Sermon, Sunday May 11 2008

Pentecost
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am going to talk to you a little bit this morning about the Koran; the book that Muslims consider to be their holy book. Now maybe you’re wondering why I would want to talk about the Koran on Pentecost of all days. I think you’ll understand why when I am done. Muslims believe that the only true and accurate translation of the Koran is the Arabic translation. It’s been translated into all sorts of different languages, but they say that it always loses something when it is translated into a language other than Arabic. And so they believe the Koran is only authoratative in Arabic.
Muslims believe that all Muslims are on what they call the "straight path" and that the Koran will guide them and show them how to stay faithful as they continue on the "straight path." They believe that the teaching in the Koran provides them with the knowledge they need to remain faithful in the midst of the attacks and temptations from those who aren’t on the "straight path.’ But, they believe, that if one strays from the teachings of the Koran, then one strays from the "straight path" and the only way to get back on track is to go back to the Koran.
You see they believe that God revealed the teachings of the Koran so that those on the straight path would be protected from the evil around them, the evil outside of them, and they believe that the only way to get the complete revelation of this truth is to read it in Arabic.
But you see this is how we know that the Koran is false. This is how we know that Muslims are wrong. I know that this isn’t very inclusive of me. I know that this isn’t very politically correct of me but I call it like I see it. For this Muslim image of God is completely contradictory to the image of God that is presented to us in our lessons for this morning.
In our first lesson, the lesson from Acts, the lesson that recounts for us the Pentecost events that we remember today; in this lesson we read of devout Jews in Jerusalem gathered from every nation who were amazed and astonished when they heard the disciples, as they were filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking in the native languages of all of those who were there. All of them; Parthians. Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappodocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and Proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-they all heard and understood the disciples speaking and telling about God’s deeds of power.
From this we can see that our Lord refuses to bind His Word to one language or nationality. In this first lesson from this morning our Lord promises that He will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. The Spirit who guides and leads all people into truth will be poured out upon all people, as opposed to binding that truth to one language and putting the burden of finding that truth on God's people. Our Lord refuses to be hindered by any language barriers as we can see in this morning’s first lesson. The risen Lord Jesus does not wait for you to come to Him. If that were the case none of us would ever get there.
Instead He comes to us through Word and sacrament. Our Lord comes to us, as He will for Kaylie in a few minutes in the waters of baptism. The Spirit does not wait for us to enter onto the straight path but instead breaks through our barrier of sin and unbelief, washing us with the regeneration of renewal, claiming us as children of God through the Word of our Lord uttered through the mouth of a sinful pastor, as that Word is spoken over us in the waters of baptism.
But our Lord does not leave us there. He does not claim us in the waters of baptism and then leave us to our own defenses trusting that when we are tempted and attacked by the world and all it’s wiles then we will pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and put ourselves back on the straight path. He knows us better than that. He knows that our faith is as fleeting as the night.
Look at the disciples in our Gospel lesson. Jesus had told them that He would be raised from the dead. He told them of the resurrection, and yet there they were hiding from the Jewish authorities, from the ones who had just been defeated and whose plans had just been foiled. Of course anyone of us would have been right up there with them.
You see this is misplaced fear. And what this shows is that misplaced fear is every bit as dangerous as misplaced trust. And we have our own misplaced fears. In our self-imposed quest to avoid sin and stay on our own straight path we look for places and people to whom we can point the accusing finger. And so we fear the government or terrorists or immigrants. Really, all it takes is a well-calculated rumor to cause us to fear a neighbor, friend or loved one whom we have trusted our entire life. And indeed we do live in a broken and sinful world and we need to be aware of that.
We need to be aware of the danger that is our there, not just that which poses a threat to us on a physical level but even more so that which poses a threat to us on a spiritual level. The devil is out there whispering in our ear, telling us that we can stay on the straight path on our own, that we don’t need a Savior, or that we can have a god of our own design. And so we fear that which poses a threat to that in which we have misplaced our trust. We fear that which is outside of us and distracts us from the myths that we create for ourselves. And what our fear actually shows is that which we respect. And when we fear the world and the damage the world might do to our self-imposed myths, then we show that is what we respect, that is what we honor.
