July 15, 2018. The Apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians sounds almost too good to be true, perhaps a bit too gushy for some of our sensibilities. Pastor Stephanie preaches on this passage, and on the plan that God has for us all. *** Transcript *** Sometimes when I confront a Biblical passage, it seems too big, too wonderful, too exalted to dare preach about it. Many of the passages, as you know, are so sublime and glorious that it's downright intimidating to think that any one of us could do it justice. I feel that way this morning about the words of a letter to the Ephesians that was read for us earlier, and yet it kept calling to me to work with it this Sunday. Realize, dear congregation, that the intro to this letter is something really special. I'm sure you caught the wide sweeping language the Apostle Paul employs to capture our imaginations, of a powerful vision for us regarding our relationship with a grand and loving God. So, how is the Apostle Paul handling this here? Mostly he is not giving a doctrinal lesson, as he sometimes does in Romans, although there is some of that here, nor is he giving an ethical lecture like he does to the church in Corinth. This passage is more like an overture to a vast musical composition in which all the great themes of a symphony are introduced. Paul seems to hurl himself here into a great burst of praise to God. In the Greek text, the passage that Pastor Jim read is one sentence, one sentence of long celebration that goes on and on for 12 verses. It's been broken down into a few sentences for us in English, thankfully for our reading, but it is still a mouthful for a lector to read, and a whole lot of soaring rhetoric for our minds to comprehend. So, how can and should this be preached? Even at this moment I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think it's to dissect it and analyze every piece of it. That's for an in-depth biblical study to do that. But focusing so narrowly on it would be to miss its wonder and depth. So somehow together I hope we can gain a glimpse of the vision expressed here and enter into its power. If this happens throughout our time here today, then we will have received what this text wants to give us: mental, emotional, and spiritual engagement that becomes a symphony of praise offered to our God. You do know that I run the risk here of sounding like a salesperson with an offer that is too good to be true, don't you? You heard the language employed here. It's one thing for the Apostle Paul to use this language, but for ordinary people like me, to go on and on about how you and I are chosen, how we are accepted, how we are adopted by God, how we are graced beyond our imaginations, how we are forgiven of everything we have ever done, how we are lavished with the riches of God's grace, how we are destined according to God's promises, and heirs of the almighty God... All of that could breed some distrust and suspicion, as I would imagine. That sounds almost too good to be true. The superlatives here border on the "bit too gushy" for some of our sensibilities. After all, over time we've had to become realists, and some of this sounds a bit too lofty to comprehend and to be completely true, through and through. Haven't we all listened to enough commercials and promotions to wonder if this language isn't just a bit over the top? We'll see as we move forward, but maybe, just maybe we need to examine what might be at play for us, even if it does sound too good to be true. First of all, one of the major concepts here is that we are beloved by God. That's well established throughout Scripture. God says in many places and times, "I have called you by name and you are mine." Another psalm says our names are written in the palm of God's hands. We have the whole narrative and theology of the fact that Christ died for us, even in our sin while we were yet sinners, loved us enough to die for us, and Jesus himself calls us his friends. And further, beyond that, it says that God has plans for us. That is abundantly clear in Ephesians. When I was growing up I knew that my mother had plans for me. She had health issues, and found the physicians who cared for her to be compassionate and admirable. Therefore, she developed this goal or purpose for me since I love studying the natural sciences. Anyway, she made it clear that she thought I should go into medicine. Well, my dad worked in a bank and he thought I could be a warm and friendly hometown loan officer, in the bank in the little community like he was. Since I liked math as well, that was enough for him. I'm sure you can see where this is going. I never did go into either field that fit my parents' plans for me. I think they got over it, eventually. I did not even go into a field that fit my own earlier plans for myself. I loved, loved, loved my second grade teacher, so much that I thought I was going to be an elementary school teacher. Eventually, of course, a different career path became obvious to me. But what my career became was only a piece, a small piece of the growing recognition of where God was moving in my life. More than what I did as a career, was the awareness that God had a wider, bigger picture for me as a person, as a child of God, a disciple, one baptized and called into the plans of God, just as God does for each and every person, here and beyond. These plans have existed since before time was created, and they are big and grand and very important. These plans and purposes that God has for us are amazing. What we do relates to this. But even more, who we are and how we operate seem to be in God's scheme of things. Paul tells