Ash Wednesday
March 6, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Preaching text: Psalm 51, Evangelical Lutheran Worship translation

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; in your great compassion blot out my offenses.

Wash me through and through from my wickedness,
and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my offenses, and my sin is ever before me.

Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are justified when you speak and right in your judgment.

Indeed, I was born steeped in wickedness, a sinner from my mother’s womb.

Indeed, you delight in truth deep within me, and would have me know wisdom deep within.

Remove my sins with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be purer than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness; that the body you have broken may rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my wickedness.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.

Let me teach your ways to offenders, and sinners shall be restored to you.

Rescue me from bloodshed, O God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing of your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

For you take no delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering.

The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a troubled and broken heart, O God, you will not despise.

Favor Zion with your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Then you will delight in the appointed sacrifices, in burnt and whole offerings; then young bulls shall be offered upon your altar.

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

As we begin Lent, Psalm 51 invites us to reflect upon our own beginnings. How did your life begin?

What is most true about you from the very foundation of your being?

The author of the Psalm does that reflection and he expresses a sense of his sinfulness from the very beginning, from his mother’s womb. He prays, “Indeed, I was born steeped in wickedness, a sinner from my mother’s womb.”

It’s important to note that the Psalmist isn’t making some abstract claim here about the doctrine of original sin. Rather, he’s coming to God in prayer confessing that sin and guilt have permeated his relationship with God, his whole body, his whole life, from the very beginning of his life. Sin and guilt feel to him like they are the truest, most foundational things about him.

Yet that sentiment, “I was a sinner from my mother’s womb,” is not how the Psalm begins. And, it turns out, it also isn’t the true beginning of the Psalmist’s life or ours. The Psalm begins with the words, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; in your great compassion, blot out my offenses.” The Psalm begins with God’s steadfast love and compassion. And, in the original Hebrew, that word translated as “compassion” is rooted in the Hebrew word for womb. The Psalmist is calling on what Hebrew scholars refer to as God’s “womb love,” the love a mother feels for her yet-to-be-born child.

This is our true beginning. We begin in the womb of God’s compassion. Even if we do feel we have been sinful from our earthly mother’s womb, what is most true, most primal and primary for us is the “womb love” of God. God’s compassion is our beginning and our foundation. God’s deep compassion can permeate our bodies and our whole lives. The Psalmist prays that this would happen for him.

He feels his sin in a deeply physical, visceral way as a stained and broken body, a troubled and broken heart. He longs to experience joy and forgiveness in that same physical, visceral way. He prays to be washed, purged, cleansed; begs God to create a new and clean heart in him so that his tongue would sing of God’s righteousness. He pleads for God to open his lips so his mouth can declare God’s praise; longs to experience truth and wisdom deep within, joy and gladness in his body.

This is what our mothering God desires us all of us to experience, deep within.

On this Ash Wednesday we, too, experience our sinfulness, guilt and brokenness in a very physical, visceral way as we are marked with ashes and reminded that we are dust. The point of this is not to make us all feel terrible about ourselves or to indoctrinate us in the concept of original sin. All of this is intended to open up our bodies to God in repentance and prayer and help us to see how much we need God – God who is our beginning and foundation. It is intended to draw us into physical experiences of God’s mercy, steadfast love and compassion.

Ash Wednesday is to help us know, deep in our bones, that we begin in God and return to God. We are dependent upon God who breathes life into dust, who makes beautiful things out of dust, who gives us new life and new beginnings, creates new hearts in us and then receives us again when we return to dust.

The disciplines of Lent – fasting, prayer and giving – are all intended to help us know this in physical and visceral ways. They are intended to draw us into God’s “womb love” compassion and to shape us into people who bring that “womb love” compassion to bear in the world. Lent is an invitation to make each day a new beginning in which we are washed in God’s mercy and forgive- ness.

This Lent, during midweek worship we will be reflecting on how we all thirst for physical, visceral experiences of God’s compassion in the form of water, wells, conversation, prayer, love, attention, and surrender.

On Sundays, we will drink deeply of the Psalms that draw our bodies into prayer.

This Lent, may you know, deep in your bones, that you are born of compassion, that God’s steadfast love for you is the most true thing about you. May you begin from that place each new day.

Transfiguration of Our Lord – Last Sunday after Epiphany
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Seminarian Amalia Vagts, Preacher

First Reading:  Exodus 34: 29-35; Psalm 99; Second Reading: 1 Corinthians
3:12–4:2; Gospel: Luke 9:28-43

I will get to the the demons, but first … talk about a mountaintop experience! Sounds amazing, right?

