Semon-Sunday December 14, 2008

Advent 3
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In reading this week’s Gospel lesson, I caught John the Baptist in a lie. For you see, in this week’s lesson he is asked by the Levites and the priests if he is Elijah, and he says no. He says no, yet four times in the other Gospels John is mentioned as the fulfillment of the return of the prophet Elijah; three times by Jesus, and the other time is by an angel. Now this might seem somewhat insignificant to you, but understand the return of Elijah was a big part of Jewish messianic expectations.
John could have said "Yep I’m Elijah." And the Levites and the priests would have probably bowed down at his feet and done whatever he said. But I don’t think John knew. Or even if he did know, I think maybe he still would have answered the question the way he did. John the Baptist is asked who he is and he describes himself as "the voice of One crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’"
To the question of who he is, John defines himself totally and completely in relation to the claim that had been made upon him in Christ Jesus. John recognized that he was a witness to testify to the light who is Christ Jesus.
There is a Lutheran radio talk show that I listen to called "Issues etc." which by the way I highly recommend. It’s very informative because they will critique things going on in our culture through a confessional Lutheran lens. It’s not on any local radio station, but you can listen to it online at issuesetc.org. Anyway, on this show, they have a slogan that says "It’s not about you, it’s about Christ for you." And that kind of seems to be an echo of what John the Baptist is saying here. He is saying it’s not about him, it’s about the One whom he has been called to testify to.
John is saying that he desires to be understood as nothing other than one who has been sent to testify to the Light sent into this sin-darkened world-namely Christ Jesus, who would take on the burden of your sin and death and despair. John understood that this is a sin-darkened world and that there in only one Light that can contend with the darkness of sin, death, and the devil.
John knew that our nature is not to receive our Lord in the means by which He has decided to reveal Himself to us but rather to try to find God on our own terms. And when we do that, we just continue to stumble around in the darkness of our sin and pride. With every self-focused attempt at defining God on our own terms, we simply move further and further away from the Light of Christ-the means by which our Lord has chosen to reveal Himself to us by entering into our humanity and weakness and becoming Immanuel-God with us.
And so we run from the Light for fear of what the Light might expose about ourselves. We stumble around in the darkness trying to find and define God on our own terms by saying things like "God is love" without really giving much thought to what that means or how that reality reveals itself in God’s Word. We stumble around in the dark deluding ourselves with images of God as being just close enough to be real but far enough away so as not to get in the way of our plans and desires.
We react to things of this world, and those reactions might fill our hearts with hope, love, anxiety, anger, joy, apathy or whatever. But in our heart of hearts, we don’t want God anywhere near close enough to us that His presence would bring about a reaction. And so we continue wandering around in the darkness continually trying to package God in ways that are comfortable and safe for us by reducing Him to a life-coach, or an advice-giver, or a therapist, or a financial counselor.
But in the end, all of that is just our self-focused attempts to wrap this broken, sinful world in a divine package. It is merely a reflection of our desire to not be defined as John defined himself-purely in relation to the Light of Christ Jesus whom he had been sent to testify to.
But the God who has promised to be our God and claimed us as His in the waters of Holy Baptism has shown throughout the history of His people that He just will not leave us alone, even though He had every reason to do just that. And so we find the Almighty God, Creator of the universe in our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah refusing to leave His people in misery and darkness. He comes to His people, bringing them their recompense, making an everlasting covenant with them, not according to Israel’s merit, but rather according to God’s everlasting, unbreakable commitment to His people.
And in the faithfulness of our Lord that we see in the Old Testament lesson, we see a foreshadowing of the even greater, love, mercy and faithfulness still to come. For in the Light of Christ Jesus whom John was sent to testify to, we see our Lord refusing to not be found by us but coming after us revealing Himself to us. Indeed the Light whom John came to testify to refused to be stopped by our attempts to stop Him from entering into our reality and becoming "God with us."
He just would not stop, He kept going, entering into the darkest recesses of this sin-darkened world as we attempted to squash the light that He brought into this world until finally He entered into the deepest and darkest recess of this old broken world-death itself and even death could not stop Him. He took all the suffering and death that this sin-darkened world could throw at Him and the Light that He is and the Light that He brought could not be extinguished.
And so now, having defeated sin, death and the devil for you He continues to refuse to leave you in the dark, coming to you in baptism, claiming you as His and making you righteous, and bringing you faith. He comes to you daily in His Word nurturing you and sustaining you in faith, daily clothing you in the garment of salvation and the robe of righteousness.
You may have noticed that you are no longer getting regular birthday cards from the church but rather baptism birthday cards. I cannot take credit for that idea. It was suggested to me by one of your fellow parishioners. I thought it was a great idea and in looking at it in light of how John identifies himself in front of the Levites and the priests it seems like an even better idea. The suggestion shows that your fellow parishioner who suggested it recognizes the importance of being aware of the identity we have in Christ.
Celebrating our earthly birthdays is fine, but when our earthly life is over the old creature dies and our earthly birthday dies with the old creature. But at the resurrection, when Christ Jesus returns and the new creation that Christ is making of us is fully emerged, that will be a continuation of the re-birth that we experience in baptism. We take our baptism birthdays with us into God’s eternal Kingdom. When we remember our baptism birthday, we are remembering when Christ Jesus cleansed us in the waters of baptism, claimed us as His, brought us into His death and resurrection and we are re-born inheritors of the eternal Kingdom.
And so having been re-born, we are filled with the Light that John the Baptist was sent to testify to. And now the God of peace comes to us in Word and sacrament and sanctifies us and faithfully calls us so that our Spirit and soul and body will be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so, having been filled with the Light of Christ why would we want to identify ourselves according to anything else? As the body of Christ we are the continuation and the echo of John the Baptist. We are now the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. John the Baptist was not lying, he was simply doing all he could do, which was to point to the One for Whom he had been sent to prepare the way for and make straight the paths for and to say of Him "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."
And now, the One who the Baptist pointed to has taken away the darkness of your sin and filled you with the light of forgiveness. But the world we live in is still in darnkness and that is why we are to identify ourselves solely in relation to the claim that has been made upon us by Christ-not just to each other, but to our brothers our sisters our co-workers, our nieces our nephews, our banker, our plumber, our doctor, our dentist, our accountant, in other words our neighbor-so that through the Holy Spirit the light of Christ that we have been filled with will continue to call those lost in the dark, into the Light.
Amen

