Sermon Sunday November 4, 2007

All Saints Sunday
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today, on All Saints Sunday we take time to remember those whom have gone before us. We celebrate the baptized people of God, living and dead who make up the Body of Christ. With thanksgiving we remember the faithful departed, particularly those most near and dear to us whom we have lost. And so as we remember those who have gone before us, not just in the last year, but through our entire lifetime, we can’t help but reflect on particular memories that we might have of these people.
And as we take time to remember those who have gone before us, we may also feel compelled to wonder how we will be remembered. We may wonder and be concerned about what people will remember about us, what they will think of us, what they will say about us, whether or not they will like us and remember us in a positive light. And if All Saints Sunday doesn’t compel us to wonder about these things, then something will. How we will be remembered and whether or not we will be liked is something that we all wonder about at different points throughout our lives.
And as natural and harmless as something like wondering how people will remember us might seem, the truth is that such concerns actually once again expose the old Adam or Eve in all of us. It reveals once again the human, sinful tendency to be driven and motivated out of vanity and ego. After all when we do think of how we will be remembered, what do we hope for??
We want to be remembered fondly. We want people to like us, not just after we’re gone, but while we are still here. And that in and of itself may not be such a bad thing I guess. I mean having to choose between being remembered fondly as a good person or with disdain as a bad person, anybody is going to say that they would rather be remembered fondly as a good person. Who wouldn’t want that??
But when our desire to be liked and seen in a positive light infects, not affects but infects the way that we live out our calling as baptized children of God then we are allowing ourselves to be lured away from faith properly placed in the One who gave everything for us and was beaten, condemned, and hated for us and Who laid down His life for us.
Our desire to be liked, loved, adored, and remembered in a positive light is very easily exploited by Satan as he slings his arrows of vanity and pride at us, and we are once again deceived into placing our faith in our own instincts and our own abilities and once again we fall prey to the most dangerous form of idolatry; self-worship. We place our faith in ourselves and what we do, rather than in our redeemer and in what He has already done for us.
We may still do nice things. We may still reach out to our neighbor in love. But again when our desire to be liked, loved, adored, and remembered fondly infects how we live out our baptismal calling then we are living out that calling out of an ego-driven desire to make ourselves look good as opposed to a humble desire to live out a faithful calling in servanthood to our Lord, and all because we want people to like us and remember us fondly.
But Jesus comes to us today with a different Word. In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus says "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of man." Jesus is not saying that we should intentionally go out and try to get people to hate us and that when we do that , He will bless us. But He knows that the Word that we are called to bring to the world is one that will naturally be rejected and so He promises us that in the midst of that He is with us, and He promises us that not only do we not need to worry when we face rejection but that we can actually rejoice and leap for joy and He assures us that the prophets who came before us were also hated and reviled.
And so then He says "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets." And indeed the false prophets of the Old Testament were overly concerned with being liked and loved and adored and so they watered down their prophecies and made them more palatable and easier for the people to hear and the people spoke well of them. But that also means that God’s prophetic word was held back from these people.
And that is what happens when we become overly concerned with being liked and loved and adored as we live out our baptismal calling; God's Word is held back from His people.
But by the grace of God that is not the case with you. By the grace of God you have been freed from the burden of having to worry about how you will be remembered and whether or not you will be liked and loved and adored. The feelings and affections of our neighbors come and go like the wind in the trees. We can be adored one day and despised the next and not even really know why.
But this is not the case with our Lord Jesus. The One who claims you in baptism, Christ Jesus, is the One in whom we read of in our lesson from Ephesians this morning who has obtained for you an eternal inheritance and has destined you according to His purpose. You have heard the Word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and by the grace of God you have believed it and you have placed your faith in Christ Jesus.
You don’t need to worry about being liked or loved or adored. You don’t need to worry about how or even how much you will be remembered because Christ Jesus who remembers you in the waters of baptism has promised to remember you forever. You don’t have to worry about being hated or reviled because Christ Jesus took all of the hate and reviling and condemnation and suffering and death that the world can offer when He went to the cross for you, and He also took your sin with Him, and He left all of that in the tomb, when He walked out of it victoriously three days later.
