348 The Quality of Mercy

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “The Quality of Mercy”, originally shared on January 29, 2025. It was the 348^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Mercy has been in the news lately! Or has it? Today, we’re going to find out.

   I read a pretty discouraging comment recently, made in a Facebook group for Lutheran clergy like me. It was from someone who was not a clergyperson, but who said that he had a lot of sympathy for pastors who deliver what is essentially a TED talk every week on a book that nobody reads. (Whew!) It was discouraging because, I think, that there’s a lot of truth in it.

   There was one recent sermon, however, that had a lot of people talking. Maybe you heard of it. Or even heard it.

   It was delivered at a prayer service marking the inauguration of President Donald Trump, by Bishop Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington D.C. in the National (Episcopalian) Cathedral in Washington D.C.

   I watched it on YouTube after the kerfuffle that came up over it. It was only 15 minutes long, but it landed a punch, or it had an impact. You decide.

   This coming Sunday, the vast majority of churches in the world will be doing one of two things.

   Either they will be celebrating a holiday (fun fact: holiday is a one-word variation of the two words “holy day”) called the Presentation of Our Lord (aka “Candlemas”), marking the day when Jesus was presented at the Temple in Jerusalem, combining the ritual purification of Mary after childbirth and the redemption of the firstborn. It’s celebrated on February 2^nd every year, 40 days after Christmas.

   Or, churches will be marking the Third Sunday of the Season of Epiphany, a Christian season that marks the manifestation of Jesus, on a Sunday that happens to fall on February 2^nd this year.

   If you would like to read the Presentation gospel text, it’s Luke 2:22-40.

   But I’m going to go with the sequel to last week’s Epiphany season reading. It speaks about what used to be called “an inconvenient truth” and it shows us the consequences for Jesus of speaking it on one bad day, in Luke 4:21-30,

²¹ Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²² All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” ²³ He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ ” ²⁴ And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. ²⁵ But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; ²⁶ yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷ There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹ They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. ³⁰ But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

   They were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth, until he said something that one might call an “inconvenient truth”, then they wanted to throw him off a cliff! He reminded them that there were times in the history of God’s people that non-Jews were blessed, and the Jews were not, when the chosen people were not blessed, but the Gentiles were.

   Their belief that they were set apart because they themselves were special, and not that God was special, was being challenged with a truth bomb.

   Like when John the Baptist brought a word of judgement to the self-righteous Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him for baptism in Matthew 3:9,

⁹ Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

   Both groups thought that their position of privilege was being questioned, their unique status was being threatened, that they were being threatened, and they responded accordingly

   Is that what happened at the Inauguration Day prayer service? Maybe.

   It was a powerful sermon on a classic Christian theme. Mercy. And it was a creative way to address current social issues. Who knows what the effect on people will be over time?        

   President Trump did seem to be a lot more conciliatory when he came to Southern California three days later to tour some of the burn area. He said that he was ready to help in any way that he could. He was hugging Governor Newsome and he engaged in sometimes strained but generally friendly banter with Mayor Bass.

   And Bishop Budde’s popularity among liberal protestants today cannot be overestimated. In their estimation, she hit all the buttons for faithful ministry. She “spoke truth to power”, “in such a time as this”, “for the least of these”. Perhaps some of the never-were or lapsed Christians who say that they are finding their way back to a church because of this sermon will stay and come to faith.

   Conservatives were not so pleased. The occasion was constructed to honor the peaceful transition of power, to be reminded that the president, as the country, is subservient to God, and to pray for the health and wisdom of the president and those with political power in our nation, as well as for national unity. And the sermon was all of those things, until near the end, when Bishop Budde spoke directly at the president and asked him to show mercy to those who were afraid of how the policies that he had promised to enact during his campaign would affect them.

   It was brilliant and odd at the same time.

   Brilliant because, who could be opposed to mercy?

   Odd because, in the Bible, mercy is usually called for toward someone who has an insurmountable debt, or who has done something wrong. It is about forgiveness or about withholding earned punishment.

