Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
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.

I say that every week – “grace to you and peace”.  But oh my, do we need grace and peace these days. As if things weren’t hard enough, now so many family members, friends and colleagues in Iowa have been hit by terrible storms. Lord have mercy, we cry; Lord help us, we cry – along with the Canaanite woman in our Gospel reading today. Like her, we are hungry for good news, hungry for healing. And sometimes it feels like God is not listening, like God is refusing to help – as Jesus first ignores and then refuses to help the woman in this story.

This is a really troubling story. It raises all sorts of questions. Why does Jesus, the very face of God’s compassion, refuse to heal this woman’s daughter? Why does he call her a dog saying it isn’t fair to take what’s intended for the children of Israel and throw it to the dogs? The children of Israel are indeed God’s chosen people, but shouldn’t Jesus help other people, too? The Canaanites were ancient enemies of Israel, but doesn’t Jesus tell us to turn the other cheek? And why does he call her a dog? That seems a bit extreme.

Many interpreters feel this encounter helped Jesus to see that his mission was for all people, even ancient enemies of Israel. And maybe that’s what happened. We don’t know; we can’t really know for sure. One thing we can see in this story is the power of persistent faith. This woman just keeps crying out – have mercy on me, Lord. Our translation makes it sound like she asks for mercy once, but the Greek is clear – she keeps on shouting, “Kyrie elesion – have mercy on me, Lord.” She uses the same language we just sang together, Kyrie elesion.

She persists in pleading for mercy even when Jesus doesn’t answer. She persists even when his disciples strongly urge Jesus to “send her away”. She persists even when Jesus says his mission doesn’t include her and calls her a dog. She kneels at his feet and pleads with him. She doesn’t give up but stays engaged, offering a strong, thoughtful, humble response back to Jesus. Jesus is moved by her response and heals her daughter.

This story reveals a God who’s influenced by our persistence. What this woman did and said made a difference to Jesus. Our persistence, our willingness to engage – it matters to God. We see that throughout scripture. Our willingness to ask questions and struggle with faith and prayer – it matters. Our prayers and our work for all impacted by COVID, the economic turmoil, racial injustice and now the derecho storms – it all matters.

Yet this kind of persistence doesn’t come easily. When we’ve prayed, worked, questioned, hoped and pleaded yet don’t see any change, it’s so easy to give up and think that God doesn’t really hear, that God doesn’t really care. Thankfully, God doesn’t just sit around hoping we will be persistent.

God is much more persistent than we will ever be.

God persists in loving, challenging, forgiving and healing us again and again. And God cannot be stopped from doing this. Even when we put Jesus to death on a cross, he rose again.  Nothing, not even death, can prevent God from loving us all and working to heal us all. God’s persistent, determined love for us gives us strength to have dogged yet humble persistence in prayer, in seeking mercy and healing.

Often, we find that God gives us the strength and guidance to become the answer to our own prayers, to be the ones who bring God’s persistent healing into the world.

For example, I give thanks for the ways that persistent prayer and work has brought important change in our church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This year we celebrate 50 years of ordaining women, 40 years of ordaining women of color, and 10 years of ordaining people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and gender non-conforming. Our church is stronger, more inclusive, and more able to witness to our good and faithful God now that we ordain these people with gifts for public ministry. These changes happened as the Holy Spirit worked through the faithful persistence of women, women of color, LGBTQ folks and their advocates. They kept praying, kept working, kept shouting even when many in the church acted like Jesus’ disciples in our story today and said, “Send them away.”

Now, I pray that God will help us persist in becoming an anti-racist church – actively working to address racist policies, practices and ideas in our church and in our society. I pray God will help those of us who are white to listen to people of color who keep on shouting for help, justice, mercy and change. They are the faces and voices of the Canaanite woman in our day. I pray we will keep listening and join our voices, our prayers and our hands with them.

Good Shepherd’s Congregation Council has committed to doing implicit bias training. We’re also working to form a racial justice task force to examine policies, practices and ideas within this congregation and work on action plans. Please join in prayer for this work. Please let me know if you are interested in serving on this task force. Please also continue in prayer and support for those impacted by all the national disasters our country is facing. Give to the Mutual Aid Network Fund, drop off supplies to support storm victims in Cedar Rapids. Be the answer to our prayers.