And so now today Christ Jesus comes to you, child of God inheritor of the eternal kingdom, with a radical calling. Today He calls you to love your enemies and to do good to those who hate you, to bless those who curse you and to pray for those who abuse you. And you are not to worry about what others might think or how much they might like, love or adore you as you live out this calling.
You are called to love, pray for and bless people like Fred Phelps. That name doesn’t ring a bell?? Fred Phelps is a pastor in Kansas, and I use the word 'pastor' here loosely. He and his church were fined this week, and ordered to pay $10.9 million to a grieving father whose son's military funeral was the target of Phelps’ congregation's frequent picketing campaigns. Phelps and his followers believe that the U.S. deaths in the Iraq war are punishment from God for the U.S.’s tolerance of homosexuality. The protesters carry signs at military funerals of Iraq war veterans bearing such slogans as "Thank God for dead soldiers."
Certainly any of us would find the idea of mocking the memory of a soldier who gave up their life for us to be vile and reprehensible. Phelps has allowed his ego and pride to turn him into an enemy of the faith, an enemy of God’s grace, an enemy of God’s unconditional promise in Christ Jesus.
And yet we are called to pray for and bless and love people like Fred Phelps. How much admiration and love would you receive from someone who lost a family member in the war if you told that person that we are to love, bless, and pray for people like Fred Phelps? Probably not a lot.
And yet, there it is, we are called to love our enemies, not to condone their actions, but to love them. Because the truth is, there is a Fred Phelps in every one of us. At the end of the day what is Phelps guilty of? He is guilty of mocking the memory of someone who laid down their life for him. It’s the exact same thing that we are guilty of in sin. Every time we put our faith in ourselves and in what we can do we mock the memory of the One who laid down His life so we wouldn’t have to. And we do it daily.
As radical and crazy as it might seem for you to show any sort of mercy to someone like Phelps, it pales in comparison to the mercy, grace, love and compassion that was shown to you in the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, the One who claims you in the waters of baptism and who has promised that even if everybody on earth forgets about you, He will remember you and by His grace you will receive your eternal inheritance and by His grace you are included among the saints who have gone before us.
Amen

Sermon Sunday, October 28 2007

Reformation Sunday
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am going to start my Reformation Sunday sermon by doing something that I know Martin Luther would not want me to do. I am going to talk briefly about Martin Luther. Because you see, on Reformation Sunday we remember when Martin Luther pounded his ninety-five theses on the door of the Castle church at Wittenberg, and thus began the Reformation.
But the Reformation was also about much more than that. The Reformation was about much more than the ninety-five theses. And the reason why Luther would not want preachers talking about him from their pulpits today is because that could send the message that Reformation Sunday was about something that Luther did, and that is just not the case. Reformation Sunday is not about something that Martin Luther did, it is about something that happened to Martin Luther. And what happened to Martin Luther which we remember today could be summed up in one word; "truth."
You see, Luther was living in the midst of lie. Luther had been had, he had been bamboozled, he had been hoodwinked, he had been sold a bill of goods. And he was miserable. The devil had convinced Luther that righteousness before God came from within oneself and one’s ability to adhere to God’s law, and Luther had been convinced that his adherence to God's law was inextricably tied to his allegiance to an extremely human and fallible church hierarchy.
In short, Luther was in bondage. He was in bondage to the law. He was in bondage to tradition. He was in bondage to his ego. And he was of course in bondage to sin. And no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t escape that bondage and find the peace he was looking for. And so eventually he got to a point where all he could do was to cry out and ask "Where can I find a gracious God?"
And that is when the truth began to take hold of Luther. Not long after this, Luther was given the opportunity to study the book of Romans for the first time. Through the words of the Apostle Paul the truth began to take hold of Luther. Of particular note was the truth that we read in verse 28 of today’s lesson from Romans which of course says that we are justified by faith apart from works of the law, and verse 21 which says that the righteousness of God is disclosed apart from the law.