   But, in fact, Republicans are angry about the mercy shown by President Biden in his last days in office, and Democrats are angry by the mercy shown by President Trump in his first days in office. Each party is angry over clemency, commutation and pardons. About mercy and forgiveness.

   Liberal/Progressive and Conservative/Orthodox people have different ideas about who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed, who is breaking the law and who is supporting it, and who needs protection and who needs help.

   People don’t get upset over mercy itself, only when the wrong people are shown it.

   Some people might say, though, that the sermon was not about mercy, but about justice.

   But what is “justice” in the Bible? It’s doing God’s will, not advocating for our movement’s social values.

   How do we know and do God’s will?

   We get a clue from Portia, a character in Shakespeare’s play “The Merchant of Venice”, who says, “The quality of mercy is not strained.”

   Mercy is an attribute of God that also becomes our own. Mercy that is from God comes naturally because it is not the product of a political or social ideology but from a transformed life. Mercy is not something we decide to do, it’s a quality that comes from who we are. And who we are comes from whose we are.

   The quality of mercy is not strained. It is not a work of obligation, but it comes as a gift of grace.

   As the bishop’s sermon neared its end, I was reminded of growing up in the 1950’s as the oldest of four siblings. There were three boys and one girl.

   Gender roles were more defined then than they are today, and “roughhousing” was considered a normal part of development for the boys. I was the biggest of the boys, at least for a while anyway, and when my next youngest brother and I wrestled, it sometimes ended with me sitting on his chest, pinning his arms to the ground with my knees, and slapping him around the face a little bit until he threw me off or I got up.

   Yes, I know. I apologized to him years later.

   And that’s what the end of the bishop’s sermon felt like to me.

   I saw Bishop Budde literally looking down on the newly elected president, having pinned him to his pew with the expected decorum of civilized persons, forcing him to endure her rhetoric without any response.

   Exhortation to do better is the product of the religious Law.

   Christians don’t strive to do better, they seek God’s grace to be better. Being better results in our doing better naturally. The quality of mercy is not strained.

   Many Bibles, and I suppose all “gift and award” Bibles, contain a presentation page, usually near the front. It’s a page where the giver can write things like their name and the name of the recipient and the date and the occasion.

   In the Presentation of Our Lord text for this Sunday, its “inscription” could be the words of Simeon, a “righteous and devout” man on whom the Holy Spirit rested, who was there with his wife Anna, a prophet, and who said in Luke 2:34-35,

   ³⁴ Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵ so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

   It refers to Jesus’ death, but it could also have referred to the text we are looking at today for the Third Sunday of Epiphany, this very bad day for Mary, too.

   Don’t you think that she was there, or at least nearby, to hear about her son’s first sermon in their hometown synagogue? It didn’t go so well for Jesus there either. Jesus was presenting himself, this time, to his hometown folk as the Messiah. It was way too much for them to absorb.

   What was being presented was The Word, Jesus, revealed in the Word of God, the Bible.

   How do we find God’s will in the Bible? We don’t.

   We can find verses in the Bible that will support almost anything. But the Bible is not authoritative because of the words on the page. Paul writes, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17,

¹⁶ All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

   Scripture is authoritative because is it God-breathed in the same way that God breathed life to create living beings in Genesis 2:7,

⁷ then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

   We come to life when we encounter scripture. We come to life when we first belong to God, when, by God’s grace, we become a new creation, when we are transformed and born again.

   As 16^th century Church reformer Martin Luther said about the transformational power of God revealed through the Bible when we are re-formed, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God.”

   What we do comes next, so our task is not to do better but to be better. Our task is not to have the correct social or political causes, but to be drawn closer to Jesus, and to do the will of God.

   That, and that alone, is the source of life that truly is life. Life that endures.

   We’ve finally gotten some rain in Southern California, the first measurable rain since early May. It’s a welcome relief after the fires, but it has come with cold and brought more misery in places where debris has flowed and toxic waste has settled. And now the lawsuits and recriminations are coming. As it’s been said, success has a thousand parents, but failure is an orphan.

   We have failed and we are sinners, but we are not alone. The living relationship with the one true living God for which we have been created has been restored by God in Jesus Christ at the cross.