God’s persistence, determination for you gives you the strength you need to have dogged, yet humble persistence in prayer and in service.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
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, the name of love.

Sometimes it’s hard to connect with the stories in the Bible. The ancient world and all its strange rituals and images can seem so remote from the realities of our lives. Today, however, it’s not hard to imagine ourselves in the same boat as the disciples that night on the lake. They’re alone, in the dark, in a storm, battered by waves, far from solid ground, and the wind is against them.

Oh, can we relate. We especially know what it is to be battered by waves – waves of the virus, waves of layoffs, waves of injustice, waves of fear and worry.

During my recent trip to our family cabin on Lake Superior I was reminded of a phenomenon there called the Three Sisters. The Three Sisters is said to occur on Superior when a series of three rogue waves forms and approaches in rapid succession. These three waves can sink ships. One hits and before it clears a ship’s deck, the second hits. The third incoming wave adds to the two accumulated backwashes and suddenly overloads the ship deck with tons of water. Scientists suspect this phenomenon may have led to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald freighter in 1975.

I was reminded of the Three Sisters thanks to a map on a wall at the cabin. The map marks and tells the stories of shipwrecks on Lake Superior. It seemed a little unwise to be looking at it right before heading out to sail on that same lake. Thankfully, we didn’t experience anything close to rogue waves. We were in a small, safe part of the lake and had a very peaceful time. I’m so grateful.

Yet I can’t stop thinking about how all of us are enduring a kind of Three Sisters experience right now in the US.

We’ve been hit by a series of three huge waves – COVID-19, economic turmoil, and the impact of centuries of racial inequity. The second wave hit us before the first wave cleared and the third incoming wave threatens to overwhelm. And even though we in the US are all in the same storm, we are not all in the same boat. People of color are impacted to an even greater extent. The Three Sisters are coming at us. Yet once they hit on Lake Superior, the waves roll on and move out. In contrast, we keep being battered about this way and that by these three powerful waves. They just keep coming at us. Like those first disciples we feel alone, in the dark, in a storm, battered by waves, far from solid ground, with the wind against us.

The disciples in the storm are not actually alone. As the waves keep rolling toward them, threat- ening to overwhelm, Jesus is also coming toward them, coming to get into the boat with them.Except, the disciples can’t recognize Jesus in the storm. They panic – What else is coming at us? Is this a ghost, something else that will cause us harm? They’re terrified. They cry out in fear. Jesus comes near and says, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” That phrase, “it is I”, should actually be translated as “I am”. Jesus uses the ancient name of God, I Am, to assure the disciples that God, the great I AM, is with them; they need not be afraid. Jesus has come to get in the boat with them. They can stay in the boat and not abandon ship. They can risk leaving the boat when that’s helpful, as Peter tries to do. They can have courage for Jesus is present and his abiding presence brings peace even amidst the storms.

Jesus has also come to get in the boat with us. Jesus has come to us to share all that it means to be human – the storms, the battering winds, the rogue waves. Jesus has come to enter the depths of human suffering to assure us of God’s presence with us always. Yet like the first disciples, we sometimes struggle to recognize Jesus in the storm. We panic. We’re terrified. Is this just something else coming to do us harm?

So, Jesus draws near and speaks to us the same promise he spoke to those first disciples – Take heart, I am here, do not be afraid. Jesus speaks these words of promise to you today in this worship service – through scripture, sermon, song, and prayer this promise is spoken to you, for you. Take heart, I am here, do not be afraid. Hearing this promise during worship helps us to recognize Jesus’ presence amidst the storms of our world, the presence that brings peace. As one wise Good Shepherd member reminds me – sometimes God works to calm the storm, sometimes God works to calm us, but God is always at work.

Hearing this promise, “I am here, do not be afraid”, also helps us to discern what in this world is of God and what is seeking to do us more harm. We can discern by asking: Is this leaving me more afraid or is this helping me to take heart and be courageous? So many powers in our world today are trying to increase our fear for their own gain. Some politicians claim only a vote for them can keep us safe. They try to stoke our anger and fear. Some corporations seek to increase our anxiety so that we’ll use their products – generating fear for their own profit. Some media outlets act like a map of shipwrecks on Lake Superior with added neon lights flashing, “Be afraid, be very afraid.” All of this can leave us feeling paralyzed and terrified. The message “be afraid” is not of God. Over and over in scripture we are told, “Do not be afraid.”