us in Ephesians that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love. He goes on to say that God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. The most obvious connection for this passage is our baptism. Where we rejoice that God has chosen us. God claims us as his own. When we remember how Christ washed away our sins and made us new creations in Christ. In baptism, we experience the sign and seal of God's promises. We recognize that this is a gift, because there's nothing that we could ever do to deserve the life we receive in Christ. Through remembering our baptism, we acknowledge that God chose us to be beloved sons and daughters, and God commissions us to be bearers of the promises of God throughout our lives. That is our true vocation and calling. To live as children of God who see our adoption into God's family as a grace gift, welcoming others to receive that same gift is part of the purpose and plan for our lives that God has always had for us. One of my favorite seminary professors endlessly found ways to weave a phrase that is prominent in this passage into most of the lectures I remember him giving. He taught homiletics and an elective class on prayer. If William Brownson has a theme to his teaching and his life, and he still does at age 90 I might add, it is that we are called to live for the praise of God's glory, whether we are preaching, teaching, performing surgery, caring for children or the elderly, preparing accounting reports, practicing for a piano recital, playing soccer, or sitting in a wheelchair and wondering what's next, our purposes are to be the same. However our lives evolve, God has destined us to live for the praise of God's glory. That isn't always easy to figure out, especially when times get tough. I'll give you a clue though in what makes this easier. It's something that most of us profess to know and believe, but in our day-to-day life it can be a little hard to hang on to. Spoiler alert, it's all going to turn out well in the end. The novel that God is writing has a very, very happy ending. Paul reminds us of this too in this passage. He says according to God's good pleasure that he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, God will gather up all things in him, things in Heaven and things on Earth. All of history is moving steadily toward the time when people of all tribes, of every language, will gather around the throne of God, singing to the praise of God's glory and every wrong will be righted, every tear wiped away. The dead will be raised in Christ, and all that has become corrupt and destructive will be made brand new and beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful, isn't it? But what about now? We're not there yet. Now all around us people believe the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Sometimes that even includes us. Taking this Ephesians passage to heart, however, means we cannot give up hope. I'm sure we could all name a few situations that do seem hopeless to us. Most of the time we have good reason to think that, at least in the short term but certainly not in the long term. Paul is showing us this expansive vision for the plan of God as revealed in Christ, which claims that all things eventually work out for the glory of God. That, if nothing else, reminds us of the power of the gospel. God's grace prevails. It's over all and in all and cannot be conquered by evil. It's even given where not deserved. We cannot begin to comprehend how things we find so reprehensible can ever be redeemed, but God can imagine that and is making it so. How then do we fit into this as the adopted children of God, into this plan? As we reflect on the grace of God toward us, chosen, adopted, given a purpose, richly blessed with a massive inheritance of love, destined to live for the praise of God's glory, we are repositories of hope and grace to be shown to others. We can, ironically, be somewhat light-hearted, since the heavy lifting for all of this has already been done by God in and through us. And yet there's something weighty about this role as well. This playing the glory of God is no small thing. The Hebrew word for it is Chabad and it contains a gravitas, a significant awareness of the unique difference the presence of God makes. It's nothing to be taken flippantly. Paul would say that to live for the praise of God's glory means to live daringly, to live conscientiously in the presence of God, that in every situation God wills to bring hope and redemption. That very thing was what gave the disciples courage, even at the beheading of John the Baptist, something so horrible and vulgar that one could never get over it were it not for the awareness of the goodness of God being able to ultimately triumph over evil. It's also what gave the prophet Amos the chutzpa to speak truth to power about the state of Israel's life. Knowing God's truth and goodness are so much bigger than self-centered leaders gives a person that ability. It's what gives us the courage and fortitude to look suffering in the face with the eyes of love and the confidence that God is indeed making all things new. William Sloane Coffin, author and longtime pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, once noted that when we think about living as God's beloved children, we are often rather short-sighted in understanding what that really means. We sentimentally describe the sweet, simple trust of children. But Coffin wrote that we should not underestimate this sweet idealism of children. It's children, after all, who want to save the seals, save the whales, and save everybody else while they're at it. It's kids