Pentecost 21 C-Sermon

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost–Sermon

10/13/13–Year C   

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Ten little monkeys; jumping on the bed; one fell off and bumped his head; the mama called the doctor; and the doctor said; no more monkey’s jumping on the bed.  Nine little monkeys; jumping on the bed; one fell off and bumped his head; the mama called the doctor; and the doctor said; no more monkey’s jumping on the bed. Eight….well I think I could probably stop now singing the children’s song now, though I do confess it is quite catchy.  These adorable cute bounding monkeys who one right after the next continue in succession to do what the one before had done.  They follow along in the pattern, which my hunch is designed to either help kids with counting backwards OR to warn them of the dangers of such frivolity, as a bump on the head not only hurts, but warrants a call to the doctor.  Such is the natural behavior of monkeys, I suppose, swinging from tree limbs, eating bananas, jumping around with hoots and hollers, not listening to nor understanding basic english commands. Thus failing to learn from what they had witnessed, from 10 to 0. They all bump their heads.  

Put in contrast to our Gospel lesson then it seems Jesus is doing rather well with the one, the one Samaritan, who breaks the mold and pattern, who turns back toward the Master who showed mercy. As you likely know being a leper was a terrible disease.  Though the biblical word covers a multitude of fleshy ailments, its outcome and result was the same; he or she was an outcast.  One removed from the community.  One who was ostracized and could not work.  In their desperate state, which affected not only the body, but the soul as well, led them to cry out in succession; “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  A prayer and cry of the tormented and afflicted.  Kyrie Eleison.  Christe Eleison.  Kyrie Eleison.  Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.  

Ten lepers, about their stature I do not know, cry out to the Lord for mercy and ten lepers are healed.  The goodness of God and the healing power of His Word has covered and cleansed them all.  The Word from Jesus removed that which kept them from the community and healed the pain and discomfort that such a disease would have caused. He acted in the very nature of God whom the prophets declare is, “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”  These 10 lepers are now clean, but yet they are not all made well.  St. Luke in his normal fashion of pointing to the Samaritans and Gentiles as models for Christians, speak of only one who is truly made well by that same faith.  The Samaritan turning back to Christ in love, devotion, worship, and thanksgiving, Jesus says to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”  Or rather, “your faith has saved you.”    

In the story this morning we have here the full picture of what it is that we confess about our God.  Of Him who sent His beloved Son into the world to save the world.  Jesus Christ defeated sin, death and the power of the devil.  Through his work upon the cross, the shedding of His blood, His rest in the tomb and rising to victory, Christ has healed all by wining our redemption through the forgiveness of our sins.  The whole world, that creation of God which cries out in labor pains, has received the foretaste of its salvation.  Forgiveness, grace, and the healing of God won on Calvary is for all.  There is nothing left, we confess, to do for our salvation.  The Father has already done it all in His Son.  God’s mercy and healing is truly universal given to all and yet not all are made well.  Though Christ has healed all, not all are saved.  The only difference between those who are and those who are not is simply pausing to take a look, to see that they are in fact healed.  It is the gift of faith, given for eyes to see and ears to hear.  For the life and salvation given to all is like the old analogy of the million dollar check in everyone’s wallet.  Yes you have it, but until you take it to the bank it does you no good.  Christ has given us a kingdom which is unshakable, which is so glorious and so wondrous, filled with his love and compassion, yet it too does us no good if it is not apprehended by faith.  If our hearts and minds are not turned back to Christ the author and perfecter of faith itself. 

We cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Christ Jesus or come to Him, but with God all things are possible.  For where His Word is proclaimed it creates that which it speaks, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  For His Word is living and active and it does not return to our Lord empty.  It is for this reason that we are here, that we turn back, each week in love and thanksgiving to God.  For here we lepers are continually made well by Christ.  Here salvation is sung, proclaimed, and given as Dr. James Nestingen formerly of Luther Sem, is quoted as saying, “In the liturgy the Word of God is poured over us, on our heads, in our eyes, through our ears, and down our mouths. Permeating our lives.”  Here we are flooded by God’s Word which not only heals us, but saves us.  In the word of absolution and sacrament received, faith itself is created and given to us.  Yet outside of the presence of Christ in the proclamation of the Word and reception of the Sacrament faith quickly dries up, because at heart the Old Adam in us is like those nine other lepers yearning to keep walking back to our old lives.  The Old Adam in us is like those 10 little obstinate monkeys, wanting to so much to ignore the voice of the doctor and keep going our own way.  Yet God causes us to turn back to Him in faith.  Falling on our faces at the feet of Jesus and that is something that neither you and I could do on our own, but only by the gift of faith, which stirs in us thanks and praise for all that He has done.   