And over and over in scripture we see that God gives us what we need to not be afraid. Great waves are coming at us – yes, but God, in Jesus, is always coming toward us. Jesus comes to get into the boat with us. Jesus comes to speak words of promise to us again and again so that we can take heart and have courage. With Jesus’ presence, we can stay in the boat rather than abandoning ship – when that is needed. We can get out and risk as Peter did – when that’s helpful. We can work to shore up others whose boats are far more impacted by the storm.

Take heart – God the I AM is here. Do not be afraid. Jesus is with you. You are not alone.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Pastor Marion Pruitt-Jefferson, Preacher

Scriptures: Isaiah 55:1-5, Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21, Matthew 14:13-21

Beloved of God, Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The feeding of the 5000 is one of the best known of Jesus’ miracles and it’s the only miracle that’s recorded in all four of the gospels, which tells us something about the importance of this story. Since the beginning, the church has understood the Feeding of the 5000 to be about the sacrament of Holy Communion.  Jesus’ feeding the multitude points us to the deeper reality of how Jesus continues to feed us today – in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

So, there is an obvious problem with our hearing of this story today. What can we say about the feeding of the 5000 when we can’t experience Jesus’ feeding us here at this table today – when we can’t hear the invitation to “Take and Eat” and taste the bread which is Christ’s very life given for us?

About six weeks after we went into lockdown due to the pandemic, I was saying to my husband, John, how much I missed going to church, being together with everyone in this place, singing and praying together and especially sharing in Holy Communion. John said, “Well, you’re a pastor, why not just have communion here at home? We have bread and wine, you know the right words to say, what else do we need?”

I thought about that for a bit. Technically, John was right. We did have bread and wine, and as a pastor in the Lutheran Church, I do have the privilege of presiding at Holy Communion. We could do it.  But somehow, the idea of us having our own little private communion at home felt a bit off. It just seemed somehow incomplete – like something important would be missing. And then it came to me. For this meal we call Holy Communion to be the fullest expression of God’s love and grace and mercy, it needs the Holy Community – all of us sharing together in the gifts of bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood, given not just for me or for you, but for us.

And that’s really hard for us right now.  Our Holy Community is living in a kind of exile. We have been separated from one another, from this beautiful gathering place, from the regular pattern of receiving Holy Communion, from the joy of singing and praying together, and even from sharing the “little sacrament” of fellowship with one another over a cup of coffee and cookies. And I miss all of this so much – and I know you do as well.

The children of Israel knew a lot about what it felt like to be exiled from their place of worship, to be separated from their community, even to wonder if God had forgotten them. For 75 years they were held captive in Babylon against their will. They longed for that day when they would be able to return home, to rebuild the temple, and gather once again as God’s holy people for worship. To sustain them during their exile, God sent them the prophet Isaiah who reminds them with beautiful and powerful words that God was still with them, still planning for them an abundant, hope-filled future.

The passage we heard a moment ago from Isaiah 55 is part of a larger section of Isaiah that begins at chapter 40. This middle section of Isaiah, sometimes called “Second Isaiah”, is just brimming with the promises of God – promises that renewed the people’s hope that indeed, the day was surely coming when God would deliver them from exile and bring them home. There are so many well-known and beloved verses of scripture in these 15 chapters of “Second Isaiah” – verses like these: Comfort, O comfort my people says your God … Get you up to a high mountain O Zion, herald of good tidings. God will feed his flock like a Shepherd and he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom … Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old, for I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

There is SO much beauty and hope and good news in Second Isaiah you can hardly take it all in. Finally, in Chapter 55 we hear God say: Listen up people – everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come buy and eat! I’m putting on a great feast and everyone is invited. Come over here and eat what is good – bread and wine and milk – and delight yourself in rich food! Incline your ear and Listen to me and feast on the good food of my Word. 

These words and so many like them sustained God’s people during their exile; and these same promises sustain us yet today. While we still have to remain at home, not knowing when our separation from this place of worship and from one another will end, God speaks to us and says: I am doing a new thing! Don’t you see? I am making a way through the wilderness of the pandemic. I am with you and will feed you with words of hope and promise.

