Nativity Lutheran online coffeehouse

On Friday night I went to a performance at St. Matthews by a duo called Lost & Found. At the beginning of the event they, in good humor, asked us to raise a hand if we had a Jewish friend. While raising my hand, I had a flash back memory to my freshman year at the University of Oregon. On a sunny, warm spring day. Yes, they do happen. On a sunny, warm Spring day a bunch of us were sitting outside the Student Union building, when a couple of people our age came by and asked us a very similar question. “Do you have a Jewish friend?” Most of us answered, “No”. To which they responded “We would like to invite you to our event this evening. We will study The Bible, pray and hopefully you will accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.” Shock, utter shock on our faces. They handed us a flyer with the address of a local, non-denominational church and said good-bye and God bless you and went on their way. This happened more than 20 years ago and the discomfort of that moment has stuck with me. I continue to ask myself, how is it possible to answer that question with a “No” and not deny Jesus Christ?

Some of our group fell for the trap. I would like to say that I was enlightened and answered Yes for the right reason, but that would be wrong. My “yes” was as certainly wrong as a “no”. I just happened to have as a friend at that time a Jewish guy. More than twenty years later I have still found no way to answer that question with “No” and not deny Jesus Christ. If I tried to say, well, I was thinking of a living person, then I just killed Jesus Christ, the living stone, the life. If I tried to say well, of course, he is living, but not as a person, I have just denied Him twice. First, as a physical person, fully embodied and incarnate. Second, I have denied my belief that he died or was. Then what do I do with confessing Jesus Christ as my Savior and my personal friend and knowing that as I eat the bread and drink the wine he is at the table with me. No, way around that either. My last ditch effort was to say, “Well, I forget that Jesus was Jewish. I mean after the resurrection he was Christ, not Jewish.” Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, then wasn’t he Christ before? Have I just tried to make Christ in my image?

And this coming from a child raised in the Church, a confirmed member of the Lutheran Church. I consider that moment of revelation as one of the sacred grace moments of my life and knowing with assurance that I have God’s forgiveness in Jesus’ name. And again on Saturday night the Holy Spirit reminded me of that grace as I sat with others with my hand raised.

Why is this important? The gospel text today reads to me the heart of Lutheran theology. Jesus claims us as his children. Gail O’Day, in her contribution to the New Interpreter’s Bible writes, verses 6-7 say “This is who we are. We are the people who believe in the God who has been revealed to decisively in Jesus Christ.’” When Jesus says that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one will come to the Father but through me, he isn’t excluding anyone or condemning those that don’t believe, but rather a confirmation of whose we are…insert your own name here, Child of God.

Jesus continues and talks not only to the disciples, but to us today. We, who know, Jesus lived for us, Jesus died for us, God resurrected Jesus for us and Jesus ascended for us. The disciples had yet to experience the full glory of God in Jesus, but we do know. God acts through us. In this way, our works will be greater. Jesus bids us to ask and our prayers will be answered. Not what I want, but what Jesus would want. Our prayer will be answered as Jesus would act. Jesus calls us to come and die…are we ready for the price? Do you remember the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15?

Philip Yancey retells the story like this: “A young woman had conflict with her family and left home in the company of a young man, heading to Montana. By the time they got to Montana, he left her and went on his way. She was reduced to a life of prostitution in order to support herself. She eventually, during the fierce winter, became ill, so ill that she could not work. She was reduced to rummaging around in garbage cans, attempting to find food.

One day, in eating a bit of meant, she remembered the way her father would sometimes throw scraps of meat to their family dog. She said to herself, “Even our dog at home eats better than I do here.”

She decided to make her humiliated way back home. She wrote her father a letter saying, “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. I’m coming home on the bus. I’ll get off at the bus station. If there is no one there to meet me, I will understand and will simply get back on the bus and keep heading west.”

She got on the bus. After a long trip from Montana, when she arrived at the bus station, she got off. She looked for her father. At first she did no see him. There were over 200 people there – relatives and friends. There was a big banner stretched across the bus station saying, “Welcome home!”

She found her father and she began her speech, “Dad, it’s all my fault…”

Her father would not let her finish her speech, but instead said, ‘There is no time for speeches. Come, a great feast has been prepared.’”

Do not live with troubled hearts. Believe God. Believe Jesus. Jesus tells there is room for all of us in our Divine’s house. The Divine’s household has a place for you, me and the stranger we have yet to welcome as family.

Jesus went ahead. He is preparing a place for us. We know our story and yet like the disciples we still forget it and get lost. We try to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, but sometimes when we look so hard for the footprints for the shortest way we get lost. Have no fear little lamb. The shepherd will not leave us. He will find us on the paths and in the blackberry bushes where we have wandered. He will lead us to the still waters and to home. To a home with space for all. Here in this place and in this time, Nativity is one of God’s households in creation and the ministries’ manger its rooms. Let us hold the door and windows wide open and welcoming for any seeker whom we meet on our path and whom we invite to walk home and eat with us.

# posted by Pastor Bob Lewis : 4:34 PM