And it is precisely this, this chief act of thanksgiving, eucharistia in the Greek, from which we get the word Eucharist, that describes the heart and soul of gathering together for worship each week.  We come to this place, turning back to Christ, like the Samaritan to give thanks to God.  Thus there is so much thanksgiving that we sing/speak in the liturgy of the Meal, the place where Christ himself comes in body and blood to meet us and give us our salvation, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.  It is right to give Him thanks and praise.  It is indeed right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks.”  Our worship is lived and done in the spirit and joy of thanksgiving to God and it is not confined to this Lord’s Day, but rather permeates and fills our lives and our time each day, each week. Therefore let us with hearts raised unceasingly give thanks that the doctor, the Great Physician, has spoken to us His Word, broken the pattern of our sinful lives, refrained our chaotic jumping, answered our pleas for mercy, and healed our bruised heads, hearts, and lives.        Amen.  

Pentecost 20 C- Sermon

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost–Sermon

10/06/13–Year C

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

There are certain things that for us Christians it is sometimes dangerous to pray for.  I know that seems contrary to everything that we’ve been told, because we can indeed take everything and anything to our Lord in prayer.  I’m sure we’ve even sung that a time or two with specific burdens in our heart that we do indeed take to our Friend Jesus, who promises to listen and to answer.  However that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be mindful of what it is actually we are praying for.  What do we intend with our prayers?  For instance and what I would call the classic example of one of these types of prayers is the prayers for patience.  Normally the prayer for patience takes the form of the joke, “Lord grant me patience, AND GIVE IT TO ME NOW!!”  Yet I have found it in my own life that that prayer is rarely effective.  I cannot recall after such a prayer that I have ever been flooded with an outpouring of patience in the midst of a situation and trials.  What more than likely happens is that after prayers for patience, God likes to give me more opportunities to practice my own ability to be patient.  

Patience I imagine is not unlike the request from the apostles to our Lord which we overhear this morning, “INCREASE OUR FAITH!”  In the context of this morning’s gospel lesson, we hear this in what almost may be a boast.  Increase our faith, Lord, so that we may be even better than we already our.  There is a not so subtle arrogance that the disciples have been known to bandy about from time to time.  Is this akin to James and John begging of the Lord, let me sit at your right and your left when you come into your kingdom!  Does it resonate with Peter’s ability to at the most opportune time to sick foot in mouth and swallow.  But is it a cry of arrogance?  Is it a request to be even just a bit more holy or have a smidgin more faith than the other disciples?  INCREASE OUR FAITH, Lord Jesus.  Well to answer that we must back up and put this request from the disciples, complete with exclamation point, in its Gospel context.  

Preceding our reading this morning we hear from St. Luke, And Jesus said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!  It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of his little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves!  If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, “I repent’, you must forgive him.”  The apostles said to the Lord, “INCREASE OUR FAITH!”  

It’s not a boast, a brag or a demand, but rather a cry and plead for mercy and strength!  Seven times forgive.  Once is easy, twice is annoying, three times aggravating, but seven?  According to the nature of the flesh such a request, such a command from our Lord can only bring the disciples to the ultimate conclusion that they lack what is needed to heed their Lord’s words.  A little dose of faith can handle offering a word of forgiveness for a minor offense, but what is needed for great and repeated ones?  That will require much more.  It will take the faith of a Mustard Seed.  One to uproot the knotted and tangled web of roots buried deep below the earth and be planted in the sea.  That entangled mess of the past and present, which without faith is so easy to keep under the cover of the darkness of the ground. But with faith brings out and exposes to the light.  It will take the faith that can move mountains or rather our stony rock-hard hearts calcified in bitterness, animosity, pain, resentment and an unwillingness to forgive, especially when we think we’re right.  The disciples know this to be true and that is why they petition the Lord, because they know only such faith can come from him.  Knowing ourselves do we not share that same lament, cry, and prayer,  “Lord increase our faith!”

