Fifth Sunday in Lent
April 7, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Preaching text – Psalm 126

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus who has entered the wilderness with us.

God promises, through our Psalm today, that: “Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.” 

Today I want to tell you that I have discovered, deep in my bones, that this promise is true. It is true for you as well.

But first I need to confess that, apparently, I’ve been ignoring scripture this week – specifically, that line in our first reading today, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.” See, I’ve been doing a lot of looking back this week. Thursday was my daughter Abby’s birthday and I spent a lot of time remembering the joyous day she was born.

Wednesday was my dearest friend Sarah’s birthday. Almost every year, from the time Sarah turned 19 until she turned 42, I got to be with her sometime around her birthday – well except the year Abby was born. Sarah’s 42^nd birthday was the last we celebrated together, however, as she died later that year of a brain aneurysm. This week I spent a lot of time remembering Sarah and not just because it was her birthday, but I’ll get to that.

Sarah and I met the very first day of first-year orientation at Luther College. We grew so close over four years of college and then four years together at Luther Seminary. We bonded over the joys and sorrows of ministry, marriage and motherhood. We were godmothers to each other’s children. Our families vacationed together. When my parents died she came right away – each time. We were so close that I didn’t invest much in other friendships.

Sarah was a great pastor and I learned so much from her. She had a way of showing everyone she met that they were important to her and important to God. She was passionate about supporting women in ministry. Sarah had the most wonderful, joyful laugh – you just couldn’t help but laugh and smile in her presence.

When Sarah died, I didn’t know how I would carry on as a person, much less as a pastor, spouse and mom. I also was only one year into new my call here. I didn’t want to have so many tears at the beginning of ministry among you all. But I did cry. I cried all the way through the service here on the Sunday after Sarah’s death. Good Shepherd members stepped in to preach and lead and I got to sit in the back, worshiping and crying.

The next day, I helped to lead Sarah’s funeral along with the associate pastor at Sarah’s church, Ashley, and a pastor friend of Sarah’s named Regina. Together with 800 other people, we cried and laughed our way through the day, remembering Sarah and remembering God’s promises. My sister, two aunts, and a new friend, Stacey, each drove three hours to sit with me and my family at the funeral.

Now, two and a half years later, what was sowed with tears is bringing new songs of joy. The seeds planted during that time of weeping are bearing a harvest of joy.

Our preacher the day I cried through worship, Amalia Vagts, is now in seminary. The fact that she could prepare a powerful sermon with very short notice that week was just another affirmation that God is calling her into ministry. I have shared tears and deep joy in ministry here among you.

Friends from Luther College have reached out and old friendships have rekindled. Ashley, Regina and I are now dear and close friends. Together, with Sarah’s husband Dan, we oversee the almost $35,000 given in memory of Sarah. We’ve created an initiative called Extending the Table: Sarah’s Invitation. The goal of the initiative is to gather and support women clergy as we lead and as we discern what God is doing in, with, and for the church in a time of change.

Last spring, the initiative provided funds to bring an excellent speaker to a regular gathering of clergy women in the La Crosse area. My friend Stacey and I got to attend this retreat. This past week, the initiative funded the first formal women clergy’s gathering in Northeast Iowa. My friends Stacey, Annie, Melissa, and I planned this retreat together and it was such a beautiful time.

Twenty women clergy gathered together to worship, pray and learn from Wartburg Seminary President, Louise Johnson. We shared our joys and sorrows in ministry. Our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with shouts of joy. We were strengthened and renewed for our service to the church.

I still carry such sorrow about Sarah’s death. I will grieve her as long as I live. The ELCA has lost a great leader. Clergywomen have lost a great advocate.

Yet God is doing a new thing for me, other women clergy and our whole church. Joy has come out of the tears. God is doing what God promises to do in the Psalms and in the book of Isaiah. God says, “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert … to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.”

Whatever tears you know, whatever wilderness you face, you are not alone. God has entered into it all in Jesus who shares our humanity, our suffering, our grief. God is in the wilderness with you and God will make a way through it.

Beloved, God keeps the promises made in scripture. This is what God does. These promises are not just for people long ago. They are not just former things of old. They are for you, for me, for all of us still today.

Along the way, God gives you water in the wilderness through the promises given to you in baptism. God gives you drink, the cup of salvation, as well as the bread of life so that you too might declare God’s praise. You have what you need to walk through your own wilderness and to accompany others in theirs – to be a source of hope. You can praise trusting that joy comes out of the tears, new life comes out of death. Your mouth will be filled with laughter and your tongue with shouts of joy.