who set up lemonade stands and sell cookies so they can turn their nickels and dimes over to this or that relief effort. It's children who take home those little church-shaped banks and fill them with copper coins and then bring them back to the church, really believing that those pennies will make a new addition to the church or buy enough mosquito nets to really save lives. It's children who have a neighborhood walk around a school, holding up homemade signs calling for racial reconciliation and really believing that they are making a difference by taking to the sidewalk in that way. Of course, we encourage this in children. We buy the lemonade, we compliment their delicious cookies, and we stick our loose change into empty coffee cans. I think this Ephesians passage is encouraging us all to take up our own hopeful campaigns and causes with the end in mind. If God has plans for our lives to contribute to the restoration of the cosmos that is eventually coming, let's not lose heart at the things that look dismal today. But rather joyfully, enthusiastically join with children of all ages, beloved children of God, in doing the hopeful things that point to a God whose purposes are bigger than we ever dared to ask or imagine. We are chosen. We are destined. We are the baptized. We are set free and set loose to live for the praise of God's glory. People who live in Christ know that everything we have ever needed has been lavished upon us freely and completely. We know and believe that since we live in that sphere of influence that is Christ Jesus, it is precisely simple acts of trust, quiet acts of kindness, a gentleness of spirit, and a willingness to witness to the gospel, that can make all the difference in the world. One day that grace will change the world. Actually, by God's grace, it's already happening. Thanks be to God. *** Keywords *** 2018, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Stephanie Doeschot

June 24, 2018. Have you ever had any fearful experiences on the water? Pastor Stephanie preaches today on the story of Jesus calming the storm. She reminds us that there is no storm that we face, personally or as a community of faith or in any other realm, where we are actually alone. *** Transcript *** I'd like you to say a brief prayer with me, please. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be acceptable in your sight, O God. Amen. I introduced myself a bit last week, and I know that every week I'm going to need to do a little bit of that. I probably won't do that so much from the pulpit today, but I do look forward to meeting each and every one of you. My name is Pastor Stephanie Doeschot, as a you've probably read about somewhere or heard, and I'm looking forward to spending this time with you as your interim pastor, and look forward to what God will do in and through this congregation, and as we work together in partnership to ascertain where God is taking this congregation, and to just be still and be the people of God in the meantime as we continue on loving God and loving one another. I have a question for you, much like I did for the children: have any of you ever had any fearful experiences, this time on the water? Well, bodies of water can be so beautiful and inviting, but then there are times when they are mighty forces to be reckoned with. Several years ago, my husband and I were on a pastoral sabbatical concluding with a lovely week at a beach cottage south of Monterey, California. If you've been there, I need say no more. That is one of God's finest designs over there. The Pacific rolls in and there's so much beauty to enjoy, and it's very peaceful and wonderful. Well, it was peaceful until we decided that we would like to try our hand at sea kayaking, which had been highly recommended to us. We made an appointment for the last day of our stay there. It was the only one still available. This was about three weeks after Labor Day. The season was winding down at the rental shop and to have guys go out with you. So we showed up on that Friday morning only to find out that the guide who was to take us on this adventure had not shown up for work. This was our last day. We were flying home the next day and we were determined to take advantage of this opportunity. The manager of the store had to stay nearby to rent out the kayaks, but he told us with a short tutorial by him that we should be fine. And we fell for it. Well, it was not without difficulty and several attempts, that we did make our way through the first line of the waves that break into the shore, and I assure you on the Pacific Ocean those are no small force to be reckoned with either. My husband made it a little better than I did. But you had to put your kayak perpendicular, heading straight out into the water to break through the waves, and I had a couple of times I have to admit that the waves had the better of me and I would be flipped over. And I would have to get myself up and get the thing readied again, and stand and try to push out, and make it through about four or five layers of these breakers. Well, we eventually got to do that, and then we were delighted to enjoy a long stretch of peaceful water where the harbor seals would playfully pop their heads up and make their little sounds and look at us, and then they'd pop down to swim. It was idyllic. But the instructor had told us that what we really wanted to do was to go out further, where the kelp beds lie and where we would see more wildlife. He said we would know we were there when the water turned green all around us. And he was right. What he did not tell us was that when we would get out that far, we would also