Sermon-Sunday, July 23rd
Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23 , Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Brothers and Sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the most popular shows currently on television is a show called Lost. I have never watched the show but I have heard from many people that it is a very good show. Maybe some of you have seen it. It is described as being a show that follows the survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific.
The pilot episode for this show was the most expensive pilot episode in the history of ABC, the network on which the show is broadcast. It was so expensive that the person who approved the show for the ABC schedule was fired before it was even aired. When the pilot episode aired it garnered 18.6 million viewers and gave ABC it’s highest ratings in six years. It continued to gain viewers and when the second season’s premiere episode aired viewership had increased to 23 million people.
What does it say about our culture that one of the most popular shows on television is a show about a handful of people who are lost? I mean this is a show about a group of people who one day, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a situation where they don’t know where they are, they don’t know how or if they can survive, they don’t know how far they are from anyone or anything that can help them survive and they probably don’t know where to begin looking for ways to address this situation. And yet every week, 23 million people decide that they want to spend an hour of their lives with these people.
Essentially what Lost is about is people who are looking for direction. They know what they want; survival, safety, and a way off the island. But because of their situation, they struggle to know where to look to find that. They have become like the people that the prophet Jeremiah writes of in today’s OT lesson, people who have been scattered from their flock.
And maybe that is why the show is so popular. In many ways we often find ourselves feeling like sheep who have been scattered from our flock. We find ourselves in search of direction, in search of a shepherd, if you will. Problems arise when we try to convince ourselves that we can be our own shepherd, that we can go our own way, that we can blaze our own path.
When Jeremiah speaks of shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of the pasture he was referring to kings at the time who’s inept leadership would eventually lead to the exile of Judah. Indeed this inept leadership led to the scattering of the sheep in Judah’s flock.
Today this text speaks to us in a more direct way. In today's culture individualism is embraced and encouraged. When I say individualism, I don't mean simply the freedom that we enjoy as Americans to pursue our own life, liberty, and happiness. We all want that. But our culture tells us that we don't need faith in any sort of absolute truth to depend on. In fact our culture tells us that to rely first on our faith and what our faith has been placed in before relying on our own instincts is weakness. I recently remember hearing about a survey among people of faith. Among the people surveyed, 65 percent of them said that they rely more on Oprah Winfrey for spiritual counsel than they do any sort of clergy.
Why do you think that is? Where does Oprah tell people that they should be seeking their own spiritual enlightenment? Oprah tells you that spiritual enlightenment and peace can be found within yourself. Oprah essentially tells us what we all, by our sinful nature, want to hear; that we can be our own shepherds. She doesn't use those exact words but complete and utter reliance on your own instincts is at the heart of what Oprah preaches.
But reality and God's Word tell us otherwise. In the 22nd chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us that the two most important commandments are to first love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and to love your neighbor as yourself and that the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. He tells us not to think of ourselves first, but to think of our Lord and our neighbor first.
Why should we not look to ourselves first? Well what do your instincts tell you when someone does something to you that you don’t like? More often than not, your instincts are probably to get even or at least get mad. And this has been made graphically evident this week with all of the events that have taken place in the Middle East.
But we don’t have to look just to extreme examples in the news to see the failure of looking to ourselves first. When we look to ourselves first we end up focusing on what needs to be done right now. Many of you farmers who have been spending so much time out in the fields this Summer I am sure can relate to this. I am sure you have spent some time worrying about crops burning up or not getting rain, and who could blame you? I am sure many of you have seen the effects of an economy that seems to make it harder and harder everyday for people to make a living in rural, farming communities.
Or getting back to when someone does something to us that we think is wrong. When we look to ourselves first we end up holding on to grudges over petty disputes or getting angry at our neighbor for something petty, and soon we end up isolating ourselves from one another. We end up thinking that all we need is ourselves.
We end up worrying about what we don’t have and what still has to be done, rather than celebrating what we do have, such as a good home, or family and friends who love and care for us, or celebrating what has been done for us such as being reconciled before God through the blood of Christ. In other words, we end up like sheep who have been scattered from their flock.
