do it again.

And, we’ve been using a painting station for the creed for a while. Rather than saying it together, which we sometimes do, we have it projected onto a sheet from behind, where we affirm it by painting our name/symbol whatever on it. The plan is to keep painting on it until it’s all covered with painting and you can’t read the creed anymore. Then I’m going to try to project from the front onto the paint. We’ll see if it works.

Finally, we added a station on self-reflection, which we did on the old main altar. We put a wedding kneeler in front of the altar, and a mirror on top, with the cross behind. This way, you can look into the mirror, and see yourself, reflected with the cross. The point of the meditation is to examine our own self-image in contrast to the image God sees of us. Usually, our image of our selves is either puffed up, falsely inflated, or overly-negative. It would be more true to ourselves if we were honest in confession, and saw that our justification comes unconditionally from God.

Posted by Lars under worship ideas | 10:17 am | comment (0)

I went to Verde Canyon, up by Cottonwood this week. There’s a railroad that goes through it, and so we went with the kids and the in-laws on the four-hour tour. Even though I took a million pictures, it was really just a couple that stuck out at me, and that was this one of jeans hanging on the line, and one this other one with the old shed. The train goes about 20 miles, then stops at a “town” called Perkinsville, which has only one family living there now. In its heyday, it had 11 families, and was a stop off for cattle cars, a bunkhouse for ranch-hands and railroaders, and the filming of a scene from the 1960’s movie “How the West was Won.” The jeans were hanging on the line, just up the tracks from the shed.

 

The rest of my photos are on my account with flickr.com

Posted by Lars under News | 8:43 am | comment (0)

Here’s a great article by Jonny Baker, a leader in the emerging church in the UK. He wrote this article three years ago for a book on preaching, but it was rejected outright. Check it out here.

Posted by Lars under preaching | 5:10 pm | comment (0)

Matthew 22:1-14 The parable of the wedding banquet

Jesus came to proclaim the kingdom of God, but not everyone accepted his message. In fact, most didn’t. He wasn’t the kind of messiah they were expecting: too poor, to rural, to non-violent. So, when the religious leaders of the day reject Jesus, God turns to those who will listen. The parable tells of God as the king who hosts a banquet for his son (Jesus), invites all the first guests (the religious leaders), and they turn down the invitation after two invites. Finally, the King gets angry, sends his servants out and brings in anyone he can find from the streets.

There are parts of the parable I don’t like, for example, the king killing all the people who turned down his invitation (which was a historical reference to the destruction of Jerusalem in 73AD), but the second part, where the heavenly banquet is open to anyone willing to come “both good and bad” is a wonderful lesson for ccity hurches today. We spend an inordinate amount of time trying to invite the “right” people to our churches - whatever that means - that we miss out on all the real ministry to be done with the people all around our walls. Usually it’s code for two-parent, educated, middle-class families with children. Not that that’s bad (that’s what my family is….), but in most downtowns it’s not the majority. What about the needs of the poor, single mothers, homeless, singles, etc.? Maybe the banquet table, what we call communion, would be fuller if we went out on the streets and found all who needed the food, both “good and bad.” That’s the kingdom of God: no discrimination, no distinction, and built out of those rejected everywhere else.

Posted by Lars under Sermons | 11:47 am | comment (0)