And so now the truth was taking hold of Luther, and the Word began to come alive to Luther and he began to see God’s Word in a completely different light. Where Luther had been duped into believing that the gospel was a taskmaster and the righteousness of God a goal for Christians to seek through their own good works and piety, the truth in Christ Jesus came in and took hold of Luther and completely flipped everything around.
The Gospel that he once saw as a taskmaster he now heard as a promise, and the righteousness of God that he once believed he could pursue and attain, he now saw as a gift received through faith in Christ Jesus. And so in spite of the best efforts of sin, death, and the devil, the truth would not be denied. The truth had taken hold of Martin Luther and he had been set free.
And the same truth that set Martin Luther free from his bondage is the same truth that sets you free. It’s the same truth that claims you in the waters of baptism. It’s the same truth that reveals itself to you in the Word and sacraments. You have been set free, so I guess the only question that remains is ‘How are you enjoying your freedom?’ The truth has indeed set you free, but are you really free? Are you really utilizing the freedom that has been given to you? Or do you simply find yourself reverting back into bondage on a daily basis?
In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus says to these Jews who believed in Him that if they continue in His Word then they will be His disciples, and that they will know the truth and the truth will make them free. And these Jews, apparently having forgotten about the Hebrew people once having been held in captivity in Egypt or their time in exile, tell Jesus that they are descendants of Abraham and claim that they have never been slaves to anyone.
And so I ask you, ‘Are you continuing in Jesus’ word?’ or are you like these descendants of Abraham clinging to your heritage and your traditions? When a new idea or a change has been suggested or proposed in church have you ever found yourself doubting the new idea or proposal because "We never did it that way before?" These words; "We never did it that way before." have been referred to by some as the "deadly seven last words of the church."
Indeed they are dangerous and deadly words in the life of the church, and I am sure that they are words that Martin Luther himself heard on many occasions.
But the binding will of sin, death and the devil do not use just tradition and heritage to try to lure us away from the truth of Christ Jesus that claims us. There are many other ways in which the devil tries to rob us of our freedom in Christ including one that is rampant in our contemporary American culture, and that is by trying to convince us that freedom is defined as doing whatever we want to do.
But that’s not real freedom. That’s bondage to our own selfish desires. Paul tells us time and time again that we are slaves to sin. Jesus Himself says in our gospel lesson for today that anyone who commits sin is in fact a slave to sin. That is us, we are slaves to sin. And so if we are living our lives doing what we want, putting our wants before our neighbors, then we are just putting ourselves right back into bondage to sin, death and the devil.
Real freedom comes not in doing what we want to do, but in doing what we have been freed to do. And the very truth that claims us is the very truth that frees us just for that. The truth that Jesus speaks of, the truth that sets you free is more than information, it is Christ Jesus Himself, coming to you in His Word, bringing you His promise of forgiveness, freeing you from the sin that enslaves you. It is Christ Jesus coming to you in His Supper tangibly reminding you of the freedom that He has given to you in His death where He took your sin upon Himself and His resurrection, where death was defeated for you. It is Christ Jesus coming to you in baptism claiming you as a child of God and thus giving you your eternal place in the household of your Lord.
And so to the question, ‘Are you continuing in Jesus’ Word?’ Well on your own, you can’t. But Jesus comes to you daily, keeping you in His Word, freeing you, forgiving you, redeeming you. He comes to you nurturing and sustaining you in your faith.
And so when sin, death, and the devil attack and try to lure you away from the truth, look not to yourself, but to the source of your righteousness Christ Jesus, your Savior and redeemer, because where you find your righteousness you find your faith and you find the truth that has set you free.
And so hear the words of Paul from Galatians who reminds us that we are called to freedom, not as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love to become slaves to one another, for the whole law is summed up in a single commandment "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." As a child of God you are called and freed to not be ashamed of the Gospel but to treat your neighbor as a fellow child of God, sharing with them the truth that has placed you in front of them because it has set you free.
Amen