Sunday December 7, 2008

Advent 2
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the most dangerous things that we can do with the call from John the Baptist for repentance for the forgiveness of sins is to reduce it to something in the past, to think that it doesn’t apply today is a very dangerous idea. And yet I stand before you this morning, and I tell you that this is an idea that has infected a great deal of contemporary Christianity, certainly American Christianity. We delude ourselves into thinking that the arrival of Christ signaled the end of God’s judgment.
God’s judgment is thought of as something that only happened in the Old Testament. And so we think that now that Jesus has come, then everything in this old world is A-OK. And so whether we are allowing ourselves to be sucked into mass consumerism, or addiction, or pornography, or the secularization of the sacred or whatever other idols we create for ourselves, we pacify ourselves of any guilt associated with that sort of idolatry because we buy into the delusion that because Jesus came and died on the cross and was raised three days later, then that must mean that the time of judgment has come to an end.
And so rather than understanding God as He is described in Scripture; as the ever-present, omnipotent, Almighty creator of the universe who sees our every action and knows our every thought, who loves us but also demands perfect righteousness from us, we reduce God to the loving old Man in the sky who just winks and shakes His head at our little quirks and foibles, because after all God wants us to be happy. God wants us to do what we want to do, so we are happy. Or rather than seeing the God of Scripture as He is described in scripture, calling His people to repentance and faith and forgiveness, we have bought into the false notion that God has moved beyond the Gospel and now He is more interested in boosting our self-esteem, or giving us good advice, or making us more financially prosperous, all of which might be good and well, but do nothing to nurture and sustain us in the faith that saves us.
But all you have to do is to look at the news of the last week or so, whether it be the terrorist activity in India or a person being trampled at a Wal-Mart or just about anything else; You don’t even have to look at the news. Just look at the world around you and you can see that this world is far from being A-OK. Just look around you, and by that I would include taking a good look at ourselves, and you can see that there is still judgment that needs to be made. You can see that, dare I say it there is judgment being made, quite possibly in and through some of these tragedies that we see on the news. I know that goes against so much of the thinking in our culture, but we also know from Romans, that God will when it is necessary, give us up to our own iniquities and, in that, allow us to bring judgment upon ourselves.
Indeed, the call from John the Baptist for repentance for the forgiveness of sin is every bit as important and relevant today as it was 2000 years ago. John preached repentance and called for people to prepare the way of the Lord, and indeed the people on the banks of the Jordan whom he was preaching to were awaiting the coming of Christ. And while they may not have received the forgiveness that John spoke of until Christ Jesus came and laid down His life for them, bearing the burden of their sin, in repentance they were still made followers of Christ.
And indeed John says himself that his baptism is merely with water while Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And so the people on the banks of the Jordan who were baptized by John were baptized in anticipation of the forgiveness of Christ Jesus, while in your baptism the Holy Spirit infused you with faith, brining to you the forgiveness that can only come through faith in Christ Jesus and what He has done for you by taking upon Himself all of your sin and death and despair. But that is not the end of the story.
For while those on the banks of the Jordan were awaiting Christ’s arrival, we await His return. And until His return the call to repentance for the forgiveness of sin, and our need to hear it will remain absolutely necessary. It is necessary for when the call to repentance for the forgiveness of sin is proclaimed and God’s people hear it, then the Holy Spirit works through that very call to knock us down from the idolatrous mountains of sin and despair that we build for ourselves.
While the announcement of the coming of the One for whom the Baptist was not even worthy to untie the thong of His sandals, Christ Jesus in Whom we receive the forgiveness that John speaks of; the announcement of His arrival and the forgiveness that He brings lifts us up from the valleys of despair and guilt and sorrow over our sin.
And so while we have most certainly been brought into God’s mercy and forgiveness, our struggle with sin and the devil still remain until Christ returns and makes all things new. For as Paul tells us in Galatians, what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh. And so, while the flesh and sin and the devil are certainly no match for the Spirit, they will continue to oppose the Spirit and so we need to continually here the call to repentance for the Spirit works through that call to oppose flesh, sin, death, and the devil.
As we read in the lesson from 2nd Peter God does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance. Repentance is the path to forgiveness in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is the means by which we are saved from perishing, and the means by which we are raised from the dead as new creations. Peter writes of the waiting that we experience as we await the day of the Lord when Christ will return. He says that this day will come like a thief and the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Everything will be disclosed. Every thought, desire and action of your’s, not just to God, who already knows it anyway, but to all. It is the day of judgment.
God does not want this day to catch any of you unaware and for this reason, the Holy Spirit daily comes to you in God’s Word, calling you daily to repentance, nurturing you sustaining you in your faith, maintaining the claim that your Lord Jesus made upon you in the waters of baptism.
And so Peter poses the question "What sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and Godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?" Does Peter say go out and do as much as you can, or consume as much as you can? Does he say go out and live your best life now or make sure that you are purpose-driven? Does he say go out and do as many good works as you can?
No, Peter says in accordance with Christ’s promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. True righteousness, the righteousness that our Lord demands of us, cannot be found in this old world. True righteousness cannot be found in our best efforts. And so Peter tells us, while we wait for Christ’s return we strive to be found by Christ, not at work, not trying to earn our own righteousness, but we are to be found at peace. And that is why the Baptist’s call to repentance for the forgiveness of our sins is just as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago. For in repentance and confession we hear and receive the declaration of the forgiveness of our sins. And in that we are reminded that we belong to Christ, we belong to the One who bore the burden of our sin by laying down His life for us. We belong to the One who will bring a new heavens and a new earth. And it is only in that promise that we find the peace that Peter speaks of, what Paul calls the peace that surpasses all understanding.
And so, good deeds of love and service to our neighbor are wonderful. But they do not bring us peace or righteousness, but rather they are fruits of the Spirit bringing us the peace and righteousness that can only come through faith in Christ Jesus. They are opportunities presented to us by our Lord to show our gratitude to our Lord who has claimed us as His, branded us as His own and saved us from this old world, so that when Christ returns we will not perish, but we will be found at peace as we come into the new heavens and the new earth.
Amen