But the evil in the world that we fear so much does it’s greatest damage not from outside of us but from inside of us. The truth is, we embody the evil and sin that we fear. We are like the disciples hiding in the upper room from the Jewish authorities when the Jewish authorities had already been defeated. Acknowledging the darkness within us is the last thing we want to do, because then we have to acknowledge that through that darkness or sin we are enemies of God. We would have to acknowledge that we are bound to the sin that condemns us. We would have to admit that, on our own, we could not make it one inch on the straight path. And that is a terrifying thought.
That is enough to make one fear God. But we are commanded all throughout scripture to fear God. Because through our fear, what we respect and honor is revealed. In Exodus 14 it says that the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord. In Luther’s small catechism, we are reminded that we are to fear, love and trust God. Indeed the Word of God cuts like a knife, exposes our sin to us and drives us to call on the name of the Lord, that we would be saved.
And so when we are claimed by our Lord in the waters of baptism, we are not left to our own devices. We are not left on our own to simply follow the straight path but rather we are surrounded by parents, siblings, grandparents, sponsors, and other fellow members of the body of Christ who are all called to play a part in the raising up of the newly baptized, exposing them to God’s Word, bringing them to God’s house for worship, teaching them the catechism and the creeds, creating in us the fear of the Lord that leads to faith.
And faith is created in us when the One who paid the price for our sin, the risen Lord brings to us His peace in the midst of our fear when He brings to us the promise of forgiveness through His Word and in bread and the wine of Holy Communion we are given a tangible reminder of the price that He paid for our sin, and we are reminded that without Him there is no hope, that without Him we are forever lost on a crooked path that leads only to the grave. But with Christ Jesus, we are claimed by our Lord in baptism, through which the Holy Sprit brings us into the body of Christ where we are called to fear, love, and trust our Lord and we are filled with the faith by which we are granted eternal life with our Father in Heaven.
Amen

Sermon, Sunday May 4 2008

Seventh Sunday of Easter
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
The Gospel lesson for this morning gave me an excuse to watch one of my favorite movies. It’s a movie called Hoosiers, and it tells the true story of a successful high school basketball coach who, because of an incident at one of the schools that he coached at involving an altercation with one of his players, was fired from his position and, because of the scandal that inevitably followed, was unable to find another coaching job anywhere else for a long period of time. As the film opens he is finally being given another chance to coach high school basketball for a school in a very small town in rural Indiana.
The previous coach had passed away and so the team was currently being coached by some local supporters. The new coach’s methods were quite different from the way they had been doing things. The town seemed to be pinning their hopes on one particular player and so the assumption was that the best approach was to build everything around this one player.
But the new coach had a different approach, a more fundamentally team oriented approach. On his first day of practice he says to the team "Let’s be honest about what we’re after here; five players on the floor function as one single unit; Team! Team! Team! No one more important than the other." His approach was not embraced with great enthusiasm. In fact, two of the players walked out that day. And few of the adults, except the principal who hired him and an assistant coach and one of the players father, seem to really get behind him.
But this is what happens when someone comes along and knocks you off your lofty perch. This is what happens when something doesn’t quite go the way you envisioned it. This is what happens, more than likely, when someone dares to deviate from the "Way that we have always done it." Let’s face it, this is what happens when we don’t get our way. We reject that which we were not expecting and hoping. We reject it because it challenges us put our trust and faith in someone or something other than ourselves. We reject it because it challenges us take the focus off of ourselves.
And so this morning you are confronted with a Gospel Word that knocks you off your lofty perch. Our Gospel lesson for this morning contains a prayer that our Lord Jesus makes to His Father in Heaven. He knows that soon the time is coming when He would be laying down His life on the cross for you. And in the midst of this prayer Jesus says "Father…glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify You, since You have given Him authority over all people."