   What we know about mercy we see there. We learn there that we are all children of God.     

   We bring the good news that our baptism in the name of the one God, the Father the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and not our righteousness, as Luther said, “has given us forgiveness of sins, redeems from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe it, as the words and promise of God declare.”

   The quality of mercy is not strained because it first comes from God. We live because Christ died for us! As John said in his first letter, speaking of God in 1 John 4:19,

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

347 Not Always What They Seem

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Not Always What They Seem”, originally shared on January 22, 2025. It was the 347^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   There’s a lot going on in the world right now, but what does it mean, really? How can we know what’s appearance and what’s reality? Today, we’re going to find out.

   I saw a news story online the other day about the private grand opening of an upscale shoe store called “Palessi”. The store had a vaguely European look, and the invited guests were fashion influencers and their guests.

   People interviewed by the press commented on the high quality and the value of the shoes at $300 - $400, and up to $600 per pair.

   After the opening had been going on for a while, the organizers revealed that the shoes weren’t, in fact, “Palessi” shoes but were “Payless” shoes from Payless stores.  😊

   Those who had bought them had their money refunded, and they got to keep the shoes.

   This coming Sunday, in the gospel text that will be read in the vast majority of churches throughout the world, people get a surprise, too, regarding appearance and reality, at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in Luke 4:14-21,

¹⁴ Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. ¹⁵ He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

¹⁶ When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷ and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

¹⁸       “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

¹⁹       to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

   Now suppose some kid who had grown up in your neighborhood came home to visit and told everybody at the local worship service that he was the fulfillment of scripture. I’m guessing that it wouldn’t go so well for him.

   We’ll see how that went with Jesus next week (spoiler alert: it didn’t go so well).

   His appearance was not the same as his reality.

   And His reality is often not so clear to us today either. At least not in many churches in the United States today.

   For example, Jesus draws from the prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 61:1-2, a part of the Old Testament that prophecies the coming of the Messiah, the deliverer, to say that the Spirit of the Lord, the third person of the one God, the Trinity, has anointed him to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.   

   He hasn’t done any of those things. But he says that the prophecy has been fulfilled right there.

   What does he mean?

   Jesus proclaims that he is the Messiah. He’s the one who the people of God had been waiting for for 1,000 years. They had been oppressed by the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and now the Romans for 1,000 years. And he was there to heal the blind and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

   The Messiah had come, but the people were still blind, because they couldn’t see what was going on; they were oppressed by evil, and they couldn’t recognize the coming of the Lord’s favor when it was right there in front of their faces.

   It was Jesus.

   It is hard to know what’s going on in the world, at least what it means for us.

   I heard a story once about a Chinese rancher who was visited by his neighbor, who hadn’t been by for a while.

   “How are things going?” the neighbor said. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   “Well, he said, “do you remember the big thunderstorm we had a couple of months ago?”

   “Yes.”

   “All my horses got spooked and smashed out or the coral.” “That’s bad, right?” said the neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   “My men went out to get them and they found my horses and 5 mustangs.” “That’s good, right?”, said the neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   “My son tried to break one of them and he got thrown and broke his arm.” “That’s bad, right?” said the neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   “A warlord came by the next day and conscripted all my men, but he didn’t take my son because he had a broken arm.” “That’s good, right?” said the neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   And the story keeps going on and on like that.

   We may not know whether what happens to us is really good or really bad in life, yet we can know the power of God because it is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. The same Spirit that anointed Jesus reveals Jesus to us. It comes from outside of ourselves. It is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, primarily through the Bible.

   In this week’s Gospel reading, the Holy Spirit anoints Jesus, and then Jesus reveals himself as the Messiah. The people didn’t recognize Him because they had not yet received the Holy Spirit, or had their eyes opened by the Holy Spirit.

   Jesus was the one who would set them free from all their brokenness, from all the effects of sin. But, it was a lot to absorb.

   Once they got over the initial shock, he was popular with the people. Some thought he was there to start a military rebellion. Some of them got free food and medical care. But, when it stopped, and Jesus told them that he had come to die, to restore the living relationship with the one true living God for which they were created, they crucified him.