Sunday November 30, 2008

Advent 1
Brothers and sisters
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today in our Gospel lesson, our Lord Jesus tells us to keep alert for we do not know when the time of His return in glory will come. Indeed we enter today into the season of Advent in the midst of the Advent we live in every day as we await the promised return of our Lord Jesus. We enter into this time of year when we are awaiting and preparing for Christmas which will come in four weeks, while we also await the return of our Lord in glory, which we don’t know when will get here.
And the fact that we don’t know when Jesus will return is only confirmed for us in the Gospel lesson for today. In fact in our Gospel lesson for today, our Lord Jesus tells us that not only do we not know when Jesus will return but neither do the angels in heaven or even Jesus Himself. The Son of God does not even know the day or the hour of His return. Only the Father in Heaven knows when this will take place.
And we also know that when this happens the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give it’s light and the stars will be falling from Heaven. In other words Jesus is talking about the end of the world here people. He is talking about when the old will be done away with and all things will be made new. We know that this day is coming. We read about it in scripture. We hear sermons about it. Some of us even go to Bible-studies relating to it. We know it’s out there. We know it’s coming. But do we really believe it? Do we take all that end of the world stuff seriously? Or do we just go about our daily lives without so much as giving it a second thought?
Then again, why would we want to spend time talking or thinking about the reality that this world that we have invested so much in, placed so much hope in, and it would seem gotten so much from, is going to come to an end? Why think about the fact that this old world will one day vanish into nothingness and be completely consumed?
I mean that’s too much of a downer, especially this time of year when we should be happy and cheerful all the time. This is when we are supposed to be shopping and putting lights up on our houses. Who wants to think about the world coming to and end??
But such reluctance only leads to the sleep that our Lord Jesus speaks of in the Word He comes to us with this morning. Jesus warns us of the danger of being caught asleep, being caught unaware when He returns and so He urges us to stay awake. But we are all far too susceptible to the attempts of sin, death and the devil to lull us to sleep whether it be through busyness or stress or simply an all together collapsing into unconsciousness where all that is left of our faith is ignored, abandoned or at best we simply go through the motions.
But we must talk and think about and be conscious of the coming end of the world, for this is what it means to be a baptized member of the Body of Christ; that our calling is to prepare for the end of this tired old world. Our calling is to prepare for the promised return of Christ Jesus. We are among the slaves that Jesus speaks of who have been put in charge of our master’s house until He returns. He has put us in charge. He has given us authority to prepare for His return.
And so what kind of authority has He given us? Well in John 1 we are told that we are given the power, or some translations say "right" to be children of God. The Greek word translated as "right", exousia, is actually more often translated as "authority." So it essentially means the same.
Your status as a child of God comes to you completely from outside of you. It is given to you and it has to be given to you, such as with any "right" or "authority." It is not something you can work for or choose. It has to come to you from outside of you. And it does in the waters of baptism, and you are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ and you are given the authority to say that you are a beloved child of God, you are given the authority to say and know that no matter what this old, dying world throws at you, you are a child of God , you are living in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection still to come.
You would not have this authority if Christ Jesus did not lay down His life for you and take the burden of your sin and death upon Himself and claim you as His in the waters of baptism. You have the authority to live in the knowledge that you are a forgiven sinner. But He doesn’t even leave that entirely up to you.
No, for He knows that you are only too willing to be lulled to sleep by sin, death and the devil so He comes to you in His Word, such as He is doing right now through the Holy Spirit in the words of my mouth, calling you to repentance so you can once again hear the promise of the Gospel of the forgiveness of your sin. He comes to you in Holy Communion bringing you the forgiveness of your sin in His body and blood.
Talking about the end of the world may not be pleasant, may not be sophisticated, may not be cool but we must for it is our calling. We must because, were it not for the authority to be children of God in Christ Jesus we would be every bit as perishable as this world. Without Christ Jesus we would remain as Isaiah says "..like one who is unclean. … We would all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away."
All of this talk of the authority to know that you are a forgiven child of God may sound strange but this old world and the devil will tempt, accuse, delude, deceive and do whatever it can to convince you that you are merely a part of this old, dying world. And on your own you would be defenseless, but your Lord has given you a promise and a Word to fight back. And so in all that the world throws at you, you can look back and say "I am a forgiven child of God and I have been given the authority to know and declare that." And to that, the devil and this old world have no response. And that is how you prepare for the return of Christ in glory or the end of this old, dying world.
And so indeed, in the forgiveness of our sin we have been given much, so indeed we also have much to give. For as Paul says in our second lesson, the testimony of Christ is strengthened among you so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. For in giving us the authority to know that we are forgiven children of God, our Lord Jesus has also given us the authority to share that forgiveness with those around us.
This is called the ‘office of the keys’ and it is the authority to declare forgiveness to those who repent and withhold it from the unrepentant. It is not we who do the forgiving but God in Christ Jesus, through the laying down of His life.
As we think about the Advent story who was the most prepared for the coming of Jesus in Bethlehem?? Mary was. Joseph was. The shepherds were. One thing that they all have in common is that they all believed God’s Word. Likewise you are prepared for the return of Christ in glory because you have heard the Word of forgiveness through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, and you believe it.
In addition to knowing that you are a child of God forgiven of your sin and given an eternal place in God’s eternal kingdom through the death and resurrection of Christ so that you will be prepared for the return of Christ Jesus, you are also given other responsibilities. The Almighty God has blessed you with the gift of vocation. If you are a parent you are given the authority to raise your children. If you are an employee He gives you the authority to serve your employer. If you are a student He gives you the authority to study and learn. And to all of us He has given the authority to love and serve our neighbor, feed and clothe the hungry and naked. And these and other things are all good and right things to do, and they are good and right things that can be done by believers and non-believers alike.
But none of that, as good as it is will make you any more prepared for the end of the world. If you take lightly the need for repentance and forgiveness, you may just be found sleeping. But because you do believe. Because you daily hear the call to repentance and forgiveness you have the authority to know and believe that you are a forgiven child of God. You are given the authority to be forgiven and set free from sin.
The end will come, Christ Jesus will return in glory, but you are prepared because you are forgiven. You have been freed from the burden of trying to find any hope in this old world, and freed to share the forgiveness you have been given in Christ with your neighbor, that they might be prepared also.
Amen

Thursday November 27 2008

Thanksgiving Day
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving services, or in this case, Thanksgiving-eve services have kind of a strange feel. This year, as often happens in the past, Thanksgiving comes in-between Christ the King Sunday and the First Sunday in Advent, meaning that it comes in-between the last Sunday of one church year and the first Sunday of the next church year. But what has always seemed a little strange to me about Thanksgiving services is the reality that, let’s be honest, Thanksgiving is, or at least it has become primarily a civil holiday.
I mean, I don’t think it was ever actually considered a church holiday, but the pilgrims were good God-fearing Puritans. I am sure if we went back to those first few Thanksgiving celebrations, they would have looked quite a bit different from Thanksgiving as it is celebrated today. I am sure there would have been a strong element of thanks and praise to our Lord. My guess when they weren’t eating or preparing the Thanksgiving feast they were probably giving thanks and praise to God. And those were grim and bitter times the likes of which we couldn’t even imagine. But still, it was important that they take time to give thanks.
And now hundreds of years later when we are living in luxury and splendor the likes of which the pilgrims couldn’t have imagined we have turned this day intended to be spent in thanks and praise to our Lord into a celebration of indulgence and excess. What was intended to be a day of honoring the sacred as praise to God has become really a day of chasing idols. We have turned it into a day of focusing on, and consuming the gift, while completely losing sight of the Giver. And inevitably, like with so many gifts of God, we have convinced ourselves that the gifts of God are not so much gifts as they are rights.
We have become like the nine lepers in the Gospel lesson who were healed of their leprosy by Jesus but really didn’t even appear to so much as give a thought to thanking and praising God. These ten lepers were suffering from a crippling and debilitating disease. In addition to that, as if that weren’t bad enough, this disease would have made them outcasts from society. They would have all been in desperate need. And so they cry out to Jesus in their despair. They cry out to Him and He responds.
He sees that they are in need and He responds by simply telling them to go and show themselves to the priest. He tells them to go to the priest because the priest has to confirm someone being cleansed of their leprosy. This is from Leviticus 14 where it says that the leprous person at the time of their cleansing, is to go to the priest and the priest shall make an examination. And so we can see that Jesus was not just addressing the leprosy, but also the social isolation that went with the leprosy.
But then, the ten who were once united in the misery of their leprosy, scatter and disband once they have been healed, and only one of them thinks to come back and thank and praise God for healing him. And what made him go back and give thanks was that he saw that he had been healed. He saw that he had been healed and so he turned back, Luke writes, praising God with a loud voice, and he sat at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him.
Seeing is a big part of this story. The lepers saw Jesus and cried out to Him. Jesus saw the lepers need and responded to it. The one leper saw that he had been healed and gave thanks. But I don’t think the difference between the one leper and the other nine was that he saw that he had been healed and the others didn’t see that they had been healed. I am sure the others saw that they had been healed, but the grateful leper saw his healing for what it was; a gift. And I think with the other nine, perhaps there was a short period of time where they were grateful but then maybe lost sight of the reality that the healing they had received was a gift, as opposed to something they deserved or were entitled to, a right if you will.
And so that brings us back to us. We have lost sight of the reality that everything we have is a gift and a blessing from God. We convince ourselves that the gifts that we receive from God are actually well-deserved rewards for our good works and piety as we seek to live our best life now. We lose sight of the giver, while the gift becomes our god and our taskmaster.
But in John 6 Jesus tells us not to work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life which the Son of Man gives you. For it is on the Son of Man that God the Father has set His seal. When we have perishable idols we are perishable. The nine lepers who walked away give us a sobering reminder of the danger of what we have turned Thanksgiving into; a day of having, desiring, and consuming what is less than God.
But the good news is that the Giver remains present among His despisers. For that is what we see through the whole life, death and resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus entered the village He was doing so knowing that He would soon be among some of His despisers. The nine lepers who lost sight of the reality that the healing they had received was a gift, revealed themselves to be among Jesus’ despisers.
But in the midst of that we see Jesus doing what He does, giving people new life, freeing people from bondage, making them well. For when the Samaritan comes back and gives thanks, Jesus declares unto him that his faith has made him well. That is where we see saving faith, not in the ten who cried out to Jesus in need, but in the one who came back and gave thanks and praise, not because he felt obligated to but because he couldn’t help it. He understood that in his encounter with Jesus, that Jesus was not just some guy who happened to be able to heal leprosy. Heck the fact that there was a precedent for priests confirming people being healed of leprosy way back in Leviticus tells us that there were people being healed of leprosy long before Jesus came around.
No he understood that in Jesus, he had seen much more than a healer. In Jesus he had an encounter with the living God. In Jesus he had an encounter with the One who comes to us in the waters of baptism and claims us as His own and marks us with the cross of Christ. In Jesus he saw the One who saves us not simply from disease and social isolation but from sin, death, and the devil. In Jesus he saw the One who would lay down His life for us and take upon Himself our sin and death and in exchange give us His righteousness and eternal life.
How can we possibly not be grateful for that? As Paul says in the lesson from 2nd Corinthians God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work. In Christ Jesus we are given so much that the very privilege of being able to share the great riches of God’s grace and forgiveness in Christ Jesus is a gift in itself.
Every time I preach on this passage, I always wonder about what happened to the nine lepers who did not come back. Most commentaries that I read in preparing for this sermon, which would be one, seem to assume that they never came back. But I don’t think we can assume that, especially in light of the fact that just two chapters before this Luke gives us the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the prodigal son, all of which are rich in imagery of Jesus as the shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep.
I think the grateful leper went out after the other nine. I think he went out after them seeking to open their eyes to the gift of Whom they had encountered in Christ Jesus. And I think in that we see our calling to our neighbor; to reach out to them in Word and deed, to meet their needs, to feed them when they are hungry, to clothe them when they are naked, but always looking to reveal to them to greatest gift we have been given, the gift for which we are to always be giving thanks and praise for, the gift of our Savior Christ Jesus.
Amen

