Fourth Sunday after Epiphany- Good Shepherd Lutheran Church – Decorah, Iowa – Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

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Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

This is a weird story. Yet it also feels strangely familiar. It’s full of the outrage and entitlement and violence that we know all too well these days.

Jesus announces God’s good news with words we heard last week. He declares that the good news is fulfilled in him – even better! But his hometown crowd gets angry that they aren’t getting any special treatment. He’s one of their own. Shouldn’t they get some benefit from that? There are lots of hurting people in Nazareth after all. Yet Jesus doesn’t do any miracles there and he adds to the insult by naming outsiders who receive God’s care: Namaan was a general in an enemy army, the widow at Zarephath a foreigner. Jesus sounds irritated, the people get outraged, things go downhill quickly, even as Jesus somehow manages to avoid getting thrown off that hill.

Maybe there’s some small comfort in the realization that the challenges we’re facing today are nothing new? Of course, that’s also cold comfort. Will anything ever change? Is there any hope for us as a species? What then should we do?

This week, I encountered a poem that honored these questions and opened me to God’s wisdom. The poem is by Wendell Berry. I want to share a portion of it with you.

“To My Children, Fearing for Them”

Terrors are to come. The earth

is poisoned with narrow lives.

I think of you. What you will

live through, or perish by, eats

at my heart. What have I done? I

need better answers than there are

to the pain of coming to see

what was done in blindness,

loving what I cannot save …

That line, loving what I cannot save, opened me to both the grief and the wisdom I needed this week. I came across this poem thanks to an article in Living Lutheran, the magazine of our ELCA. The article is “Still Loving What We Cannot Save, The Gift of Neighbor Love in Times of Crisis,” by Jason Mahn, a religion professor at Augustana College, Rock Island. Mahn writes, “The deepest pain lies in our inability to make things right, coupled with the anguished grief of still loving what we cannot save.”

Mahn shares a story that captures what he means. He writes, “The only time I tried to hurt my brother was in high school when he was living with our dad and I was living with our mom and

he didn’t show up for a reconciliatory birthday dinner that my mother made for him. I found him leaving my dad’s apartment, dragged him down a flight of stairs, glanced a fist off his face and told him that he wasn’t my brother.” Mahn can see now that, “I did [this] because I couldn’t put the bro- ken family I loved back together again. Living that brokenness was too painful to bear, so I thrash- ed about in the stairwell instead.”

I wonder how much of the violence and outrage we see today around us, and within us, comes from the pain of not being able to fix things, not being able to make things better. I wonder if that inspired the violence in Nazareth. The people looked around at the community and saw so much pain. When Jesus didn’t fix it all, they just couldn’t bear it.

Mahn continues, “This excessively long time of COVID-19 seems too much to bear. Its gift to me is training in bearing it, endurance, long-suffering, in continuing to love all that we cannot [save].

This is the kind of training that Paul calls us to in our second reading today from 1Corinthians 13. Paul calls us to practice a kind of love that bears with what is hard, that persists in loving, that endures. Paul shows us what it looks like to keep on loving others, to keep on loving our world, even when we can’t make everything better.

And Paul gives us very specific guidance about how to live out this love. We might miss that in the English translation of this passage. We hear that “love is patient, love is kind, love is not irritable or rude”- a long list of adjectives. That can make it sound like love means always feeling patient and kind, never feeling grumpy or annoyed.  What do we do then when we are grieving and hurting, angry and afraid, not feeling kind or patient in the least?

The way Paul actually wrote the passage, those words aren’t adjectives describing love. Those words are verbs. Paul uses 16 verbs in a row to say what love does and does not do. Paul says to love is to be patient, to be kind, to not be jealous, not boast, not be arrogant, not be rude and not seek our own way, not be irritable, not be resentful and not rejoice in wrongdoing. To love is to rejoice in the truth, to bear all things, to believe all things, to hope all things, to endure all things.

Paul is saying love is active and concrete. It takes work. It takes practice. It is hard. Yet these actions Paul calls us to take are available to us even when we feel irritable, impatient, annoyed. 

We may not feel loving, but we can work on not being rude. We may not know what to do in these days, but we can work on not being arrogant and boastful. We don’t know how long COVID will disrupt the world, but we can practice letting go of what irritates us.

Paul gives us concrete guidance about how to keep on keeping on in the work of loving what we cannot save. Paul’s own story also points us to the ultimate Love that makes our own practice of love possible. Paul once lived without love. He stoned followers of Jesus. He terrorized the newly forming church. He did this with the best of intentions. He thought he was doing the right thing. 

He thought he was saving people from going the wrong way. Yet he was not practicing love.

An encounter with Christ Jesus on the Damascus Road transformed Paul. Paul encountered the risen Christ, the One who embodies the love of God. He encountered the One who bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things, the One who continues to love us, who loves us into loving. He encountered Christ Jesus who saves us by loving us.

As author Debie Thomas puts it, “Paul can write about love with such authority only because he knows firsthand what it can do. He knows what God’s love did to his own stony, self-righteous heart. Left to ourselves, we cannot love in the ways Paul describes so beautifully. The only hope we have is the hope Paul clung to, the hope that [Christ Jesus] will love us into loving. That Christ will be love in us, around us, through us, and for us.” 

