Sermon Sunday June 29 2008
Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
Brothers and sisters
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
I remember when I left Oregon to go to Minnesota for seminary, I was told by the pastor of the church that I was a member of in Oregon, who was originally from Minnesota that before I went I needed to learn about mid-west hospitality. He told me that when I am dealing with mid-western Scandinavians it’s important to understand that there is a certain protocol to communicating with them.
He told me that when you offer help or assistance of any kind, be it to pay for a meal, or to lend someone some money, or to help someone with a project they are working on, or anything else, it is necessary to understand that if I am sincerely offering to help them and I sincerely want to know if they want my help then I have to ask at least three times. And he said this is because, in most cases they will instinctively say "No thank you" the first two times you offer and then it’s not until the third time you offer that you find out whether or not they really do want or need the assistance you were offering.
Now obviously this advice was given more than a little tongue-in-cheek, and honestly I don’t know if I’ve noticed this to be true or not. However it does reflect something that Jesus is addressing in our Gospel lesson this morning. From the opening words of this lesson we can see that Jesus is speaking of hospitality and speaking of how when someone welcomes a disciple of Jesus they welcome Jesus and when someone welcomes Jesus they welcome the One who sent Jesus; God the Father. So, because of the mystical union of faith between God the Father and Jesus and Jesus’ disciples, when someone welcomes a disciple of Christ it is the same as welcoming God.
Now while it is true that Jesus is addressing hospitality here we must understand that He is speaking to the disciples here and so He is not so much addressing how they will give hospitality but rather their own willingness to receive hospitality. Because you see Jesus knew that His disciples were human and prideful and so, like many of us, would often have difficulty accepting the gracious hospitality that would be extended to them. And so what the advice that I received from that pastor in Oregon shows is an inherent prideful resistance in all of us to receive hospitality.
And so when Jesus says to you this morning that those who welcome you welcome also Him and His Father you must understand that He is addressing something much more significant than polite behavior and good and proper etiquette. He is addressing our refusal to admit our dependence on Him. He is showing you that there is much more at stake here than just your pride. If you refuse to accept the gracious gift of another how willing are you to believe the promise of your Lord in Christ Jesus? And Jesus tells you that when you refuse the gracious gift of another, it is the same are rejecting our Lord Jesus. Refusing to accept the gracious gift of another is the same as being a stumbling block to someone else.
And indeed it does work both ways. We reveal our inherent refusal to acknowledge our dependence through our prideful inhospitality also; by pridefully blaming our problems on someone else and thus refusing to be hospitable to them. Earlier this week I watched an episode of the show Battlestar Galactica where the main character of the show, the commander of the Battlestar Galactica was clinging to guilt and remorse over something and essentially blaming all of the struggles he and his crew were dealing with on himself. One of the other characters who is a political leader on the show said to him, and this is a paraphrase "We like to over-simplify the most complicated problems that we are challenged with all so we can cling to the illusion that we can control them."
I thought there was a lot of truth in that. And I found it to be reflective of what Jesus is addressing. You see whether we are too proud to offer hospitality or too proud to receive it, it is all indicative of the inherent self-idolatry within all of us. It is all clinging to the illusion of control. And so we give in to the deceptive attacks of the devil as he attempts to play on our pride and self-pity and lure us into the myth of our own autonomy, or the lie that we need only ourselves.
And so we become like Hannaniah from our Old Testament lesson. As we pridefully cling to our illusions of control we attempt to deceive ourselves and others into believing a false image of peace. But this is a path that can only lead to sin, delusion and ultimately to the grave as it did for Hannaniah, for as we read further in this chapter in Jeremiah the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah and told him that Hannaniah was a false prophet, and so Jeremiah confronted Hannaniah and told him that because he had uttered rebellion against the Lord with his false prophecy that the Lord would remove him from the earth and that Hannaniah would die that year, and he did.