But the good news is that our Lord does not allow us to remain lost or scattered from the flock. In our Gospel lesson we read that as Jesus came ashore to what He thought was going to be a ‘deserted place,’ He actually saw a great crowd and had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and it says that Jesus began to teach them many things. Indeed, when we allow ourselves to get lost or scattered from our flock, our Lord does not leave us alone but instead He comes to us and has compassion on us and fills us with His love and grace and direction and, being the good shepherd, He guides us back to the flock.
When I was in boot camp, one of my company commanders would always recite psalm 23, which coincidentally is the psalm for today. He would always recite it in the King James version, and he would slow down and pause when he got to verse 4 which in the King James says " 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;" He would really slow down at the "thou art with me" part and then he would tell us to look to our left and our right.
He would then tell us that we are not in this alone, but are in it together and relying on each other and not just ourselves was how we would get through it. Now, he wouldn’t actually say the name of Christ when he did this because to do so would have been a violation of the separation of church and state. But the Christians and probably some of the non-Christians could read between the lines.
We could see that he was talking about more than just teamwork. We could see that he was reminding us that in each other we would see Christ, that Christ would come to us in each other. That is how our Lord comes to you. He comes to you in His Word, in the sacraments and in each other. He comes to you and brings you together as a community and a flock. And when you try to scatter yourself from the flock, He finds you and brings you back to the flock. He is the good shepherd and through the blood of Christ you have been made part of His flock, not just today, not just tomorrow but for all eternity. Try as you might, our Lord, the good shepherd will not allow you to scatter yourself from the flock that is the Body of Christ, the flock that you have been baptized into.
Amen
Brothers and Sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the most popular shows currently on television is a show called Lost. I have never watched the show but I have heard from many people that it is a very good show. Maybe some of you have seen it. It is described as being a show that follows the survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific.
The pilot episode for this show was the most expensive pilot episode in the history of ABC, the network on which the show is broadcast. It was so expensive that the person who approved the show for the ABC schedule was fired before it was even aired. When the pilot episode aired it garnered 18.6 million viewers and gave ABC it’s highest ratings in six years. It continued to gain viewers and when the second season’s premiere episode aired viewership had increased to 23 million people.
What does it say about our culture that one of the most popular shows on television is a show about a handful of people who are lost? I mean this is a show about a group of people who one day, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a situation where they don’t know where they are, they don’t know how or if they can survive, they don’t know how far they are from anyone or anything that can help them survive and they probably don’t know where to begin looking for ways to address this situation. And yet every week, 23 million people decide that they want to spend an hour of their lives with these people.
Essentially what Lost is about is people who are looking for direction. They know what they want; survival, safety, and a way off the island. But because of their situation, they struggle to know where to look to find that. They have become like the people that the prophet Jeremiah writes of in today’s OT lesson, people who have been scattered from their flock.
And maybe that is why the show is so popular. In many ways we often find ourselves feeling like sheep who have been scattered from our flock. We find ourselves in search of direction, in search of a shepherd, if you will. Problems arise when we try to convince ourselves that we can be our own shepherd, that we can go our own way, that we can blaze our own path.
When Jeremiah speaks of shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of the pasture he was referring to kings at the time who’s inept leadership would eventually lead to the exile of Judah. Indeed this inept leadership led to the scattering of the sheep in Judah’s flock.
Today this text speaks to us in a more direct way. In today's culture individualism is embraced and encouraged. When I say individualism, I don't mean simply the freedom that we enjoy as Americans to pursue our own life, liberty, and happiness. We all want that. But our culture tells us that we don't need faith in any sort of absolute truth to depend on. In fact our culture tells us that to rely first on our faith and what our faith has been placed in before relying on our own instincts is weakness. I recently remember hearing about a survey among people of faith. Among the people surveyed, 65 percent of them said that they rely more on Oprah Winfrey for spiritual counsel than they do any sort of clergy.