be likely to be caught up in swells that were for the first twenty seconds rather fun. But after that, sheer terror set in. I know for me much of that was in my head. As I said, I'd already overturned two to three times near the shore when the small but intense waves pitched me out of my kayak. Suddenly now, in the face of these enormous swells where I found myself sometimes at the bottom looking up at what seemed to be 15 to 20 feet of water (maybe I exaggerate but it seemed like it) and then riding up the side of that wave only to be cast down to the bottom of the next swell, panic set in. I envisioned myself being overturned by a subsequent one, and either not being able to get back into the kayak before some unfriendly sea creature started nibbling at my body parts, or that I would be completely upside down and unable to breathe. Oh, the dangers we can imagine. Often at least based in some reality, but just as often magnified beyond the bounds of that which is likely to happen. I did not wait to find out how my deepest fears might be realized. At this point I could barely maintain eye contact with my husband, carried away as he was by swells somewhere out of my eyesight, but my lungs still worked. So I called out to him that this was no longer fun, and I wanted to get back to the shore ASAP. Surprisingly, no argument came from him, and we each managed to turn those kayaks into the direction that they needed to go, because at this point we were still facing Asia. But we managed to get them turned around and headed back to the shore. These kayaks looked to me like a child's toy compared to the size of these gigantic waves. As you can see I'm here today, so we made it safely. But not without sending my pulse into higher regions than ever, I'm pretty sure. Well, surely you have your own stories. You can relate to times of feeling at the mercy of some powerful force of nature, or a situation where you wonder about the outcome. In our gospel lesson today a storm arises. As you recall, Jesus has been teaching on the west side of the Sea of Galilee, and the disciples have been getting a chance to get to know him, and who he is about, and marvel over him already, and yet not completely understand him. But when he says to them, let's get in the boat we need to go to the other side, they do it and they fish. Skilled fisherman that they are, they probably don't think of thing of what lies before them. And then a storm comes up, the likes of which shake them to their toes. As you recall, panic sets in for the disciples. Jesus is sleeping. Sleeping through all of this. And yet they are encountering a storm that has created deep fear in their hearts and their minds, and so what really hooked me this week in responding to this passage was Jesus' response to the panic of the disciples who, with accusing tones in their voices said Jesus, don't you care about us? We are perishing here and you seem not to care. This is a crisis. So what does Jesus do? He takes charge of the situation, speaking to the wind and the waves and commanding them to be still. And they do calm down. But you get the sense that the storm is still raging inside of his companions. Maybe they're asking themselves: are we really safe with this guy? How do we know he really has our backs? We had to wake him up to pay attention to this, remember? What if he sleeps through the next crisis, or if we can't find him when we need his help? Then what? Well, the response we have through our English translation doesn't fully carry the full weight of the care and desire that Jesus has in his words to them to stretch them, and to stretch us into another way of framing his relationship with us in times of trouble. Asking them and us why are you afraid doesn't mean that he doesn't get that many things are fearful. He's prodding them to dig deeper into the reserves of the heritage of their faith. Remember the other passages we just heard this morning? He's reminding them that they would probably have heard them, not in so many words, but he's digging into their heritage where they would have heard this oral tradition of stories passed down, through their families of faith, through their worshiping community, around the campfire, maybe the stories of God addressing Job such as this which is already read, where God says, "Have you people commanded the morning till your days began and caused the dawn to know its place? Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Who of you has cut a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt to bring rain on a land where no one lives and to make the ground put forth grass?" Our fears can be real, for there are many dangers and difficulties. But God, the one who is over and above all circumstances that can threaten us is still, as from before the dawn of time, in charge of it all. Then Jesus asked a second question: have you still no faith? Because when the disciples anxiously accused, "Don't you care, Jesus, that we are perishing?" they indicated that they did not understand the very nature of who it was to whom they were speaking. Jesus' actions, teaching to the crowds and conversations with them up to this point, were to help them connect to the God that they exalted in the Psalms. As an example from Psalm 107 today, we saw the words that dealt with the fact that the psalmist is extolling the praises of God, who calms the sea, who calms the storm. That would have been their literature. That would have been their context, and yet the connection is not yet made between who this Jesus is, and who is the God whom they worship? So when Jesus is dead asleep and the disciples call to him, it's a