Sunday November 23, 2008

Proper 29
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It might seem to some from this morning’s Gospel lesson, that finally today on the final Sunday of the church year, Christ the King Sunday, finally our Lord Jesus has given us something to do. For in the Word that our Lord comes to us with today we are given a vision of the final judgment, when the sheep will be separated from the goats, and the righteous sheep will be invited into the place that has been prepared for them and the accursed goats will be told to depart from the Lord’s presence and sent into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
And so in this vision, how is it that the Son of Man coming in glory separates the righteous sheep from the unrighteous goats? One thing we can see is that He tells the sheep that what they did for the least of these, who were members of His family, they did for Him. When they reached out to meet the needs of their neighbor, they were doing so for Christ Jesus. And conversely He tells the goats that what they failed to do for the least of these, they failed to do for Him. When they failed to reach out and meet the needs of their neighbor, they failed to do so for Christ Jesus.
And so, one might be tempted to say "If you are reaching out and meeting the needs of your neighbor, then you are in the Kingdom." But if that is what’s going on, then why would the goats question when they are told that they failed to meet Jesus’ needs? They had just seen Jesus tell the sheep that when they had reached out to the least of these in His family, they were doing so for Jesus also, so they knew that when Jesus referred to doing for Him, He was referring to doing for the least of these in His family.
It appears that the goats must have been expecting to be invited into the Kingdom also. And so, like a lot of people who misread this text, the goats thought that Jesus was saying that the sheep were a part of the Kingdom because of their good works of charity. And it would be very easy for me turn this into a simple call for you to pull yourself up by your ethical boot-straps, so you can go out and meet the needs of your neighbor. And of course, seeking to meet the needs of your neighbor is a noble, worthy and yes faithful goal. But there is more than that going on here.
It is not the good works of love and charity of the sheep that get them into the Kingdom. The key distinction between the goats and the sheep is not good works of charity. They were all, goat and sheep alike, doing good works. Jesus could have been talking about any good work, or any commandment. He could have been talking about remembering the Sabbath, or not taking the Lord’s name in vein, or honoring your mother and father, it wouldn’t have made a difference. The goats would have still been goats, and the sheep would have still been sheep.
What separates the goats and the sheep is faith. The sheep are declared righteous in their faith and the goats are declared unrighteous in their lack of faith. And so it is with us. Everyday, in our lack of faith, we are placed right in there among the goats. Jesus tells this story way back, before His suffering, death, and resurrection but even still, what He is doing is giving us a vision of our future. He is giving us a vision of the day when the victory over sin, death, and the devil that was won with His death and resurrection will be fulfilled.
The battle with sin and the devil rages every day and we live in the midst of it, but the victory has already been won for us, when Christ Jesus took upon Himself all of our sin and despair and laid down His life for us.
The victory has already been won, but still, goats that we are, we try to win it ourselves, by keeping tabs and counting our good works, and deluding ourselves that our good works and piety are visible signs of our spiritual progress.
A few months ago, on one of my visits to Bethel nursing home, I went to visit an elderly woman who is a member of this parish. I walked in and saw her in the area where people were getting ready to play Bingo. I thought "Oh I’d better get in there and give her communion quick so I can sneak out of there before Bingo starts." Well I wasn’t quite fast enough. I sat down and greeted the woman and as I was opening the communion kit they began playing Bingo. So I stayed and helped her play Bingo and then gave her communion and stayed and talked with her a little while, and ended up staying quite a bit longer than I had anticipated.
And as I left I caught myself mentally patting myself on the back, complimenting myself for being such a good and faithful servant. There was a good work done in that visit. In that visit, a saint of this parish received the body and blood of our Lord Jesus in Holy Communion, she heard the declaration of the forgiveness of her sin in the absolution, she heard the Gospel of our Lord proclaimed to her and prayers were made on her behalf. But all I brought to that visit was sin and pride and selfishness. I went in wanting to sneak out early, and went out patting myself on the back. There was a good-work done, but it was not mine. All I brought was goat-like behavior.
And we all do it. We all daily try to delude ourselves into thinking that through our best efforts we are earning points with Jesus and making some sort of visible progress in our righteousness. This is why we have employee of the month awards, or humanitarian of the year awards. It’s why we have awards like this, the 2009 Faithfulness in Ministry Cross. This is from The Story, which is a quarterly publication for students and alumni of Luther Seminary, and there you see three pastors who will receive this annual award. Now I am sure there is fine and noble work being done in the ministries of all three of these pastors, but that they are given awards and given credit for the work not that they are doing, but that is being done through them is just another reflection of our goat-like tendencies.
But you see, if it really were up to us, then we would all just remain goats. What this vision of our King Jesus coming on the day of the final judgment shows us is not that these sheep claimed their place in the Kingdom through their good works, but that the good works done through them were the result of the claim that had been made upon them by the King.
For you see there is only one way to be made from a goat to a sheep, and that is by being killed as a goat and raised in new life as a sheep. And try as we might, we cannot do this ourselves. We are so quick to forget what Jesus tells us in John’s Gospel, that apart from Him we can do nothing. But He does not leave us on our own.
He does not wait for us to claim Him, but rather He claims us by coming to us in Word and sacrament. He comes to us in baptism with the very same power that Paul writes about in Ephesians, the power that God put to work in Christ Jesus when He rose Him from the dead. He puts this power to work in us, by bringing us into the death and resurrection of Christ and thus killing the old, sinful goat in us and then raising us in new life and bringing about the new creation in us.
But the old goats in us don’t die easily, and so daily the old goat in us tries to convince us that we’re fine on our own and that we don’t need our Shepherd. Sin and the devil continue to tempt the old goat in us, playing on our ego by filling us with delusions of grandeur and our own ethical progress through our own best efforts. But the good shepherd Christ Jesus continues to come to us in His Word and sacrament, killing the goat in us, raising us as sheep.
The only way that the sheep in this illustration of the final judgment realize that they are a part of the Kingdom is through a Word proclaimed to them. And so today, in the words of my mouth through the Holy Spirit, Christ Jesus declares you as being among those blessed by His Father and who are awaiting the inheritance of the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world. Hear the words of Ezekiel in the Old Testament lesson through whom our Lord says that He will be the shepherd of His sheep and make them lie down.
Cast aside all your illusions of progress and piety and rest in Christ Jesus who laid down His life for you. Then, of course, go forth and do for the least of these, not to show your piety, but in joyful response to the new life that you have been given, the new creation that Christ Jesus is making of you, and the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world.
Amen