God always finds a way to us, even in these days of physical distancing and the necessary dis- ruption in our in-person worship. God can take the words of a prophet and restore hope to people living in exile for nearly two generations. God in Christ can take a mere five loaves and two fish and transform it into a meal that feeds thousands. And in these days when we cannot be with one another for worship in this space, God takes what we have – a camera, computer technology, the internet, YouTube, and the labor of skilled hands – and through those means, God creates a new kind of Holy Community and feeds us with grace and mercy.

On Sunday mornings when we open that email message from Pr. Amy and hover our cursor over the “click here” link, instantly we are transported to the Good Shepherd YouTube channel. We can say hello to one another on the Chat page and then, after watching that strange little countdown with the mildly annoying electronic music, suddenly we’re here. We can see our beautiful sanctuary and our dear Pr. Amy standing in this spot, smiling and greeting us in the name of Jesus. And while we recognize the limits of this kind of togetherness, we also know that because of the wonders of the internet God can use this technology to reach beyond the bounds of time and space to bring comfort, encouragement and hope to people anywhere. And in that moment our Holy Community is no longer limited to this physical location, but can draw in people from across town, across the state, even across the country.

And so, we can be together to hear God’s Word, sing hymns of faith, receive grace and encouragement through Pr. Amy’s faithful preaching, pray for the needs of the world, even give our offerings. It is not all that we would hope for; but by God’s grace it is enough to sustain us. And I can tell you, when the last notes of Brooke’s postlude fade away and my computer screen goes dark, I don’t want to let go of that connection that’s been created. I don’t want to leave that virtual space where God is at work gathering this Holy Community and feeding us in Word, Song, Prayer, and in our virtual presence with one another.

I am so thankful for these gifts and for the continuity of our Sunday morning gathering. And I’m even more grateful that next week, after that computer screen goes dark, we can get in our cars, or on our bikes, or on our feet and make our way here – well, out there. We’ll be able to gather in what Reg Laursen has called “The Cathedral of Spilde Woods” to be fed not only with the Word, but also with the bread and wine of Holy Communion. This Holy Community – physically distanced and masked, but together – will receive the gifts of Christ’s body and blood given for us and for all the world.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
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.

These parables Jesus tells have lost a bit of their punch over the years, so it may be helpful to use images that are more familiar to us.

The kingdom of heaven is like someone who plants a stinging nettle seed in his garden. It grows until it’s eight feet high. Some rejoice because they can use it for making tea and cheese and herbal remedies, but others get angry – it’s an invasive species, a noxious weed, it leaves painful bumps.

The kingdom of heaven is like a woman who takes and hides a red sock with a load of white clothes and turns everything pink.

The kingdom of heaven is a treasure that’s found by a thief who’s gone digging around in someone else’s field. The guy hits gold, hides it again and buys the field without disclosing what he’s found.

The kingdom of heaven is like a used car salesman who’s always on the lookout for that ultimate sweet ride. When he finds it, he sells the whole dealership just to be able to own that one car.

The kingdom of heaven is invasive, sneaky, subversive and surprising. We miss that when we hear Jesus’ parables that have been tamed over the years. We’ve interpreted them to mean that great growth can come from small things and that the kingdom of heaven is a great treasure.

That’s all true, but there is something more going on here.

When Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his garden, his hearers would have been shocked. In Jesus’ day, a mustard seed was a weed a farmer would pull from his garden, not a seed he would intentionally plant. If a farmer let it grow in his field, it would take over everything. So, the kingdom of heaven is like a noxious, invasive weed that someone sowed in his field?

The parable about the woman baking bread is even more striking. Jesus isn’t talking about nicely packaged, controlled yeast that we use now. He’s talking about leaven – rotting, moldy bread that was mixed into flour. In Jesus’ day, leaven was a sign of impurity, something that irreparably tainted bread. Leaven was mixed into flour to produce larger loaves for daily life; but unleavened bread was for the holy, the sacred, feasts. This woman was making enough bread for a feast. She had three measures of flour, equal to 144 cups today. So, she ruined a lot of good flour by adding leaven to it. Also, the Greek here doesn’t say the woman mixed in the leaven – it says that she hid it. So, the kingdom of heaven is like a woman who hides corrupting leaven in order to infect a huge amount of flour?