Even as He is about to face death, Jesus understands Himself as having authority over all people. And so you think, "Certainly He doesn’t mean all authority." You think "Well it’s a nice idea to think that Jesus would have authority over all people, but that’s not really what He meant right?" "He didn’t literally mean all authority?"
Because, let’s face it, we just are not comfortable with some of the things that Jesus says and does. I mean in last Sunday’s Gospel lesson we heard where Jesus said if we loved Him we would keep His commandments. But what about the commandments we don’t like or understand? Maybe they don’t affirm us, or celebrate who we are? Certainly in those areas we must be in charge.
After all we are all entitled to be our own people right? Certainly Jesus wouldn’t want to stifle or inhibit each of us from expressing ourselves. Are we not our own people? I mean sure we profess our faith in Jesus, we worship Him and we do things to serve Him sometimes, but we are the ones in control here right?
Judas thought he was in control. Judas decided that he was not going to let anything get in the way of an opportunity to make a little money. We all know how well that worked out for Judas. In fact in the verse that comes after this Gospel lesson, Jesus says, referring to the disciples, that not one of them was lost, except the son of destruction, referring to Judas.
That is what happens when you put your faith in your own authority and your own accomplishments; you end up lost. But the good news is that Christ Jesus does have all authority over you. Christ Jesus has a claim on you and He keeps that claim on you.
And being claimed by Christ means being included in His promise, and it means that you are included in this prayer that your Lord was praying in this morning’s Gospel. For later in this prayer, although it’s not in this mornings reading, Jesus says that He is not praying only for those who were there with Him but also for those who would believe in Him through their Word.
And so where Jesus says that He was given authority over all people, that in fact does include you, but then the very reason that He was given that authority also includes you and that reason was so that He might give eternal life to all whom the Father has given Him. And in the waters of baptism, you were given to and claimed by Christ Jesus. Jesus says that eternal life is to know His Father, the only true God, and Christ Jesus whom God the Father sent.
And so that Christ Jesus has authority over you is nothing to be uncomfortable with, in fact it provides great comfort. He has been sent and given authority over you when He claimed you in baptism. And by this authority He preceded to face death on the cross where He would take on the burden of your sin. And that is how He would be glorified, by going through death for you.
As He breathed His last and lay lifeless on the cross, the world saw a man defeated, but the truth is that in those moments where He looked so defeated, when it looked like those conspiring against Him had won, the reality is that He was exercising His authority in glory. He was exercising His authority by laying down His life and defeating sin and the devil, all so that three days later He would give you eternal life with the almighty triune God, by walking out of the tomb.
He was thinking not of Himself but of you. He knew that those whom the Father would give Him and would thus be called to go out into the world to proclaim His name would face opposition. And so He prays for your protection.
So hear Peter’s words from the second lesson, where he tells us that if we are reviled for Christ’s name, we are blessed because the Spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God is resting on us.
Those of you who have seen the movie Hoosiers, which I referred to earlier, no doubt remember that the team goes on to win, against insurmountable odds, the Indiana state High School basketball championship. And it happened because this coach had taught these players to look outside of themselves to each other so that they would learn to work together as one.
Well we know form our Gospel that our Lord prays for us to be one as He and the Father are one. And so, such as was the case in Hoosiers, we are to look outside of ourselves to find where we are made one. But unlike such was the case in Hoosiers, we do not look first outside of ourselves to each other, rather we look first to the One who has authority over us. He is the One who protects us from the devil who prowls around looking to devour us and He protects us from our sinful natures which call us to look inside of ourselves and only leads to us getting lost.
And so hear the words of Peter from today’s second lesson. "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time." Indeed, humble yourselves before the One who comes to you right now in His Word through the words of my mouth, and He comes to you in a few minutes bringing to you His body given for you and His blood shed for you-supporting you, strengthening you, establishing you and keeping you as one under the authority of your Savior.
Amen