Because this week — months after the Arab Spring, and after weeks of the growing Wall Street Occupation — well, in this climate of discontent and dissent as we all begin to wake from our consumer induced coma to see how multi-national corporations control so much more than we can imagine, in a season when tyrants are being over thrown, I simply could not preach a sermon in which I say that God is like an angry murderous slave owning king. Maybe there is a way of finding good news in that but I just couldn’t do it.

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When I was growing up, there was a house down the street from us which had slightly tattered window coverings and the front lawn was like a graveyard of broken things. Posted on the fence was a “No trespassing” sign. I remember asking my mother what trespassing was so I could be certain not to do it to anyone who lived in that weird house. When she explained that it meant going into their yard uninvited I thought, no problem. Soon after that, when I first learned the Lord’s Prayer, I thought it was weird that out of all the sins that Jesus would suggest we ask God to forgive it would be our trespassing. I pretty much made it a policy to stay out of strange yards, and since no one seemed to wander into ours uninvited, I thought I was covered. Only later did I realize that trespassing was only one of countless was to trespass against others. And now I get it — kind of. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Jesus always seems to be pairing God’s forgiveness of us with our forgiveness of others.

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It’s Jesus walking on the water Sunday here at House for All Sinners and Saints, and we thought maybe during “Open Space” we should have a kiddie pool set up in the back so you could all “test your faith.” You know — go ahead and give it the old Christian try. That’s how I’ve always heard this story preached: like it’s the “Little Engine Who Could Have.” As a matter of fact, here’s a one-minute version of the sermon I just don’t have the stomach to preach to you … it might sound familiar: The disciples are in a little boat battered by waves, they see Jesus walking toward them and for a moment, Peter is a hero. He steps out of the boat and has sufficient faith to walk on water. He actually does it. Peter musters up what it takes to be God-like and what it takes is faith. Lots and lots of faith. Because with enough faith you can walk on water all the way to Jesus. If you had enough faith, you could do it too. And maybe even better than Peter. Because Peter’s only mistake was that he took his eyes off Jesus, and that’s why he sunk. So the moral of the story, and of course every Bible story, is about how to be moral. So the how to be moral of this story is that if you in your life are not God-like in your ability to financially prosper, or overcome all your failings as a human, or defy the forces of nature and walk on water, then the problem is that you don’t have enough faith, and you should really muster up some more because the thing is, it’s all up to you to make your way to Jesus. So, don’t be afraid. Get out of the boat but be better at it than St Peter and don’t take your eyes off of Jesus. You can do it if you really try. End of sermon. And good luck with that.

Okay, this is a cynical view even for me, but it’s honest. Yet I know that having a preacher tell me that the solution to my problems is to just try and have more faith — so I can make my way to Jesus — never sounds like good news to me. It reminds me of The Simpson’s episode where square jawed newscaster Ken Brockman made a set of motivational tapes called “get confident stupid!” In the end, I just don’t know how helpful is to say “get faith sinner.” It doesn’t work.

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He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

–Excerpts from Matthew 13

It’s been a rough weekend. Watching the devastation that the combination of mental illness and fundamentalism brought to the people of Norway. Watching what the combination of drug addiction and fame brought to a talented singer, who, like so many who went before her, is now dead at the age of 27. Something they don’t tell you when you get clean and sober is that if, by the grace of God, you manage to stay that way — you get a much better life — but year after year you also watch people you love die of the same disease. So yesterday when I heard that Amy Winehouse had been found dead in her home, it brought me back to nine years ago when my dear friend PJ was also found dead in his home.

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photo © 2004 Phil Whitehouse | more info (via: Wylio)Even I can’t help admitting that there is a bunch of stuff in the Bible that’s hard to relate to. A lot has changed in the last 2,000 to 4,000 years, and I have no form of reference for shepherds and agrarian life, and I don’t know what it’s like to have a king or a Caesar, and I don’t know a single fisherman, much less a centurion, and I guess I can’t speak for all of you but personally I’ve never felt I might need to sacrifice a goat for my sins. That’s the thing about our sacred text being so dang old —  it can sometimes be difficult to relate to. Things have changed a bit over the millennia.