Sunday November 16, 2008

Proper 28
Brothers and sisters
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
There has been a lot of talk about fear in the news lately. Of course much of this talk has been in connection with the economy. But some of it has also been in connection with the presidential election. While some are rejoicing over the election of Barack Obama, others are somewhat apprehensive, and question whether he has enough experience to prepare him for the no-doubt incredible challenges that await him when he takes office. And still with others, there is perhaps simply a general fear of the uncertain times that we live in.
One can almost hear the echo of Franklin Delano Roosevelt saying that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And in the context that FDR was speaking, things of the world, I believe that notion probably applied very effectively. But I believe in the Word that our Lord comes to us with this morning, the problem is not so much ‘fear itself’ but rather what we fear.
In the Gospel lesson, Jesus tells a parable of three servants who had each been entrusted with a certain amount of talents (money) by their master, a wealthy landowner, when he went on a journey. The landowner came back and each of the first two servants returned the money they were entrusted with, plus additional money that they had managed to make from the money that they had been entrusted with. It doesn’t really say how they made the money, whether it was from investing or what, but just that they had managed to take what they had been given, and from it, get more.
And then He went to collect from the third servant. And the third servant, whom He had given the least amount to, gave his Master only what he had been entrusted with. He explained that he knew that his master was a harsh man, reaping where He did not sow, gathering where He did not scatter seed. He confessed to being afraid, and for that reason, he just went and buried his talent in the field, rather than risk losing it. But his master replied in a most harsh manner, calling him a wicked and lazy slave, telling him he should have invested his money with bankers, so that upon the master’s return he would at least have made some interest. And He was thrown out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The servant said that he was afraid, but it was not his master whom he was afraid of, but rather it was actually the perceived uncertainty of the world around him, in relation to the gift that he had been entrusted with. He was sure that the world around him would destroy the gift that he had been entrusted with, while the other two servants went confidently into the world, seeking to utilize the gifts in whatever way they saw possible, seeking whatever gains they could obtain from the gifts that they had been entrusted with.
And since we know that the master in this parable is God, then we know that the third servant in the parable was lacking the proper fear and reverence for God. We know that, like us he was guilty of fearing things of the world, and things of man more than God. For you see, we are guilty of this everyday.
Think about it. Throughout the day, throughout the last week, throughout the last month, throughout the last year, what have you feared? Have you feared the stability of your pension? Have you feared for your health or the health of loved ones? Have you feared whether or not you will be able to pay your mortgage? Have you feared whether or not you would reap a big enough harvest? Have you feared whether or not you would be able to pay your bills? Have you feared the prospect of having to call another pastor, and wondering just how many pastors there are that would be willing to come to Western North Dakota?
These are all valid things to be concerned about but they are ultimately things of the world. And since they are things of the world, we need not become so consumed with these concerns that they become a hindrance to our discipleship. We need not become so attached to the temporary things of the world that we lose sight of the eternal. When it comes right down to it, we are all just like the third servant, fearing the things of the world and things of man more than we fear the eternal things of our Lord.
But through the words of Zephaniah in the Old Testament lesson we are reminded that the day of the Lord is indeed something to be feared. Through the words of Zephaniah we are told that there will be great distress brought upon people because they have sinned against the Lord. He writes that their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. That does not sound pleasant, that sounds frightening and it is frightening. Indeed for some it will be a day of great darkness. It will be day of great despair.
Zephaniah writes that neither silver nor gold can save us from this day, and those sentiments are echoed in the explanation to the second article of the apostle’s creed from the small catechism where Luther reminds us that Christ Jesus saves us, lost and condemned sinners that we are, from this day of wrath not with silver and gold but with His holy and precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.
Every day we fear the things of this world more than our Lord and as such show ourselves to be deserving of the wrath that Zephaniah writes about, but our Lord Christ Jesus has taken upon Himself our fear and our doubts and our despair and our sin and He has saved us from the day of wrath. We have been freed from the darkness of that day of wrath and so hear the words of Paul from the second lesson through which our Lord tells us that we are not children of darkness but rather children of light and children of the day. Through the waters of baptism we have been claimed by our redeemer Christ Jesus, as children of the light, children or our Lord. We have been brought into the death and resurrection of Christ.
The old creation in us has been put to death, and the new creation in us is coming forth as the Holy Spirit comes to us in word and sacrament nurturing and sustaining us in our faith. And so to fear the temporary things of this world more than God is nothing but fearing and giving more reverence to the old creation that is being done away with; it is nothing but fearing this old sin-filled world that we have been saved from.
But such thinking is nothing but the type of backward thinking that we have been freed from, for the kingdom of our Lord is not a kingdom of this world, but the Kingdom of heaven. In 2nd Peter we read that we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth. As we live in the daily struggles of this old world, we should of course be concerned about the things of this world and the slings and arrows that sin and the devil hurl at us in the midst of this sin-filled world.
Concern over things of the world? Yes, but ultimately we need not fear things of this world for they are simply part of the old world that is being done away with. Having been brought through baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ, we are no longer moving from life to death, but rather from death, as in the death of the old creature in us, to life, as in the eternal life with our Lord that awaits us upon the resurrection when the new Heaven and the new earth arrive, and the new creation that our Lord is making in all of us has fully emerged. And so, to fear things of this world is simply to take our eyes off the new-life that awaits us, only to dwell upon death, which has been defeated for us through Christ.
And so knowing that we are new creations in Christ; children of the day, then all that is left is to put on the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of the hope of our salvation, and go forth and proclaim Christ to your neighbor, and encourage each other, and build each other up, as you so often do; all the while knowing that no matter what the world throws at you, in the midst of this, you have been destined not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, secure in this knowledge, you know then that there is nothing in this tired old world to fear; and so all that is left to fear is your Lord who, through the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, has saved you from His day of wrath, and given you the sweet joy of His forgiveness.
Amen