If we take our Lord’s words seriously, which we as Christians should be in the habit of doing, then it is exactly faith that we will need. For what is it to forgive, but to lay down one’s life one’s claim of righteousness for the sake of a repentant friend, brother, or even enemy.  It will likely mean that forgiveness comes in the shape of our own forgiveness, the cross. The death to our selfishness for the upbuilding and betterment of the body of Christ, the Church, and for our fellow brothers and sisters. And that takes faith, supernatural faith, faith that can only come from where the disciples themselves seek it: from the Lord.  For in human wisdom and strength there is only weakness and failing, but in the Lord, from whom flows our own life-giving grace, mercy and forgiveness we receive our faith.  True, abiding, and everlasting faith given to us by the Holy Spirit through the means of His grace.  Saving faith which casts off sin and grasps the promises of Christ to us, My body given for you. My blood shed for you.  My life, death, and resurrection for you.  In this gospel lesson today the disciples as well as you and I play out the words of the catechism, “by my own reason or strength I can not believe.”  By myself and of my own self I have no faith, therefore Lord, increase it.  Give to me, give to us such faith as that of a pickling spice.   

After the disciples petition then of course St. Luke goes on to describe how at that very moment they were all filled with a double dose of faith, and rainbows and unicorns appeared in the sky and they all felt warm and fuzzy.  No?  No, indeed.  Peter would still deny.  Judas would still betray.  James and John would still be arrogant.  And when the shepherd is stricken, the sheep will scatter.  Though the download of the ability to forgive seven times, or seven times seven, or seventy times seven, would have been easy and convenient, it would not have been real.  For it is in the midst of trial that we learn patience as St. Paul tells us in Romans.  And it is in the need of forgiveness that our Lord teaches us and gives us faith to forgive.  It is there that the true work of our Lord is being done in us and in those times when an increase of faith is given.  Because such forgiveness offered, if it be true forgiveness, is born from the breath and power of God.  For the forgiveness we proclaim and share is not ours, it’s God’s.  And as we know with man nothing is possible, but with God everything is possible, because where His Word of grace is proclaimed the power of God is set loose among us to remove deeply rooted trees, obstinate mountains, and baptize them in the sea—in the water of life where you and I return time and again to be replanted and replenished in the true faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.   

Amen.       

St. Michael and All Angels- Semron

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost- Sermon

9/22/13- Year C

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Oh no.  I can see it in the nervous shifting of seats and the crinkling of bulletins.  I can hear it in the uncomfortable coughs breaking through the midst of momentary silence.  I can feel it is as I labor a little heavier to breathe in the last milliliters of oxygen as you all are holding in your gasps.  Waiting.  Wondering.  Fearing.  Another.  Sermon.  About.  Money.  Especially after last week’s wonderful message to us from Pastor Wendel.  Well you can all let go your held breath and relax. Though the topic is primed and ready and Jesus has set us up for a little batting practice to hit a home run or two on stewardship.  Jesus himself in the gospel has left us with the perfect punchline for such a sermon, “You cannot serve both God and Money.”  You can almost hear the wood collecting with the ball (KNOCK) as pastor drives in the bases loaded grand slam on stewardship.  And no I have not been watching baseball much this year, my cubs were mathematically eliminated sometime back in May as were my Twins also, if I’m not mistaken.  But I did just recently watch Field of Dreams, so I apologize for the baseball imagery today.  

Though Money is set up for us and aligns with the parable of the dishonest manager, did any of you perhaps sense or catch up on something else repeated and refrained throughout our lesson this morning?  It struck me more this year than it did the last time it came up in the lectionary, perhaps because of our meetings last week with Pr. Wendel.  Though the dishonest manager is praised for his shrewdness, Jesus spends  more time talking about its opposite: trust and honesty.  Whoever can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much.  If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches.  And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?  It seems at least for me today, our Lord hits us disciples hard on the issue and reality of trust.  And it is trust of which I think we need to speak today or rather our Lord needs to speak to us today.  