   But no one took his life, he gave it and then took it back again.

   He had come to die and to rise, but people wanted a social service agency, a revolutionary organization, and a power center based on their identity. They only wanted religious language, not its power, much like many churches today.

   This attitude has left us with churches who have nothing to offer the world except another group of like-minded people doing what the world is already doing, and much more effectively.

   And we see it today in the Church’s response to the current disastrous fires in Southern California.

   We’ve seen this before.

   For example, after the academic popularity of Liberation Theology had waned, it was observed that the Roman Catholic Church opted for the poor. The poor opted for Pentecostalism.

   So, if the world does not find much from us that challenges them, or gives them a vision of a better world, or a better self, or truly improves their lives, are we surprised that they do not seek us out in a time of need, or listen to us when we offer an alternative.

   How do we do these things? How do we tell people about the year of the Lord’s favor?

   I helped to lead worship and preach at a bi-lingual Mandarin and English worship service in Monterey Park last Sunday.

   Afterward we shared a meal of Chinese food, as Chinese/Taiwanese people eat, with the congregation, prepared by a family in the congregation.

   After that, I met with a group of church members and leaders to review the pastor’s progress toward ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as his mentor and to make plans for going forward.

   After that, Sally and I and our son James and his girlfriend attended the annual Lunar New Year street festival in Monterey Park, and it was intense!

   There were street vendors, carnival rides, a performance stage and thousands of people. I am attempting to learn Mandarin Chinese, and the words I saw and heard swirling around me was exciting.

   Sally and I and James and his girlfriend were there with people jostling to see what was happening between the established shops on the outside of the street and the double-sided row of pop-up vendors in the center. There were locations for major multi-national businesses and mom and pop stores, and Buddhist evangelists giving out tote bags, and the smoke and smell of real Chinese and Taiwanese food being cooked. We saw a dragon dance parade and a group of anti-communist demonstrators down the narrow passageway. It all celebrated the Year of the Snake.

   And in the midst of all this, there were Christians who had positioned themselves on a sidewalk, evangelizing, personally greeting people with, “Jesus loves you”, handing out evangelistic tracts in Mandarin, Spanish, and English, with invitations to come to hear the Gospel, to a Children’s Character Garden encouraging their development, and to a “New Year Gospel Dinner” at various locations, and more. There was what looked like a family group that had set up a small audio system and was singing songs, with a group of children singing one I knew, “Jesus loves me, this I know…” 

   What do we do that is actually Evangelism, that actually names the Name above all names, that proclaims the Messiah as our deliverer, our Savior who has reconciled us to God, who invites people to know the transformed, new life in Jesus Christ? How do we proclaim the peace that the world cannot give in the name of Jesus, who has already begun and will someday bring a perfected new heaven and a new earth?

   I sometimes think of the story about Billy Sunday, an Evangelist who was active and highly influential during the first two decades of the 20^th century in the U.S. He was a flamboyant, former professional baseball player who would sometimes slide head-first across the stage as if he were sliding into home plate in order to make a point.

   He once responded to a cleric who questioned his circus-like methods by asking how that cleric did evangelism. The critic replied, “I don’t do it.” Billy Sunday replied, in a response also attributed to evangelist Dwight L. Moody, “It is clear you don't like my way of doing evangelism. You raise some good points. Frankly, I sometimes do not like my way of doing evangelism. But I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.”

   There is a lot going on in the world right now. Many people are apprehensive, and some are even discouraged.

   That’s where we find the people of God, just as this week’s Gospel reading is taking place. And then, in what the Bible calls “the fullness of time”, Jesus came and was not recognized for the full reality of who he was.

   We, however, live on the other side of the cross and the resurrection, of the Day of Pentecost, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have good news to share.

   We are like the men in an ice-fishing shack downstream.

   I grew up in Wisconsin and the sports caster on the TV channel from Green Bay, I think it was KFRV (for Fox River Valley) used to close his Friday night broadcasts with a funny story sent in by one of his viewers.

   One Friday, he told about a group of guys who had gone out ice-fishing.