But sometimes I don’t like hearing about other people’s great experiences – like when your friends go to a party you weren’t invited to and then post a bunch of great pictures on Instagram.

I would guess that even the other disciples, the ones Jesus didn’t take up the mountain, might think the same thing. Maybe that’s why Peter and James and John didn’t say anything right away about it – because it would have been one of the most aggravating “you should have been there” stories ever.

AMAZING – Moses and Elijah were there! Epic! Jesus’ face like TOTALLY changed and his clothes became completely white. SRSLY: God actually spoke to us. We almost had a camp-out with those guys!

And we’re like, “Oh, that’s awesome, super happy for you”, but inside we’re really sad we weren’t there. Deep down, we do care because it sounds amazing. Something incredible happened. But we weren’t up on the mountain having a mystical experience with Jesus. We’re the ones standing around on the ground, wrestling with demons.

By demons, I mean loneliness, a fight in our family, a lost job, church denominations that chose human fear over God’s love, illness, or a terrible thing someone wrote about us in Snapchat. We have to deal with all of this.

We’re not on the mountain. We didn’t see God. So what does any of this have to do with us at all?

Peter and James and John were weighed down with sleep, but stayed awake. This makes me think of those late night conversations around a campfire when you are getting so groggy and you are barely tracking the conversation, fighting to stay awake.

In his own language Luke uses a word that appears nowhere else in the New Testament.^[1] It doesn’t mean fighting to stay awake. It means fully awake – fully, completely, thoroughly awake, fully present.

God does change me. And when I’m fully awake and fully present, I see this. This happens even when I’m not on the mountain.

It happens in relationship with others – like at the Bible reflection time I’ve been leading at Arlin Falck Assisted Living this year. We read and studied and prayed over this text together. And, through the radio we are worshipping together this morning.

It happens with a note – like the one Good Shepherd kids wrote in Sunday School to one of our older members: “Dear whoever you are, whatever you are going through, God loves you”, said the note. And she LOVED that. “That is exactly what a kid would write!”, she said.

It happens here – I’m thinking of the fact that we’ve added herbal tea to our Sunday morning banquet to make people feel welcome. I’m thinking of you guys – Sunday School & Youth Forum – and the fact that you have your own tables in the Fellowship Hall. I’m thinking of anyone who is here for the first time, maybe in a church for the first time ever, and who hears you are invited to join in bread and wine we share at the communion table.

You don’t have to be on the mountain. We all have the chance every day to be astounded at the greatness of God. God changes us in Christ Jesus and through the Spirit of God. God says, “This is my Chosen – listen.” This is a command. Listen. This is not a one-time command – it’s ongoing, keep listening.^[2] The meaning of this word in its original language is a forever command: “Listen everyone, listen continually – keep listening!”

The pastor and author Frederick Buechner writes beautifully about what we can hear when we keep listening. We might think that person on the street is talking to us about the weather. But if we wake up, if we listen, they are saying: I’m lonely; or I want to connect with you; or I forgive you.^[3]

Be fully awake. Listen continuously – to your own heart, to those around you, to the earth. God is speaking. God changes you – gives you life, wholeness, freedom.

Scripture tells us that Christ Jesus is the Word of God – that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1) and the Word became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14a).

Today, God says to us: Continue listening to Christ Jesus – to this Word of God. What is this message? What is this Word of God?

No one is outside the love and grace of God (Gal 3:28, Rom 10:12, ). Nothing can separate you from the love of God (Rom 8:38-39). Love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love others. Love yourself (Luke 10:27).

God came into this world in the person of Jesus to become one of us; divine, speaking to us and changing us; human, wrestling with the demons of daily life. Human enough to have questions, doubts, fears. Human enough to want to have a dinner with his friends and be remembered by them. Human enough to be betrayed by friends. Human enough to face the only thing in life that every single one of us will face.

Christ Jesus lives in this world now on the mountains, on the plain and all places in between – fully divine, fully human saying over and over and over again, God changes you. Be fully awake and in the face of another you will see God.

God says – Listen to my Chosen One. Listen! Listen Continuously!

God’s Chosen One, Jesus, says this to you:

You are enough.

You are beloved.

You are free.

^[1] Diagrēgorēsantes.

^[2] Akouete is a present imperative active verb in the second person plural.

^[3] Frederick Buechner, “The Hungering Dark,” (70-71).