Next week we reflect on how deeply Jesus entered the wilderness with us as we remember his passion and death and resurrection. We will remember and consider these things of old. Yet, we will not only remember and look back. We will also open our eyes to see that God does a new thing for each of us – for you, and for me and for our whole hurting world.

God brings joy out of tears, life out of death, again and again.

Thanks be to God.

Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 31, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

One note before the Gospel is read. This Lent we have been focusing on the Psalms, but I couldn’t do it this week! Our Gospel story today is often called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It is such a key parable for our life of faith that I couldn’t just read it and not preach on it. So, this is our preaching text for today.

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

The two brothers in this story seem completely opposite from each other.

The older brother stays close to home with his nose to the grindstone. The younger one hightails it to a distant country and squanders what he’s been given.

Once he has nothing left, then he realizes he’d be better off as a servant in his father’s house. The older brother claims he slaves away and yet gets nothing.

The father throws a party for his younger son – kills the fatted calf for him; the older son complains he can’t even get a goat.

It’s easy to see and emphasize the contrasts between these two brothers. We often do that when we hear this parable. We tend to identify with one of these brothers and demonize the other. Or, perhaps we identify with the aching father who seems torn between these two very different sons.

Yet these brothers also have much in common. They both distance themselves from their father and their family, albeit in different ways.

The younger son says to his father, basically, I wish you were dead. I can’t wait until you die to get my share of what you have – give it to me now. Then he goes far away and squanders his father’s gift, his father’s savings, his father’s legacy. The older son stays physically close, yet allows resent-ment and anger to be a wedge between himself and his family. He refuses to go into the party when his brother returns. He even refuses to acknowledge him as his brother saying, “when this son of yours came back.”

Both sons break their father’s heart by creating this distance.

These brothers are not so different from one another, and not so different from us. We have all sorts of ways of creating distance in relationships with other people and God. We flee, hide, with- draw, get angry, avoid. We may or may not have run far away; but we have all, in some way, squandered the love God has given us. We may not be quite as bitter as the older brother; but we have all felt overlooked, left out, and resentful at time.

We also know what it’s like to be this father – longing for someone who has left us, physically or emotionally. And we wonder how to respond to people who hurt us. Should we welcome them with open arms or does that just enable them?

There is part of each of the brothers and the father in every one of us. This parable calls us to be- come aware of all those parts of ourselves – to pay attention to our selfishness, our bitterness and anger, and all the longings we carry.

This parable also directs our attention to God who treats us the way the father in the parable treats his sons. So much emphasis is placed on the father’s welcome of the younger son, but the father actually responds to each of his sons in a similar way. He goes out to meet each of them to draw them into a feast.

The father sees the younger son when he’s still far off and runs to embrace him, crossing the threshold of his house to welcome his son home. He runs, he doesn’t walk, doesn’t cross his arms and sit there waiting to be told he was right all along. He hikes up his robes and runs. What was lost is found, who was dead is alive, get him what he needs and let’s celebrate! Compassion and love are given most extravagantly. The father crosses that same threshold again when he leaves the party to go out and plead with his older son to come in and celebrate. The father, who saw the lost son off at a distance, also sees this son who never strayed far from home. He hustles out for both of them. He meets both with compassion and love saying to the older, “All that I have is yours”.

It turns out, the father is the real prodigal in the story. The word prodigal means to be extravagant, excessive and lavish. So, actually, both brothers are a bit prodigal. The younger son is extravagant with his recklessness and self-indulgence. The older son displays excessive anger. Yet it is the father who is the most extravagant, excessive and lavish – prodigal with his love and welcome.

And that is how our God is. God’s prodigal welcome is for each of us, for you. God has come, in Jesus, to embrace us. God, in Jesus, has crossed the threshold of heaven to overcome the distances we create to welcome us and draw us into a feast.

God has also come in Jesus to bring reconciliation between people – that is God’s deep longing. Even when that hope still seems far off, even when bitterness leads to separation, even when those you long for seem far gone, they are beloved of God, as are you. God will not give up on them and God will not give up on you. God keeps watching, welcoming, pleading and rejoicing in us.

And today our prodigal God comes to you to embrace you, every part of you, and draw you into the feast. You are found, you are given new life.

Thanks be to God.