   For the uninitiated, that means going out onto a frozen lake, chopping a hole in the ice, and dropping a fishing line in there. Or, if you are a little more affluent, and you have confidence in the thickness of the ice, and you have a truck and some time on your hands, you haul a shack out there and bore a hole with your auger, drop an automatic fish-bite notification system in the water, and then drink and play cards with your buddies all day.

   The guy who sent in the story had all the equipment, but he was actually there to fish, and he brought his black labrador retriever along for company.

   At some point, he got a bite. And it was a big one! He fought that fish, and he finally pulled it through the hole in the ice and into the shack. As he was removing the hook, though, the fish flopped around and fell down through the hole and back into the water.

   The dog, though, being a retriever, saw the prey escape and dove into the water after it.

   The owner was shocked and waited for the dog to come back, and waited and waited, but the dog didn’t come back.

   Meanwhile, there were a bunch of guys who had been drinking and playing cards all day in their ice-fishing shack. They had gotten themselves pretty hammered when, all of a sudden, “Woosh!”, the black lab saw a little open water above him, and came flying up through the hole and into the shack, shaking the water off of his back!

   The sportscaster said that those guys sobered up pretty quick!

   It was like that when the people of God first saw Jesus for who he was at the beginning of his public ministry. What a shock!

   It’s often like that when people who have been separated from God by their sin first experience the presence and the love and grace of God.

   How can we know the difference between appearance and reality? When it comes to the most important thing in life, we can’t. But God can reveal Him to us in Jesus Christ by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

   We can know what’s real and what’s not through the Word and the Sacraments, in the transformative presence of God.

   We can hear the good news and receive it with joy.

   We can proclaim the good news of Jesus’ victory at the cross over sin, death, and all things that defy God.

   We can share the good news of reality with friends and relatives and total strangers and plant a seed. Jesus has been anointed, and he goes before us, bringing the good news to everybody, and we who are already being saved, can name the Name. 

346 Changing Wine Into Water

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Changing Wine Into Water”, originally shared on January 15, 2025. It was the 346^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Jesus turned water into wine. Are we doing just the opposite? Today, we’re going to find out.

   We aren’t near the fire areas, at least not yet, but we did have some excitement at our home on January 7^th, a week ago yesterday, on the first night of the Palisades fire.

   James was over for dinner and, afterwards, we went outside to get the mail and see if the recycling container had been emptied from the curb.

   The wind was howling east to west, and gusting so much so that I could barely stand up at times, and we joked that we should form a human chain.

   The waste hauler had just passed by, going into our cul-de-sac, and I asked James if that was dust coming off the truck, but it was clearly smoke.

   We walked down to the truck, found the driver, and asked if he thought the truck was on fire. He said yes. I asked him if he’d like me to call 911, and I did. I told him that he was welcome to come to our house if he needed to get indoors and told him where it was located, but I think that he misunderstood and, as James and I were walking back to our house, the driver drove the truck in reverse and around the corner in front of our trees!

   Flames were starting to come out of the hydraulics area behind the cab. I asked if he could pull the truck forward a few feet to get away from our trees but not block the entrance to the cul-de-sac or endanger our neighbor’s trees, which he did as the fire trucks arrived.

   Then more fire trucks came, and ten or so sheriffs’ vehicles to close off the street.

   The firefighters had the truck driver dump as much as he could, and they began fighting the fire.

   I pulled out a hose in the front of the house and watered the foliage near the fire and the roof above it to shield it from the embers every few minutes. James kept an eye on the side of the house.

   The firefighters used water, and then foam, on the recycling and then they set a ladder up the side of the truck behind the cab and fought the hydraulics fire. In the midst of near hurricane force winds, they put out the fire.

   A tow truck eventually came, and Sally made coffee for the driver. The trash truck was hauled away, and a crew came to clean up the mess. They finished a little after midnight.

   The neighbors were out during the firefight, talking and keeping an eye on things, and the firefighters and sheriffs did an outstanding job of not only fighting the fires but also of answering our questions and concerns. It was going to be a long night for all of them.

