Pastor Janell started her sermon noting that the ELCA is celebrating inclusiveness this weekend. Bishop Megan Rohrer is the first transgender ELCA Bishop. She serves the Sierra Pacific Synod. She was installed yesterday. Brenda Bos is the first openly lesbian elected ELCA Bishop. She serves the ELCA Southwest California Synod and she is installed today.These installations doubled the number of queer bishops installed in the history of the ELCA.
Pastor Janell included this in her sermon rather than the Prayers of the People or announcements because, in her own words, "the gospel made me do it".
She saw this radical yes of the church being a response to Jesus asking "Who do people say that I am?" The answer to that, as she put it in her sermon, "Jesus is the one who calls folks from the margins to lead people. Jesus is the one who walks with communities, congregations and individuals in the liminal space of both/and between the now and the not yet and curiously wait and watch how God is always doing a new thing "
This powerful sermon came at the end of a contemplation of this week's Gospel that began with Creator's Lectio Divina reading of these verses. Our small Bible Study read different translations of this Gospel text including one from The Message which, on the surface, contradicted what I had found so beautiful in last week's reading about the collaborative nature of God, Jesus and humankind combined.
Matthew 24-26 Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am.
I shared my feeling that this is not something that the Jesus I follow would say, We were moved to discuss how my reaction might be rooted in a desire to stay in control rather than trusting in God and Jesus. Pastor Janell rightly predicted I would wrestle with this all week and I did.
Last Tuesday's discussion came from our hearts but, I am convinced now the reaction did not come from a desire to be in control. Rather I imagined Jesus describing and wielding God's authority differently. He might have said:
Even casting God the father in "the driver's seat" is not something I believe that Jesus would express. God took direct action, was "in the driver's seat" in the Old Testament. By the New Testament, any time God is described as exercising direct worldly power, it feels more that it is in the imagination of the narrator rather than being demonstrably God's way.
Even in the Old Testament Amos 3:7 reads "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets"
What this passage implies boogles our usual thinking on this. When God works in the earth, God tells someone first? And works through that someone or someones?. We don’t usually believe it is possible to know the will of God, yet God wants us to know that will, and collaboratively works to make it happen.
Pastor Janell's sermon nailed the right words and perspective yesterday and so I will quote it again "Jesus is the one who calls folks from the margins to lead people. Jesus is the one who walks with communities, congregations, and individuals in the liminal space of both/and between the now and the not yet and curiously wait and watch how God" and I will add "with God's people", "is always doing a new thing."
Truly a Creator "God's Work, Our Hands" Sunday.
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