And what Hannaniah’s story shows us is that there is much more at stake here than proper courtesy. Jesus is concerned about our willingness to extend and receive grace and hospitality because it is through us, those who have been claimed by our Lord in the waters of baptism and the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord continues His work of proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of the Lord and proclaiming the good news of forgiveness of sin through Christ Jesus. Through us His disciples, our Lord works to make more disciples. And so with our prideful refusal to acknowledge our dependence on our Lord we are guilty of nothing less than trying to hinder the very work of our Lord.
But the good news is that even when we refuse to see our dependence, our Lord does see it. And so He sends His Son Christ Jesus our Lord in whom was performed the most extraordinary act of love, grace, mercy, faith and forgiveness; in Him was accomplished the most amazing act of radical hospitality to of all things; sinful human beings when He took the burden of their sin upon Himself and gave up His life on the cross and gave you a home with your Lord.
In radical love and hospitality that revealed itself through your Savior Christ Jesus dying on a cross and three days later walking out of an empty tomb after being resurrected, a place in the kingdom of the Lord has been graciously prepared for you. And try as you might to simplify the challenges that come about as a result of the attacks of sin and the devil, the reality is you don’t have control and so all you can do is humbly accept the gracious hospitality our Lord brings your way. Indeed it is in those moments when we are in our most severe and often self-inflicted guilt and desperation that the cool-water of grace and forgiveness from our Lord tastes the sweetest.
And we can also set our pride aside to live a life reflective of that grace and hospitality that was extended to us on the cross by extending hospitality and forgiveness to our neighbor. To do otherwise could likely be an inadvertent attempt to hinder the gracious will of our Lord.
And so hear the Word of our Lord from St Paul this morning through whom we are urged to present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and present our members as instruments of righteousness. We have been brought from death to new and eternal life with our Lord in His kingdom by the One who does have control, and this happened when you received the forgiveness of sin in the cleansing waters of baptism and sin no longer has dominion over you. But you still don’t have control, but now it’s good news because now it means that through faith in Christ Jesus you are made a slave of righteousness for sanctification, but that is to our advantage for it is through the sanctification that we receive from our Lord that His gracious hospitality is extended to our neighbor even when they say ‘No thank you.’
Amen
Brothers and sisters
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
I remember when I left Oregon to go to Minnesota for seminary, I was told by the pastor of the church that I was a member of in Oregon, who was originally from Minnesota that before I went I needed to learn about mid-west hospitality. He told me that when I am dealing with mid-western Scandinavians it’s important to understand that there is a certain protocol to communicating with them.
He told me that when you offer help or assistance of any kind, be it to pay for a meal, or to lend someone some money, or to help someone with a project they are working on, or anything else, it is necessary to understand that if I am sincerely offering to help them and I sincerely want to know if they want my help then I have to ask at least three times. And he said this is because, in most cases they will instinctively say "No thank you" the first two times you offer and then it’s not until the third time you offer that you find out whether or not they really do want or need the assistance you were offering.
Now obviously this advice was given more than a little tongue-in-cheek, and honestly I don’t know if I’ve noticed this to be true or not. However it does reflect something that Jesus is addressing in our Gospel lesson this morning. From the opening words of this lesson we can see that Jesus is speaking of hospitality and speaking of how when someone welcomes a disciple of Jesus they welcome Jesus and when someone welcomes Jesus they welcome the One who sent Jesus; God the Father. So, because of the mystical union of faith between God the Father and Jesus and Jesus’ disciples, when someone welcomes a disciple of Christ it is the same as welcoming God.
Now while it is true that Jesus is addressing hospitality here we must understand that He is speaking to the disciples here and so He is not so much addressing how they will give hospitality but rather their own willingness to receive hospitality. Because you see Jesus knew that His disciples were human and prideful and so, like many of us, would often have difficulty accepting the gracious hospitality that would be extended to them. And so what the advice that I received from that pastor in Oregon shows is an inherent prideful resistance in all of us to receive hospitality.
And so when Jesus says to you this morning that those who welcome you welcome also Him and His Father you must understand that He is addressing something much more significant than polite behavior and good and proper etiquette. He is addressing our refusal to admit our dependence on Him. He is showing you that there is much more at stake here than just your pride. If you refuse to accept the gracious gift of another how willing are you to believe the promise of your Lord in Christ Jesus? And Jesus tells you that when you refuse the gracious gift of another, it is the same are rejecting our Lord Jesus. Refusing to accept the gracious gift of another is the same as being a stumbling block to someone else.