Sunday November 2, 2008

All Saints Sunday
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday. Today we remember all of the saints who have gone before us. And indeed, soon when I do the prayers I will name off all of the saints from this congregation who went to be with the Lord in this last year.
But what exactly does it mean to be a saint? When we refer to someone as a saint, it is usually meant to be high praise of some sort, even possibly implying that the person being referred to is of a higher moral fiber than most other people. So, is that what it means to be a saint?? Is a saint someone who is of a higher moral fiber than most other people? Well a saint is someone who is thought of to be holy, and to be holy is to be set aside, or set apart for God’s purposes. But does that mean that one who is a saint is of a higher moral fiber than someone else??
Well in the Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus gives us the sermon on the mount, in which we read the beatitudes. It is no coincidence that this is the Gospel passage for All Saints Sunday. In the beatitudes of; blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who mourn etc., we have some of the primary characteristics used in illustrating just what it means to be a saint. And I believe one of the beatitudes gets right to the heart of what it means to be a saint. And that would be the one that comes pretty much right in the middle, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
And so what does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? I think it is essential to recognize that Jesus does not say that it is those who have attained righteousness who are blessed, but those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus said that He came not for the righteous but for sinners.
This week I read that 85% of all American drivers believe that they are above average drivers. Think about that. 85%. By definition, only 49% can be above-average drivers. But this survey gives us some insight into human nature. People generally view themselves as being better than others, and as long as we feel like we are doing better than other people than generally we believe that is good enough.
And this reflects on our faith and religious life also. Often it reflects on how many in the church have come to interpret the beatitudes. You see, it is in our human nature to see the beatitudes as qualities and attributes that we are to strive toward. We think that what Jesus is saying is that if we are meek enough then we are blessed, or if we are pure enough in heart or poor enough in spirit we will be blessed.
And so we think that Jesus is calling us to strive to be more meek. Jesus is not talking about a meekness that avoids anger at all cost, which would be in line with how we generally understand meekness. Jesus is talking about being able to exercise control when it comes to power, emotions, authority etc.
Basically Jesus is talking about one who uses their gifts in service to others and not themselves. And so Jesus comes to us in His Word saying that the meek shall inherit the earth and we think "Am I meek enough?" And if we can find one or two people whom we can feel confident we are meeker than, then more than likely we think that we are ok.
And so it goes with Jesus’ call to purity of heart and being poor in Spirit. To be poor in spirit is to be among the humble and pious who recognize their need for God’s grace and so they "tremble" at His Word. Being pure in heart, refers to an honest sensibility that could kind of be seen as a sort of transparency, where that which drives and motivates a person is always seen and apparent because there is no attempt to hide it. What you see is what you get, as the saying goes. And so of course the transparency that Jesus refers to is one that would reveal an individual’s motivation and desire to love and serve God and their neighbor.
And we hear these two beatitudes and all the rest of them and we mistake them for calls to strive just a little bit harder to be more merciful or more pure in heart etc so that we might be blessed. And we end up being motivated by a desire not to love and serve our neighbor but to be just a little better than them; to be a little more merciful than our neighbor, or a little more meek, a little more pure in heart, on through the rest of the beatitudes, all so that we can be just a little more blessed.
But Jesus is not talking about being merely a little better on these than our neighbor. Jesus is talking about being perfect in these; that we be perfectly meek, and perfectly poor in spirit, and perfectly merciful etc. If living up to the perfect standard that Jesus lays out in the beatitudes it what it takes to be saints then it would have been hopeless for the prophets and the apostles and the church-fathers let alone any of us.
And this is why I believe that the beatitude of hungering and thirsting for righteousness is the one that gets right to the heart of what the whole sermon on the mount is about. For it is only through faith in the One who speaks to you through the words of my mouth as I proclaim His Word to you, the One who will come to you with His real and bodily presence in a few minutes in the bread and the wine of Holy Communion, as He brings you the forgiveness of your sin, that you find the holiness that is required to make of you a saint.
Jesus is the righteousness that is demanded of us. And so He gives us the beatitudes not to inspire us to be more holy through our best and most sincere efforts, but rather to remind us that, on our own, daily we fail to be poor in Spirit, or merciful, or pure in heart. Indeed the beatitudes are impossible for us to fulfill on our own, and so on our own it is impossible for us to be holy. On our own it is impossible for us to be saints.
But praise be to God, in the waters of baptism, having been brought into the death and resurrection of Christ, we are set aside for holiness as we are cleansed in the water and claimed by Christ and brought into the family of our Lord as children of God. And in the lesson from 1st John we are reminded that this is purely out of the love that our Lord has for us where John writes "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"
We are children of God and just as children are completely dependent upon their parents for their needs we are completely dependent upon our Lord for the holiness and righteousness that we need in order to be called saints. We are made holy and made saints not because of our ability to fulfill the beatitudes but because the Holy Spirit is at work in us calling us through God's Word to repent and believe upon the Lord Jesus, driving us to hunger and thirst for the righteousness that only comes to us through faith in Christ Jesus, the faith which we receive in baptism, the faith which is nurtured and sustained in us by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel and the partaking of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus in Holy Communion as we daily live in our baptism.
All the while the Holy Spirit is at work bringing forth the new creation in us, making us more meek, and more merciful, more pure in heart and driving us to hunger and thirst after righteousness, so that we will receive mercy, inherit the earth, so we will see God , and so we will be filled.
And so All Saints Sunday, while on one hand is a day in which we mourn the loss we feel because of the saints from this community who have departed this broken, sinful world, it is also a day to rejoice because they have gone into the arms of their Lord. We rejoice in the light of the promise we read in Revelation that we have been draped in the robes of righteousness that have been washed in the blood of the lamb. We rejoice in light of the promise that Christ Jesus makes to us that no matter what sin, death, and the devil throw at us, Christ Jesus is with us to the end of the age bringing us through the great ordeal. We rejoice in light of the promise that one day this old world will pass away and all things will be made new, and we will no longer need to hunger and thirst for righteousnes for righteousness will be all that there is and we will be filled as we enter into the eternal banquet with all of the saints, and our Lord in His Kingdom.
Amen