Why do you think that is? Where does Oprah tell people that they should be seeking their own spiritual enlightenment? Oprah tells you that spiritual enlightenment and peace can be found within yourself. Oprah essentially tells us what we all, by our sinful nature, want to hear; that we can be our own shepherds. She doesn't use those exact words but complete and utter reliance on your own instincts is at the heart of what Oprah preaches.
But reality and God's Word tell us otherwise. In the 22nd chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us that the two most important commandments are to first love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and to love your neighbor as yourself and that the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. He tells us not to think of ourselves first, but to think of our Lord and our neighbor first.
Why should we not look to ourselves first? Well what do your instincts tell you when someone does something to you that you don’t like? More often than not, your instincts are probably to get even or at least get mad. And this has been made graphically evident this week with all of the events that have taken place in the Middle East.
But we don’t have to look just to extreme examples in the news to see the failure of looking to ourselves first. When we look to ourselves first we end up focusing on what needs to be done right now. Many of you farmers who have been spending so much time out in the fields this Summer I am sure can relate to this. I am sure you have spent some time worrying about crops burning up or not getting rain, and who could blame you? I am sure many of you have seen the effects of an economy that seems to make it harder and harder everyday for people to make a living in rural, farming communities.
Or getting back to when someone does something to us that we think is wrong. When we look to ourselves first we end up holding on to grudges over petty disputes or getting angry at our neighbor for something petty, and soon we end up isolating ourselves from one another. We end up thinking that all we need is ourselves.
We end up worrying about what we don’t have and what still has to be done, rather than celebrating what we do have, such as a good home, or family and friends who love and care for us, or celebrating what has been done for us such as being reconciled before God through the blood of Christ. In other words, we end up like sheep who have been scattered from their flock.
But the good news is that our Lord does not allow us to remain lost or scattered from the flock. In our Gospel lesson we read that as Jesus came ashore to what He thought was going to be a ‘deserted place,’ He actually saw a great crowd and had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and it says that Jesus began to teach them many things. Indeed, when we allow ourselves to get lost or scattered from our flock, our Lord does not leave us alone but instead He comes to us and has compassion on us and fills us with His love and grace and direction and, being the good shepherd, He guides us back to the flock.
When I was in boot camp, one of my company commanders would always recite psalm 23, which coincidentally is the psalm for today. He would always recite it in the King James version, and he would slow down and pause when he got to verse 4 which in the King James says " 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;" He would really slow down at the "thou art with me" part and then he would tell us to look to our left and our right.
He would then tell us that we are not in this alone, but are in it together and relying on each other and not just ourselves was how we would get through it. Now, he wouldn’t actually say the name of Christ when he did this because to do so would have been a violation of the separation of church and state. But the Christians and probably some of the non-Christians could read between the lines.
We could see that he was talking about more than just teamwork. We could see that he was reminding us that in each other we would see Christ, that Christ would come to us in each other. That is how our Lord comes to you. He comes to you in His Word, in the sacraments and in each other. He comes to you and brings you together as a community and a flock. And when you try to scatter yourself from the flock, He finds you and brings you back to the flock. He is the good shepherd and through the blood of Christ you have been made part of His flock, not just today, not just tomorrow but for all eternity. Try as you might, our Lord, the good shepherd will not allow you to scatter yourself from the flock that is the Body of Christ, the flock that you have been baptized into.
Amen
posted by Steve at 4:08 PM
1 Comments:
Nice sermon. You did bring it to them a bit more. You missed the oppurtunity to bring it closer when you stopped talking about the farmers and how they worry. There was the chance to kill them in thier sin-no faith in God to provide. You could have left off the next section and talked to them more-they would have felt more convicted and more personal-you gave them the way out by moving on. Other than that, you began to hit it home at the end. You used the word "you" instead of "us." That is the only way you will preach to them. Did Jesus much use "us" when He was both condemning and proclaiming? No-He was the preacher. And so are you-You are Christ's preacher-it is His WOrds you are preaching. As Luther once said, "believe that you have been sent my God and the sermon you are preaching is HIs sermon." Take the power given to you and proclaim to them-leave yourself out of it as much as possible. You are preaching to yourself anyway when you write the thing, so take a step back and preach to them.
Good job!
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