   We have lived here for 37 years, and this was the strongest winds and the most excitement we’ve seen. 😊  

   The winds aren’t over, but the cleanup and fireproofing has continued since the first night of the fires.

   We are very grateful and ask that you continue to pray for those who have experienced devastating losses elsewhere. Over 10,000 structures have been lost. Our bishop lost her home. A colleague lost his. The president of another colleague’s nearby congregation lost hers. I attended our synod’s Zoom meeting to discuss the response we will make to the devastation, and the pastor of Christ the Shepherd Lutheran Church in Altadena, where the Eaton fire is, the nearest fire to us, said that is looked like the church survived (she was still under mandatory evacuation) but that 80-85% of her church members have lost their homes.

   Sally and I went to mail a letter at a local post office on Monday and the woman behind the desk said that they had been visited all week by people changing their mail delivery address from Altadena to the homes of relatives in San Dimas.

   How can Christians respond to the fires that have devastated whole communities and put a deep mark on thousands and thousands of lives, many of which will remain upended for many months, maybe many years?

   The gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches throughout the world this coming Sunday gives us a clue, in John 2:1-11,

2 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ⁶ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. ⁹ When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

   This was Jesus’s first miracle, and John is the only Gospel writer to record it.

   John often calls Jesus’ miracles “signs”. What do signs do? They point to something else. Jesus’ miracles weren’t suspensions of the laws of nature. They were signs that pointed to the way God intended the world to be from the beginning of Creation, and to the way it will be again when Jesus returns and ushers in a new heaven and a new earth. John reports that this “sign” revealed Jesus’ glory.

   The world we live in today is not the way it’s supposed to be. Evil entered the world when humans rebelled, and continue to rebel, against God (see Genesis 1 and 2 to understand why the world is the way is is).

   Evil like brush fires exists because of human rebellion against God. We rebelled. We are no longer in harmony with God or with one another, or with anything else in all of Creation, even with Creation itself.

   What’s our answer? What is God’s answer? It’s Jesus. On the cross. For you.

   Christians used to get a lot of flack for offering “thoughts and prayers”, as if it was the most practically ineffective thing people can do in the face of real need.

   Prayer is, in fact, one of the most meaningful things we can do, not because prayer changes things. It doesn’t. God changes things, and prayer is our acknowledgment of that.

   What do Christians have to offer? Sadly, today, at least in the Western world, including the United States, not much.

   People who call themselves Christians often offer the counterfeit religion, though possibly the most popular religion in the United States, of Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism (Google it).

   We also often populate churches that are actually closed communities with an ingrown culture and language.

   We offer social service agencies that use religious language. We offer businesses that tell you what you want to hear, especially what you want to hear about yourself, and promise to make you successful or it’s your fault that you’re not. We offer bitterly nostalgic communities with legacy leadership longing for the past. We offer program churches where people can worship regularly and not understand the basics of what is being taught. At all.

   It has been very disappointing to me to encounter Christians who have attended worship services regularly for years, even decades, but who will encounter a calamity like death and reject the very things that could give them actual comfort because there is no actual faith, no living relationship with the one true living God, just a place-holder for their identity.

   I some ways, I believe, catastrophe is an amplifier of how we view the world. People with no faith ask, “How could a good God allow this to happen (particularly ‘to me’)? There is no good God” People who come into the same catastrophe with faith say, “I don’t know how I’d get through this without my faith.”

   As the Western world becomes increasingly secular, and our churches do little more than chase the acceptance that will never come, except on the world’s terms, we offer little to the world.

   We are now experts in turning wine into water.

   What can we do as the people of God?

   I tuned-in to our Synod Zoom meeting that asked that question recently, and it was, in my opinion, a microcosm of the mess we are in now. Too many leaders drifted, waiting for coordination. If an idea was offered the response was a classic creativity killer: “Would you be willing to be in charge of that?” Almost all the focus was on things that secular or specialized organizations are already doing and much better: food, clothing, shelter, mental health, information, resource sharing, logistics, and so on. 

   Someone did mention the possibility of offering chaplaincy in shelters, which is clergy-focused and already in place in some organizations.