Jesus goes on to say that the kingdom of heaven is a great treasure – there we go, that sounds more like something we expect. However, the guy who finds it is not totally on the up and up. He roots around in someone else’s field, finds treasure, hides it again and then rushes out to buy it before the seller knows what it’s worth – fairly suspicious behavior. So, the kingdom of heaven is a treasure that someone claims using dubious means?

Then Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. In Jesus’ day merchants were viewed with disdain – more like sketchy used car salesmen on late night TV than upstanding local business owners. Their motives and scruples were suspect. So, Jesus’ listeners likely pictured a disreputable merchant sneaking around, trying to get his hand on fine pearls until finally he finds the one great pearl and then sells everything for it. The kingdom of heaven is like that?

Apparently, the kingdom of heaven is not what we expect. In popular imagination, heaven is a place we go after death. Before we get in, we have to go through a gatekeeper at the pearly gates. That couldn’t be farther from how Jesus asks us to imagine heaven. He helps us to see that heaven is abundant life with God in which we experience peace, wholeness and well-being together with all of creation. Heaven is union with God which brings life and freedom and the flourishing of all that God has made. Heaven isn’t somewhere we have to try to get into. Rather, Jesus works to get heaven into earth so that God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.

Through Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is breaking into this world. Yet, our sin causes us to resist God’s kingdom in all sorts of ways. We want abundance for us but not everyone because maybe there isn’t enough to go around. We want peace, but those people make it impossible. We want well-being, but should they really have it – have they earned it? Strange as it seems, we often prefer the status quo and the pecking orders we create that keep some on top and others on the bottom. If we’re lower down, we want to be able to climb and get what’s ours. In so many ways, individually and collectively, we resist the coming of God’s kingdom.

So, it is great news that Jesus isn’t afraid to use unconventional ways of bringing the kingdom of heaven into our broken world. It’s great news that God’s kingdom is as invasive and prolific as mustard seed and stinging nettle. It spreads and grows and flourishes even when we’d prefer to yank it up. It’s great news that God’s kingdom is like a woman who hides a little bit of leaven so that the flour can feed many, many more people. Jesus isn’t concerned that leaven might corrupt; he just wants God’s kingdom to feed and nourish everyone. It is great news that the kingdom comes in surprising, even sneaky ways – like a thief digging in someone else’s field or a merchant with a single-minded focus on a great pearl.

We need God to get through to us in ways we don’t expect. And that is just what God does. God works in so many ways to get our attention, to call us to repentance, to break into our lives, to bring the kingdom for us and through us. God comes to us, to you, today in scripture and song, in words of conviction and promise to plant invasive seeds of good news, mix things up, and surprise.

And God calls us to join this disruptive, sneaky work. We’re called to get in good trouble, necessary trouble, as Rep. John Lewis described it. John Lewis, the great civil rights leader who died last week, grew up thinking that heaven was about after we die. But, then he learned from Dr. King that, “We must not just be concerned about the pearly gates and the streets made out of milk and honey, but we have to be concerned about the streets in Montgomery, Alabama … We must do the work, and whatever we do it must be in keeping with the building of … the Beloved Community, of what some of us may call the kingdom of God here on earth.”

Lewis always called the religious community to join this work. He said, “Today on some of the big issues, moral issues, [it] seems like we been so silent. Somehow, we need to find a way to reclaim our position as people of faith. We don’t need to sort of give up, or give out or in, or get lost in a sea of despair, become discouraged; we just need to get out there.” When I was growing up, Lewis said, “My mother and father and grandparents used to tell us, ‘Don’t get in trouble. Don’t get in the way.’ But during the ’60s, the religious community got in trouble. We got in the way. And it’s time again for the religious community to get in the way. To get in trouble. Good trouble, necessary trouble.”^[1]

We need to advocate and protest and hold leaders accountable and work to build the Beloved Community in which all know God’s well-being, wholeness, liberation and peace.

We can do this, beloved of God, because God is always working to get through to us. God comes to you today to work the kingdom in you. Because of that, you can join in God’s good trouble.

^[1]  https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2004/01/16/january-16-2004-john-lewis-extended-interview/2897/