Sunday October 26, 2008

Proper 25
Brothers and sisters
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are a people who desire to be able to see that which we believe in. When we are looking to buy a new car or house and we hear about something that sounds like it could be what we are looking for and at a price that we can afford, we want to go see it. We want to look at the house, we want to see if we can envision ourselves living happily in that house. We want to test-drive the car. We want to see how roomy it is, how noisy it is, or how it handles itself around corners. And then ultimately we want to see if it really is at a price that we can afford or if there were some hidden fees that did not get mentioned.
Indeed we desire visible signs for that which we believe in. And of course, as you might imagine, this spills over into our faith life also. We desire visible signs for the faith that is given to us in baptism. That is why books dealing with Christian apologetics, or physical evidence for the truth claims of Christianity are among the most popular selling Christian books; because we want those visible signs. And I have to say many books dealing with Christian apologetics, like The Case for Faith or The Case for Christ have been very helpful for me and can be very valuable to someone looking to grow in their faith.
But at the end of the day, the best that these books and any other "visible signs" can do is possibly shed some light on the truth of the Gospel, but they are of course not the Gospel themselves. In fact, the truth is the mere existence of these books, and the fact that they are as popular as they are really functions more as law than as Gospel. What I mean by that is the fact that we seek physical evidence for the truth claims of the Bible is more reflective of a desire to live by sight than by faith.
But this is revealed not just in the Christian books that we might buy and read, but in just about every aspect of our lives. We question the sincerity of someone claiming to be a Christian, who doesn’t go to church as often as we do. Or when confronted with the question of the sincerity of our own faith, we think not of the One who brings us faith, but instead we look to our traditions and our heritage. Like the Jews who "had believed" in Jesus in the Gospel lesson who reverted back to their identities as sons of Abraham, we base the sincerity of our faith on our religion and our traditions and our piety.
This was the trap that Martin Luther had fallen into prior to the Reformation, which we remember today on Reformation Sunday. He had fallen prey to the delusion and the deception that security in our salvation can only be found in good works; that the only way to know that you are safe from God’s eternal punishment is by your own personal good works and piety.
But that is a trap. It is what Luther would eventually come to call the state of being incurvatio; or being curved in toward ourselves. The problem is the more focused we are inward toward ourselves, the more we see ourselves for what we really are; sinners in need of a merciful God. But we do not find the gracious and merciful God we are in such dire need of by looking in toward ourselves.
When we focus in toward ourselves; again all we see is sin and a pathway to the grave. And so we react to this in different ways. For some of us, we may react like Luther and get trapped in an endless cycle of despair and anxiety as we try to find peace and comfort in our futile attempts to be faithful to God’s law. But the law does not comfort, the law does not bring peace, the law only accuses. And so, trying to find peace and comfort in the law, we find only despair and terror, and not a gracious and merciful God that we can love, but an over-bearing taskmaster God that we will resent and in some cases even hate, as Luther would later confess to feeling himself.
Another way we react is not by running to the law, but by running from the law. But when we are curved in toward ourselves, the only other place to go is to our sin and pride. And so running from the boney finger of the law, we delude ourselves into thinking that the law no longer applies. We convince ourselves into thinking that we can revise, reduce and re-define God’s Holy Word according to our desires and orientations. In doing this we allow ourselves to be seduced by the most dangerous sort of idolatry; worship of the self. And this is all a part of our desire to build our faith not on the One who sets us free by becoming a slave for us, but on a mythical, visible holiness that is impossible for us to ever fulfill.
So run from the law as we might, we cannot stop it from accusing us. For the law is no longer merely something outside of us that seeks to maintain order in society. For the days that our Lord tells us about through Jeremiah have arrived; the law has been written on our hearts. But the law is not written on our hearts to drive us to a constant state of despair and anxiety. The law has been written on our hearts for the exact reason that our Lord tells us, so that He can be our God and we can be His people.
The purpose of the law is as Paul says in the lesson from Romans, "…that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God." We cannot run from the accusing finger of the law as it exposes the futility of our endless quests for glory and visible holiness. The law serves to expose the impossibility of our trying to be justified in His sight by deeds prescribed by the law.
The law serves to show us finally that we are slaves to sin. And so as slaves, we can only face up to the reality that we do not have a permanent place in the household of our Lord. But as our Lord tells us in His word this morning, the Son has a place in the household of the Lord forever, and that if the Son makes us free we are free indeed. And the Son has indeed made you free, and you are free indeed.
But this is not simply a case of the Son vouching for you, the Son Christ Jesus became a slave for you; and took on your bondage and sin and gave you freedom and righteousness. And it is this promise and this reality that finally freed Martin Luther from the bondage that he was under. He finally realized that redemption comes only in Christ Jesus; that justification comes only by grace as a gift.
He was finally free to cast aside his futile quest for the visible holiness we are simply not capable of. Because the law had been written on his heart and exposed him for the sinner that he was, Luther could do nothing else but be still and know that God is God. He finally understood that righteousness comes only when we repent and believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is not to say that faith in Christ produces righteousness. Faith in Christ does not set us off on a quest to attain righteousness. Faith in Christ makes us righteous before God. We go forth into the world, to our neighbor, having been made righteous already by the blood of Christ.
We are free to stop searching for visible signs that will inevitably fade anyway. We have more than visible signs, we have an eternal promise from our Lord who is our refuge and strength and a very present help in trouble. We have the faith that we receive in baptism; the faith that makes us righteous.
And so we can follow the lead of Martin Luther who once he realized that Christ doesn’t just show us a path to the truth that sets us free, but that He is the truth who sets us free, Luther then abandoned all of his holiness quests and stayed focus on one thing; preaching the Gospel of Christ Jesus. We have been freed to go forth to our neighbor preaching the Gospel through Word and deed and whatever other form we feel called to. You have been freed to go forth and share with your neighbor the righteousness that you have received and been transformed by. Through faith in Christ Jesus you have been made righteous sons and daughters of God and you have a permanent place in God’s household. Go forth, with the Gospel, and share that place in the household of the Lord that you have been given with your neighbor, and like you they will be made free indeed.
Amen

Sunday October 19, 2008

Proper 24
Brothers and sisters
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus says "Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor." We are in the midst of a presidential election. Soon we will be electing a new ‘emperor’ if you will. And it seems that in one respect this election is typical in that both candidates seem to spend more time blaming the other candidates for our problems than presenting solutions. But this is just human nature. This is what we do, we run from our accountability. Rather than face up to our own problems, we look for someone to blame.
Such was what Jesus was up against in the events that unfold in this morning’s Gospel lesson. The Pharisees and Herodians were simply trying to trap Jesus. They asked Jesus if it was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor because they knew that if He had said ‘yes’ then the crowd that was supporting Him would turn on Him. They knew that if He said ‘no’ then the Herodians would be able to arrest Him and turn Him over to the Roman authorities. They wanted either the crowd to reject Him or the Roman authorities to arrest Him.
The Pharisees were part of a Jewish community that clung to the Old Testament promise to the Jews that if they remained faithful to God’s law they would receive a new kingdom.
However, as is the bad habit of all humans, ancient Israel failed to observe the conditions that they should remain obedient to God and observe His commandments, something that we fail at every day. And this unfaithfulness became so ingrained in them that they just lost sight of the fact that they were being unfaithful. They had forgotten that there was a condition to the promise. They had forgotten that just as God had made a promise to them, they had also made a promise to God that they would remain faithful and obedient. And so they were unfaithful. They worshipped false gods, they believed false prophets, they put more faith in themselves and their best efforts than they did in their Creator.
They failed miserably at their conditions, but of course they did not forget to expect God to live up to His. They expected God to give them the kingdom that He had promised them if they had remained faithful to Him, even though they failed miserably at every turn.
But then along comes the Son of God, the Son of man, the Word incarnate, the Word made flesh, Christ Jesus exposing them for the hypocrites and sinners that they were. The Pharisees were the religious leaders of the day. They were no doubt considered by some to be the picture of righteousness.
But the Pharisees had come to believe in a righteousness based on the law and not on faith. They clung to their status as sons of Abraham, but they forgot that it was Abraham’s faith that was reckoned to him as righteousness and not his good works or his piety or his adherence to the law.
But they were simply guilty of the same thing that we are guilty of everyday. In spite of their lack of faith, the Pharisees thought that they were entitled to the kingdom that God had promised. And so it is with us.
As I said, we are in the midst of a presidential campaign. Soon we will be electing another "emperor." And this has been, although as I said earlier a typical election in one respect. In another respect, it has indeed been an interesting election because we have both sides singing the virtues of bringing change to Washington. But what kind of change are they promising? How are they trying to win our vote? How are they trying to woo us to their side? It is primarily by promising that they are not going to be taking as much from us as their opponent. We are in the midst of an economic crisis, and yet both sides seem to be promising that they are not going to raise any taxes and that they are the one who can save our pensions and fix the economy.
But this just shows that the candidates know our human nature. They know that, for most of us, the decision who we vote for (if we vote) is going to come down to which candidate we believe is going to make life better for us.
At the end of the day, we are just like the Pharisees and the Herodians, all of us, running from our own accountability, searching for that kingdom that we all think that we are entitled to, whether we are trying to find it in a political candidate or money or possessions or work or status or whatever other idols we create; it is all a reflection of our desire to usher in God’s kingdom through our own efforts and timing and in the way in which we desire, even though our Lord Jesus has made it clear that His kingdom is not of this world and that only the Father knows when the Son will return and establish His eternal kingdom.
And it is this desire that led to the Pharisees and Herodians trying to trap Jesus. But He would not be trapped. In fact His answer exposes the Pharisees and Herodians for the hypocrites that they are. You see, Jesus’ answer reveals the reality that God’s people live simultaneously in two kingdoms; the earthly kingdom and the spiritual kingdom. Both of them are established by God. The earthly is a part of ‘the old’ that is being done away with and the spiritual is a part of the ‘all things new’ that comes about through the power of God’s Word.
The earthly is temporary, the spiritual is eternal. But that the earthly is temporary does not mean that we denounce it or run away from it. Quite to the contrary, the God who created the universe on His own timing and through His own means, establishes the earthly through property, marriage, family, laws, commerce etc. And so when Jesus says ‘give to the emperor’ what is the ‘emperor’s’ what He means is that whether you are a farmer or a banker or a teacher or a pastor or whatever, we are not to try to, as Luther puts it ‘unsettle the emperor’s realm.’ We are to remain in our vocation and give to the emperor what they are due, but always with an eye to the spiritual.
But we are also called, as we live in the spiritual realm, to give God His due which is simply to repent and believe upon the Lord Jesus; to hear and accept the Gospel; to look upon the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus and see nothing other than the defeat of sin, death, and the devil for you, to see the forgiveness of your sin, to see in Christ Jesus laying down His life for you the gateway to eternal life for you that would be ushered in with His resurrection three days later.
The answer that Jesus gave the Pharisees and the Herodians exposes them to be unwilling not only to give the emperor what he is due, but also their unwillingness to give God what He demands, faith in His Son Christ Jesus, faith in the Word incarnate, faith in the One standing before them. But the One standing before them would not be stymied by the efforts of the Pharisees and Herodians. You see eventually the Pharisees and Herodians would get what they wanted. Eventually Jesus would be turned over to the Roman authorities and be rejected and despised by the crowds. But this would happen only on God's timing, not on that of the Pharisees and Herodians.
And so this just shows that the Pharisees and Herodians were right when they said that Jesus does not show deference to anyone. God would not allow the Pharisees and Herodians to stymie His will anymore than He would allow the fact that King Cyrus did not know Him to get in the way of His using King Cyrus to reveal Himself once again to Israel as we read in the lesson from Isaiah.
But that is good news. God does not show deference to any one. He does not consider your good deeds, or your piety, your sins or your transgressions; what you have done or what you will do. He is the almighty God, Creator of the universe. He wills what He will, He does what He does. And what He wants is to count as beloved those whom He has elected through the Gospel. And since you are within earshot of the Gospel that is being proclaimed through the words of my mouth, then count yourself among the elect.
We cannot look to ourselves or a political candidate or any other idol we create for the kingdom that our Lord has promised, but rather only to Christ Jesus and what He has done for us in His death and resurrection and what He is doing for us in Word and sacrament; bringing to us the forgiveness of sin, nurturing and sustaining us in the faith He gives us.
And so listen to and believe in the Gospel that I am proclaiming, come forward in a few minutes and receive the body and blood of your Lord Jesus in His Supper, and let the Word made flesh bring forth in you a new song and make of you an imitator of Christ.
Amen