   But there was very little focus on what we do best, what is the greatest need in the midst of disorder, and what we are called, equipped and sent to do.

   Christians live in two kingdoms. The kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God, and God reigns in both.

   Christians are serving and seeking to do God’s will in every aspect of the kingdom of this world.

   What is our contribution from the Church, the Body of Christ, the kingdom of God?

   First, to recognize that God works through some means in both kingdoms.

   I’ve often told the story of the guy who was sitting in his home one day when a Red Cross worker pounded on his door yelling, “The dam has broken. Get out! Get out now! We’ll help you.”

   The man replied, “Oh, thank you very much but I’m a Christian. I know that God will take care of me. I’ll be fine.” And the Red cross worker finally left and went on to the next house.

   The waters came and flooded the first floor of his house, so that he had to move up to the second floor. A guy in a rowboat came by and said, “Hop in, buddy. I’ll get you out of here.”

   “Oh, thank you,” the man said. “But I’m a Christian. I know that God won’t let anything harm me.” The man in the rowboat finally went on to other houses.

   The waters continued to rise, and the man had to crawl out onto his roof. A helicopter flew over and the crew spotted the man. They dropped a rope ladder and shouted, “Climb up and we’ll get you out of here. The waters are rising. This is your last chance!”.

   “Thanks for coming, but I’ll be fine. My faith is strong. I know God will take care of me,” the man shouted.

   The waters kept rising and pretty soon they rose over the house and over the man, and he drowned.

   When he arrived at the gates of heaven, dripping wet, he immediately demanded to be taken to the throne of Grace. “That’s kind of an unusual request but, OK.” St. Peter said.

   The man stomped through the throne room into God’s presence and whined, “You promised me! You said that you’d always be with me, no matter what. What happened?”

   “What do you mean,” God said. “I sent you a Red Cross worker, a rowboat and a helicopter.”

   God uses some means in a time of trouble in this world.

   Second, to bring a sense of perspective.

   Almost everyone I’ve seen interviewed on TV has said, “We’ve lost everything, but it’s just stuff. We are all alive, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

   The actor Mel Gibson had a further perspective on the same experience. He said, “I’ve been relieved from the burden of my stuff,” a reflection, I think, on the words of Jesus in Luke 12:15,

¹⁵ And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

   What is life? It’s what we have to offer the world in times of trouble. It is, as Jesus said in John 14:6,

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

   Third, to name the Name of Jesus.

   Our hope does not come from within us, or from within our community. Our hope comes from outside of ourselves. It comes from Jesus, and He is already at work in the hearts of all affected by this current chaos. We just name the Name. No one else can do that but us, it is what we are best equipped to do. And we are not alone.

   We are in this rebellious world, but we are not of this world. We have been baptized. We belong to God. What do we bring to this chaos? Logos.

   “Chaos” is a Greek word that came to be an English word. The Greeks believed that the world is in a state of chaos, or disorder and confusion. “Logos” is a Greek word that means “The Word”. The Word brings order. At the beginning of the Gospel of John we hear Christianity’s answer to chaos in a text that is read every Christmas. It ends with John 1:14,

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

   Jesus restored at the cross the living relationship with the one true living God for which all things were created.

   I saw a story on KTLA-TV about a church in Altadena that held a high church worship service where members came together to worship as soon as the fires were somewhat under control. They said that they came because they just needed to be together. That is the Body of Christ, with Christ as the head of the body. That is an expression of our harmony with God.

   We offer worship, prayer meetings, Bible study for all ages, and time together in the presence of God.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, wrote the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”, on the basis of Psalm 46, which begins with Psalm 46:1,

¹    God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

   Where is God? God is present in this time of trouble.

   We may be prone to transforming the power to change lives through Jesus Christ into some bland imitation of life that reflects the world. We are changing wine into water. We are sinners.

   But Jesus has redeemed us, lost and condemned sinners, and opened the way to eternal life in the living relationship with the one true living God for which we were created.

   That is what we have to offer. That is what we say in a catastrophe: Jesus.

   He changes water into wine.