good illustration for us to see because we can find ourselves in the same place. At times, we are in the storms, and in the difficulties. And we too wonder if God just might be taking a nap during this time. We too know the stories of faith. We too know that God is much bigger and mightier than we, and yet don't we also wonder if God is going to rise up in this occasion and change these circumstances for us? I don't have to prompt you with too many thoughts, because I'm sure our intercessory prayers and the prayers that you offer every day, and the wonderings in your hearts and minds, arise from the situations that are troublesome to us. No need really to mention what's going on in our Southern borders, and yet we as people need I believe to call out to God and say, "O Lord do not sleep through this." Not that we think God will, but to remind ourselves that we are calling on God in the faith tradition of those who have come before us and, I think, honoring God in a very special way to say, "Only you, God, can give us the peace that we need in this process and the peace that we pray for the many people who are troubled by such things." We have friends who have been in difficult times because of medical conditions. I won't dwell on this, but if I seem a little sleepy this morning it's because last night I had to take my husband to the emergency room. And that's not a common thing. He's the kind who will tough out anything that comes his way if he possibly can, and he's been having some esophageal issues and been under medical care for that. But last night about 8:30 he said, I think I'm having a heart attack. Don't you just love it when you're teaching or preaching a passage, and then you get a chance to put these words to the test yourself? Yeah, so fear. So anxiety. So a sense of calling on God: God help us. Do I call 911 right now, or will he in half a minute say no no no, I'm fine? Anyway, I did. I didn't call 911, but I did persuade him to jump in the car with me and I took him to the ER. And he's fine, after lots of medication and lots of time and tests to show that indeed, it was not a heart attack. He just needs to go see a GI specialist. Fine, we can deal with that. But only to illustrate that we all have those moments where something comes up suddenly, or something is pervasive and stays with us a long time. And we so want to see the hand of God bring peace and change of the circumstances to us. Because there are legitimate fears about things that are too big for us. Jesus doesn't ever say, "Your fear is unfounded. What what do you mean, everything's rosy." But he does give us the proper perspective of how to deal with that. Rest in Me. Rest with me. Rest in me, Jesus seems to say. He offers instead, and dearly wants disciples at the stormy sea and disciples here present with us, to take that offer to live in what another penned as the "peace of God that passes all understanding, keeping our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." From this place of peace, a person, a community, a movement can thrive in the midst of any storm. I promise I won't talk about him every week, but our grandson I mentioned last week is about to celebrate his second birthday. And he's an even-tempered child. He smiles affably and seems to be making good progress in his development. One thing did cause a bit of concern: on the days that I would take care of him around his nap time, as soon as he was awakened from his nap he would cry out and make all kinds of sounds that he normally didn't make. And he would be seeming to express panic if someone wasn't in the room with him right away. It was almost like him saying, "Where is everyone, who's here for me?" Of course, I would rush in and comfort him and pull him out of his crib. And I'm happy to say that as time has gone on he has learned to soothe himself and awaken without anxiety. He seems to have internalized the fact that whatever dream he had (or nightmare) or initial concern for his own safety that he had upon awakening, he is not alone in the larger sense of the meaning, and someone is always nearby for him. As we grow in faith, may we notice just how true it is that someone is always nearby for us. We can also recount with the psalmist that we have called upon the Lord and found God faithful and true to be with us in all things. Even though, granted there are fear producing situations in our lives, they need not paralyze us. They need not have dominion over us. They need not consume us. They need not cause panic because we are not alone in our boats. A scene from the end of John Bunyan's classical allegorical novel The Pilgrim's Progress finds the chief character Christian, the archetype of a person struggling to lead a life of faith, nearing the end of his symbolic journey. This journey requires him to cross a great and fearsome river. He is desperately afraid. Together with his friend Hopeful, they wade into the waters with trepidation. Christian cries out, "I sink in deep waters. The billows go over my head. All the waves go over me." Hopeful replies with these grace-filled words: "Be of good cheer, my brother. I feel the bottom and it is good." Be of good cheer, friends. There is no storm that we face, personally or as a community of faith, or in any other realm, where we are actually alone. The careful, watchful eye of one whose might and compassion is always upon us, let us call upon the name of the Lord for help in times of trouble. For God's mercy is everlasting, and God's peace is able to calm every storm. Thanks be to God. *** Keywords *** 2018, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Stephanie Doeschot