Today, in scripture and song, bread and wine, you, too, encounter this Christ Jesus, the One who cannot be stopped from loving you, the One who makes your love possible.

Through Christ, we can persist in the work of love.

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 3 “The Greatest of These” by Debie Thomas lectionary blog on Journey with Jesus   https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3304

Third Sunday after the Epiphany – Good Shepherd Lutheran Church – Decorah, Iowa

Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus. Amen.

In his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul talks about the whole church – including us – when he says, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” 

When we hear that word member we often think about the groups we’ve decided to join. I’m a member of that choir, this orchestra, my school’s soccer team. We’ve been members of this congregation for five years, before that we were members somewhere else. In the United States, membership is usually something we choose, something we can opt out of if our interests change, or we move away, or the group doesn’t work for us anymore.

So, in our context, the word member may not be the most helpful translation of the Greek word that Paul uses here. The word can also be translated as “part” or “limb” and those words may bet- ter help us grasp Paul’s meaning. Paul isn’t saying that it would be good for us to join the body of Christ, he’s saying that we simply are a part, a limb, a member, of the body of Christ, the whole church on earth. This is who we are. This identity is given to us by the Holy Spirit. This identity is announced in baptism and in reminders of baptism. We all are the body of Christ, and you are an essential part of that body.

This remains your identity even if you can’t gather with others for worship right now. This re- mains our identity as God’s people even in these divisive times. Certainly we can, and do, ignore our collective and personal identities. Yet when we do, we cut ourselves off from the source of our life and our ability to be most fully who we are.

We are each a body part that can’t thrive on its own without the larger whole. No matter how strong a leg is, it doesn’t work when disconnected from the body. And, we are each a significant part, a part the body needs to function well. The body won’t die without a leg, a foot, or a toe, but things go much better when all the parts are working together.

The question before the whole church on earth, then, is not how we can become one body – we already are Christ’s body on earth. The question for each of us is not whether we’re interested in being a part of Christ’s body – that is who we each are. Rather, the questions are: How will we live well together in this body? How will we care for Christ’s body on earth, so that it can experience energy and vitality and do the work it was created to do?

We know from life in our own personal bodies that things don’t go well if we emphasize a few parts to the exclusion of others. If we live only in our heads and never move our limbs, our heads and our bodies suffer. If we ignore the small parts of our bodies, like our toenails, we can be in for a world of hurt if they get ingrown or infected. We need to pay attention to the whole body.

The Apostle Paul says the same thing about the body of Christ. He says caring for this body involves honoring and tending all the diverse members. This is not how the metaphor of the body was used by others in Paul’s day. Ancient politicians and philosophers worked with the image of the body to talk about families, households, cities, or countries, but they used it to reinforce hierarchy and oppression. The body needs a head, the thinking went, and the head is most important. 

Those who are the hands and feet need to be slaves of the head. Every other part of the body should seek to conform to the mandates of the head.

Paul turns this thinking on its head by stressing the importance of each part and encouraging us to show greatest honor to the parts of the body that seem least important. Paul turns our gaze away from the head, away from the strongest parts of the body and towards the weaker parts, the parts that most need care and tending.

This wisdom feels so important right now. It is so easy to fixate on leaders who we think are doing the wrong things. It is so easy to get frustrated with others in the body of Christ. It is so easy to only want to be with others who look and act like we do. Yet all that can paralyze the body of Christ into division and inaction. If we can, instead focus on honoring and caring for those most in need. Then we can live out the purpose the Holy Spirit has given us as the body of Christ, the mission that was first given to Jesus.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus makes it clear that his mission is to uplift those who are overlooked and ignored – those who are poor, imprisoned, impaired, and oppressed. He has come to bring good news, forgiveness, healing, and release for all, but especially for those most in need.

This is Jesus’ mission, and it is the mission we are given now as Christ’s body on earth.

We may disagree about how best to do this, we may employ different strategies in the work, but this one mission unites us. This mission uplifts those who are in need, but it also helps the whole body, all of us, to experience vitality and energy. None of us can truly be free and well when others are suffering. We are part of one another; we are bound to one another. As we honor, care for, learn from, and accompany those society overlooks, we all experience the healing in the body that God longs for us to know.

Living out this mission is challenging and countercultural. Yet God gives us what we need to sustain us as the body of Christ. 

God gives us rest and renewal as we worship. 

God provides nourishment through Holy Communion and the scriptures. 

God reminds us of our identities in the waters of baptism.

God gives us prayer to open us to the Spirit that empowers us.

We are the body of Christ.

You are an essential part of this body.

We are given all that we need to live well as this body.

Most especially, we are given a mission that uplifts us all.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Decorah, IA – Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Mary is troubled that the wine is gone and goes to her son about it. Jesus responds, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me.” I want to say, “I’m not sure I like your tone here young man.” Something may have gotten lost in translation, but Jesus sure sounds snippy to me!