Sunday October 5, 2008

Lessons
Brothers and sisters
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
"They will respect my Son.." These are the words that Jesus attributes to the landowner who represents God in the parable that we read about in this morning’s Gospel lesson. But looking at this parable in it’s entire context, it really is amazing that would be the thoughts of this landowner. How could this landowner possibly think that these tenants would respect His son? After everything that had taken place, after all the evil that these tenants had inflicted, why in the world would this landowner think that if He sent His Son that His Son would be safe?
It is totally and completely irrational. It was totally irrational that the landowner would send anybody after the tenants had beaten, killed, and stoned the first group of servants that the landowner had sent. That is not rational behavior. He didn’t go after the tenants. He didn’t call the local authorities. He didn’t even evict the tenants. I mean what kind of landlord doesn’t evict tenants after they kill someone sent to them by the landlord?
But, the reason why Jesus tells this parable, as irrational as the behavior of the landlord may have seemed, is because it is a direct reflection of how the Almighty God has related to His people throughout our history. From Moses to John the Baptist, the Almighty God continually and repeatedly sent prophet and servant after prophet and servant, and they were repeatedly rejected, despised and sometimes even killed.
In fact the period from about 900 BC until around 600 BC is considered to be the most wicked period in ancient Israel’s history. There were thirteen prophets sent during that period of time. The more wicked God’s people became, the more prophets were sent. During the exile of Israel in Babylon there were two sent and in the years after the exile there were three until finally John the Baptist.
But the Baptist signaled a breaking point. For John the Baptist came pointing the way to the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John the Baptist marks the beginning of the fulfillment of the words of Isaiah who says that the hedge that has been placed around the vineyard that is the house of Israel will be removed. The Almighty God had hoped that His people would yield good and fertile grapes but instead they yielded only wild grapes. Our Lord expected justice but instead saw only bloodshed and heard a cry.
But our Lord would send One more. He would send the One whom John the Baptist came pointing to. To His people He would send His Son. He would Send His Son. To His people who had shown themselves to be capable of rejecting those servants whom He had previously sent, time after time after time.
So His Son came. He came proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God. He came to bring recovery of sight to the blind, release to the captives and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. He came to announce the arrival of a kingdom that was not of this world. He came announcing Himself as the way, the truth, and the life and that nobody got to the Father but through Him. He came calling people to repent and believe upon Him. He came proclaiming not a righteousness built on good works but upon faith in Him.
But His people wanted nothing to do with that, and so they killed Him. They killed Him and the hedge was removed. They did not respect His Son. They killed Him and now the hedge around Israel was removed. They killed Him and now the house of God would be open not just exclusively to Israel but to gentiles as well.
But lest you think that this is simply about Israel, think again. Lest you think you have no culpability in the killing of the Son who was sent by God, Christ Jesus your Lord, think again. For just as the actions of the landlord are a direct reflection of how the Almighty God relates to His people, the actions of the tenants are a direct reflection of how we relate to our Lord.
This is not a parable that is stagnant in one particular period of time throughout history. The actions of the wicked tenants reflect the actions of God’s people throughout our entire history; from the Old Testament Israelites who rejected the prophets to the chief-priests, scribes and elders who arranged for Jesus’ crucifixion to us today who continue to kill the Word made flesh with our sin and rejection.
For you see, Christ Jesus came not just to teach us about mercy and forgiveness and then leave it in our hands to follow His example. Christ Jesus came to be, bring, and do mercy and forgiveness to us. He came to have mercy on us and to forgive us unconditionally. And this is not merely a concept or an idea for us to strive after, but rather it is His work. It is what He has done to and for us and what He continually does to and for us.
But total and complete mercy and forgiveness is a threat to our way of doing things. It’s a threat to our ego-driven eternity projects. It’s a threat to the sin and pride which we cling to for dear life or in some cases refuse to acknowledge. It’s a threat to the principalities and powers that we seek our hope in.
The love, grace, mercy and forgiveness of Christ Jesus shown on the cross exposes us as the sinners, idolaters, and crucifiers that we are, but then leaves us nowhere to go but to the crucified One. It leaves us nowhere to go but to the One who defeated sin and the devil for us and then ushered in new life for us when He was resurrected. The landowner who represented God the Father did say in the parable from the Gospel lesson "They will respect my Son" and that remains a true statement. It remains true because the One whom we kill with our sin refuses to leave us in our guilt and desperation.
Such was the case with Paul who found himself exposed for the sinner and crucifier that he was in his encounter with the crucified and risen Christ. For as Paul himself reminds us, if anyone had reason to be confident in the flesh he had more. If righteousness could be obtained through the law, Paul was blameless. And yet when he was struck by the living stone whom he rejected, all he could do was regard all of his works-based righteousness as loss. All he could do was to respect and believe upon the Son whom he persecuted and crucified.
And so the innocent and risen Son of God, Christ Jesus continues to come to the vineyard in Word and sacrament being, bringing and doing forgiveness to us the forgiven tenants. The word ‘respect’ can be defined as ‘turn to.’ In other words, one could very easily replace the word ‘respect’ here with ‘repent.’ And that would work because contrition, repentance and faith are primary among those fruits of which our Lord Jesus refers to when He says that the Kingdom of God will be given to a people that produce it’s fruits. In Word and sacrament Christ Jesus calls us to contrition, repentance and faith and produces those fruits in us.
He is the stone whom we rejected and yet remains the cornerstone of our faith as He comes to us in the waters of baptism and claims us as His own and continues to come to us in Word and sacrament as He will in a few moments in the bread and the wine of Holy Communion, creating, nurturing and sustaining faith in us; the faith that frees us to do the work to which we are called to love and serve our neighbor as we respect and believe upon the crucified and risen Son.
Amen