And indeed it does work both ways. We reveal our inherent refusal to acknowledge our dependence through our prideful inhospitality also; by pridefully blaming our problems on someone else and thus refusing to be hospitable to them. Earlier this week I watched an episode of the show Battlestar Galactica where the main character of the show, the commander of the Battlestar Galactica was clinging to guilt and remorse over something and essentially blaming all of the struggles he and his crew were dealing with on himself. One of the other characters who is a political leader on the show said to him, and this is a paraphrase "We like to over-simplify the most complicated problems that we are challenged with all so we can cling to the illusion that we can control them."
I thought there was a lot of truth in that. And I found it to be reflective of what Jesus is addressing. You see whether we are too proud to offer hospitality or too proud to receive it, it is all indicative of the inherent self-idolatry within all of us. It is all clinging to the illusion of control. And so we give in to the deceptive attacks of the devil as he attempts to play on our pride and self-pity and lure us into the myth of our own autonomy, or the lie that we need only ourselves.
And so we become like Hannaniah from our Old Testament lesson. As we pridefully cling to our illusions of control we attempt to deceive ourselves and others into believing a false image of peace. But this is a path that can only lead to sin, delusion and ultimately to the grave as it did for Hannaniah, for as we read further in this chapter in Jeremiah the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah and told him that Hannaniah was a false prophet, and so Jeremiah confronted Hannaniah and told him that because he had uttered rebellion against the Lord with his false prophecy that the Lord would remove him from the earth and that Hannaniah would die that year, and he did.
And what Hannaniah’s story shows us is that there is much more at stake here than proper courtesy. Jesus is concerned about our willingness to extend and receive grace and hospitality because it is through us, those who have been claimed by our Lord in the waters of baptism and the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord continues His work of proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of the Lord and proclaiming the good news of forgiveness of sin through Christ Jesus. Through us His disciples, our Lord works to make more disciples. And so with our prideful refusal to acknowledge our dependence on our Lord we are guilty of nothing less than trying to hinder the very work of our Lord.
But the good news is that even when we refuse to see our dependence, our Lord does see it. And so He sends His Son Christ Jesus our Lord in whom was performed the most extraordinary act of love, grace, mercy, faith and forgiveness; in Him was accomplished the most amazing act of radical hospitality to of all things; sinful human beings when He took the burden of their sin upon Himself and gave up His life on the cross and gave you a home with your Lord.
In radical love and hospitality that revealed itself through your Savior Christ Jesus dying on a cross and three days later walking out of an empty tomb after being resurrected, a place in the kingdom of the Lord has been graciously prepared for you. And try as you might to simplify the challenges that come about as a result of the attacks of sin and the devil, the reality is you don’t have control and so all you can do is humbly accept the gracious hospitality our Lord brings your way. Indeed it is in those moments when we are in our most severe and often self-inflicted guilt and desperation that the cool-water of grace and forgiveness from our Lord tastes the sweetest.
And we can also set our pride aside to live a life reflective of that grace and hospitality that was extended to us on the cross by extending hospitality and forgiveness to our neighbor. To do otherwise could likely be an inadvertent attempt to hinder the gracious will of our Lord.
And so hear the Word of our Lord from St Paul this morning through whom we are urged to present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and present our members as instruments of righteousness. We have been brought from death to new and eternal life with our Lord in His kingdom by the One who does have control, and this happened when you received the forgiveness of sin in the cleansing waters of baptism and sin no longer has dominion over you. But you still don’t have control, but now it’s good news because now it means that through faith in Christ Jesus you are made a slave of righteousness for sanctification, but that is to our advantage for it is through the sanctification that we receive from our Lord that His gracious hospitality is extended to our neighbor even when they say ‘No thank you.’
Amen
posted by Steve at 8:19 AM
1 Comments:
I liked how you brought the connection home at the end of the sermon-I was wondering where you were going with it until you hit us with it at the end.
Nice job (on a tough text)
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