I do wonder, though, if Mary might be blowing things out of proportion? Worrying about wine at a wedding seems awfully trivial when there are so many major problems in the world, then and now. That may be what Jesus is thinking when he says it isn’t his hour to reveal his glory. Maybe he’s anticipating bigger things- soon he’ll heal a man who is paralyzed, feed 5000, raise Lazarus from the dead, and then rise from the dead himself. Clearly, those things are more important than not enough wine at a wedding. Seems to me Jesus could sit this one out.

Yet Mary knows better. Mary knows that wine at a wedding is really important. Weddings are the one time the people in her community don’t have to work, don’t have to wonder if they’ll have enough for the next meal. Weddings are much needed respites from the toil and strain of life under Roman occupation. They are week-long celebrations of family, community, faith. Wine plays a central role; not because people are drunk all the time but because wine is the sign of a good harvest, of God’s abundance. Wine represents joy and gladness. It’s a way to show hospitality. So, if the wine runs out, it’s like the blessings of the whole event run out.

Mary knows, how important it is for her community to have some joy and gladness amid the struggles of their daily lives. I imagine she knows that deep in her bones. She knows what people who suffer deeply know joy has a way of defying the power suffering, of letting you rise above what wants to keep you down. Joy is a form of resistance. Besides, it sounds like this is just day 3 of 7 days with all her friends and relatives.  If the wine is gone already, it’s going to be a really long week. Mary knows people are gonna need some levity, some laughter, some joy.

So, Mary just ignores Jesus’ objection and tells the servants, “do whatever he tells you.” She is bold to ask for joy, to expect joy. Jesus responds. Ordinary water is turned into the best wine. Worry and scarcity do not prevail. Abundance and blessing flow.

This story becomes really significant the first of seven signs that Jesus performs to show his glory, according to the Gospel of John. It gets in the top seven with all those seemingly more important things like healing people, feeding 5000 and raising Lazarus from the dead. And the way the story is told in John, there are echoes of the resurrection too. The story begins “on the third day there was a wedding”, We’re supposed to hear the resonance there – to remember that on another third day, God raised Jesus from the dead. So, it turns out Mary is right (as mothers often are!) Wine at a wedding, joy in the face of suffering, is not so small. It is no less important than addressing the major problems in our world. Joy has a lot in common with resurrection.

Joy says to suffering, oppression, sorrow, and grief, you do not have the last word, you cannot keep us down, life and hope will prevail for us, for our world. Joy is a form of resistance.

Yet often it can feel like the wine of gladness and joy has run out – the jar emptied, the blessing depleted. I know so many of you feel like that right now. Thankfully it is not up to us to manufacture joy on our own, to make sure we always have a ready supply of what brings gladness.

We have a savior who uses ordinary things to give us the gift of joy. Bread and wine, water and word, the community of the church, silence and song, the gifts of creation. Jesus uses these gifts to assure us of God’s abundance, to shower us with God’s blessings, to nurture our joy. The joy Jesus that gives is not dependent upon our circumstances, not dependent upon our ability to feel happy or glad. We see it arise in the hospital room, at the funeral, after the natural disaster, in the prison cell.

The joy Jesus gives isn’t an individual gift either, it is given to the whole community. This means that even when joy seems out of reach for us personally, others can hold out hope for joy on our behalf, the way Mary did for the hosts of the wedding. We can do this for others, as well, when they are enduring depleting circumstances. We can ask for joy for them and trust in the hope of joy for them.

As followers of Jesus, the One who serves others by bringing joy, we are called to help others experience joy. As we do, we taste it ourselves. Service draws us into relationship with others, lets us engage in hopeful activity, and gives us a larger perspective- it brings joy. Joy is so essential, and God gives us joy in abundance.

Today, God comes to you in ordinary things to give you joy- God comes in the bread and wine of communion,  the peace shared, the promises spoken, God comes in the laughter of children, the music offered, the fresh snow, warm homes, worship that reaches you in your home.

God gives you and each of us these gifts so that together we can hope, together we can resist, together we can taste joy for one another and for our world.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Haldis I. Kaasa – 1931-2022

Hadis Inger (Solem) Kaasa was born on May 19, 1931, in Aure, Norway. She died peacefully at the age of 90 on Wednesday, January 5, 2022, at Aase Haugen Senior Services Assisted Living where she had resided since 2017. 

Haldis is survived by her son Kai who resides in Garnavillo, Iowa, and many relatives in Norway. She was preceded in death by her parents, a sister and brother, and her husband Harris (1926-1983), a 1950 graduate and professor of religion at Luther College from 1953-55 and 1961-1983.

Haldis and Harris arrived in Decorah and at Luther College in 1953. Haldis studied Art and Scandinavian Studies, receiving a BA degree in 1981. She and Harris were long- time and active members of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.

Private family graveside services will be held at a later date in the Brush Point Cemetery in Harlontown, Iowa. A full obituary is available at the Fjelstul Funeral Home website: https://www.fjelstul.com/obituary/haldis-kaasa

Blessed be the memory of Haldis Inger Kaasa