But one thing has not changed even a little bit is the human condition.  Parts of the Bible can feel hard to relate to until you get to a thing like this reading from Romans 7, in which Paul says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

Finally. Something I can relate to. This I know about. I too do not understand my own actions.  I too can’t manage to consistently do what I know is right.  Paul’s simple description of the human condition is perhaps a most elegantly put definition of what we now call addiction.

It’s no secret that I am a recovering alcoholic. By the grace of God I have been clean and sober for more than 19 years. But, boy, do I remember that feeling of powerlessness that comes from not being able to control your drinking. I’d wake up each morning and have a little talk with myself: “OK Nadia, get it together. Today is going to be different. You just need a little will power.” Then, inevitably, later that day I’d say, “Well, just one drink would be OK,” or, “I’ll only drink wine and not vodka,” or, “I’ll drink a glass of water between drinks so that I won’t get drunk.” And sometimes it worked, but mostly it didn’t. In the end, my will was just never “strong enough” Like Paul, I did the thing I hated. But that’s addiction for you.  It’s ugly.  Yet on some level I feel like we recovering alcoholics and drug addicts have it easy. I mean, our addictions are so obvious.  The emotional, spiritual, and physical wreckage caused by alcoholism and drug addiction has a certain conspicuousness to it.

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photo © 2005 George | more info (via: Wylio)My favorite characters in The Lord of the Rings are the Ents — an ancient race of giant living, talking, breathing trees in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional land, Middle Earth. I have a little confession to make: Whenever I hear a reading from Isaiah 55 where it says, “The mountains and hills before you shall burst into song and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands,” I always picture the Giant Ents from The Lord of the Rings. And then I picture these clapping trees from Isaiah holding little Hobbits in their branch arms in what ends up a willful conflation of Middle Earth and Major Prophet.

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[Editors' note: This blog post is taken from a commencement address Nadia Bolz-Weber delivered for the graduates of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California.]

Perhaps, dear graduates, you are sitting here today wondering if you now have what it takes…

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Is it just me, or does anyone else think it’s kind of weird how we’ve named Thomas, “Doubting” Thomas.  We don’t give the other characters in the New Testament little nicknames … like needy Nicodemis or Co-dependant Martha.  But poor…

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I’ve often wondered what people in America think when they actually read the story of Jesus rising from the dead for the first time. There’s simply no way the story could adhere to their expectations. I imagine them reading and re-reading…

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Here’s a name for you: Rollen Stewart. Born Feb. 19, 1944. Ring a bell?  You probably know who he is, you just don’t know his name, although it’s not like you’re gonna run into the guy at Starbucks or anything…

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Sometimes when I’m bored I kind of like to fill in sound effects that I think the crowd listening to Jesus might have responded with. He takes familiar passages and says “you have heard this” (and everyone’s like “yeah!”) and…

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At the baptism of our Lord, heaven simply could not contain God Godself and God the Spirit who interrupt the regularly scheduled programming to bring a very important message. That message is that this Jesus who just moments ago was…

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I have a pastor friend who collects a lot of crèche scenes. He especially likes really bad ones. My favorite is a certain one which has all the regular elements one might expect: Mary the God bearer, Joseph her protector,…

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So, just to get it out of the way, I didn’t get what I wanted for Christmas. No, not an iPad or world peace. Anyone who knows me well knows that what I really wanted for Christmas was a brand…

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In Matthew 11: 2-11, when John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

When some…

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In this season in which we find ourselves there is an anticipatory feeling in the air. A waiting, a longing, and yearning. This is a time filled with preparations and signs and symbols. Everything leads to this promised future. With…

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Well, it’s parable day again boys and girls. Parables are like Jesus’ subversive little stories of an alternate universe. This alternate universe is comprised not of alternate things but of ordinary things: coins and yeast and wheat and sons and…

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There is quite a strong tradition in the Old Testament of complaining to God about injustice and suffering. It’s lamenting — and we should perhaps reclaim this part of our tradition. I have a friend who says if you’re going…

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Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then, there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up…

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From what I hear, if you are taking a trip to the Holy Land you can visit the actual road from Jerusalem to modern-day Jericho, and local tour guides are happy, for the right price, to show you the exact…

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