Having learned the hard way way trust is something that is a priceless commodity of our human lives.  It is woven into the very fabric of creation, and yet almost as quickly undone in creation.  The Lord created the heavens and the earth a place of trust as everything our first parents would have needed to thrive and survive were given to them in creation.  Trust spoken as clay formed. Trust made in the depth of sleep and rib removed.  Trust seen in the face of a beautiful and perfect helper. Trust lived in the communion of one another and one another with God.  And all that trust undone in a whisper, a violation, and a fruit eaten.  What took a good two chapters of Genesis to describe, all fell apart in a few verses.  Trust broken between man and wife, between man and creation, between God and man.  We were made and created for lives of trust and honesty or shall we use the more churchly word, “faith” and yet how quickly we find ourselves naked, vulnerable, defenseless in the presence of faithlessness, trust broken.    

During my days in seminary, and this might come as a to surprise you but we’re not all perfect in seminary either. It may sound like a place filled with holiness and piety, but it is in all reality a place where fellow sinners are living out their own salvation with fear and trembling. I had what I thought was a good friend. We hung out together.  We smoked our pipe’s and cigars together whislt talking theology. Sharing cold Lutheran beverages as well.  I don’t even remember what caused our friendship to end, but all I remember was that because of something I said or did, she no longer talked with me.  I was persona non grata.  What two years together had built up was gone in a flash. Needless to say the silence of a friend only fueled my own anger and personal hurt. I dreaded seeing her in the dorms and on campus and especially at worship.  Of course only God would do this...the chapel at LTSS has its communion rail circling all away around the altar. And at communion people walk up the center aisle and then kneel around the altar.  Her and I had been sitting at opposite sides of the chapel, so we could naturally avoid one another.  That is until it came time for communion. Not only did we go up for communion at the same time, and not only were we at the same table together, but the way the spaces opened up, we knelt side by side in pain with hands extended and palms open. Both waiting to receive the same bread of life. We both wanted to pull away from each other, but there in that moment God brought us quite literally together, to heal.  In that act on that day Luther’s final words rang so deeply and profoundly true to me, “we are beggars: this is true.”          

We all are beggars, penitents kneeling, waiting, wanting to be healed from whatever and whoever has broken our trust.  And wanting to be forgiven for when we ourselves have broken another’s. WE are all beggars around this altar as we come to one and all to receive the same Lord Jesus, the same bread of Life, of the One God who has come in order to give back to creation trust, to give faith. In bread broken and wine poured God does what he has continued to do from the beginning redeem, restore, and renew His creation. To be the one God that we alone worship and adore, not money or mammon, and not ourselves or our hurts. To draw us all together, when we would rather avoid or pull ourselves apart, into one communion in His life.  At the table of our Lord, we are made by Christ and the Spirit to trust in God alone, to look to Him alone, and to expect Him to give us only good things. Because He does and He is good.  He alone gives us every good thing and by Him we are delivered from all evil. He does this all to recreate our trust.  Our trust in Him and by God’s grace and forgiveness restore and renew our trust in one another.  So that here and now we can learn to have trust in the little things, so that we may be trusted with much.  That we might be found worthy of the earthly things and be entrusted with the true riches of the Kingdom, peace, joy, love, forgiveness, grace and mercy, as individuals and also as a parish. For that is the true life of the Kingdom here and now and in the Kingdom for which we all desperately wait for to come. Gathered around the throne of God with one voice singing Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory  Hosanna in the highest!    

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is  now and ever shall be world without end.  Amen.  

Pentecost 18 C–Sermon

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost- Sermon
9/22/13- Year C

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Oh no.  I can see it in the nervous shifting of seats and the crinkling of bulletins.  I can hear it in the uncomfortable coughs breaking through the midst of momentary silence.  I can feel it is as I labor a little heavier to breathe in the last milliliters of oxygen as you all are holding in your gasps.  Waiting.  Wondering.  Fearing.  Another.  Sermon.  About.  Money.  Especially after last week’s wonderful message to us from Pastor Wendel.  Well you can all let go your held breath and relax. Though the topic is primed and ready and Jesus has set us up for a little batting practice to hit a home run or two on stewardship.  Jesus himself in the gospel has left us with the perfect punchline for such a sermon, “You cannot serve both God and Money.”  You can almost hear the wood collecting with the ball (KNOCK) as pastor drives in the bases loaded grand slam on stewardship.  And no I have not been watching baseball much this year, my cubs were mathematically eliminated sometime back in May as were my Twins also, if I’m not mistaken.  But I did just recently watch Field of Dreams, so I apologize for the baseball imagery today.

Though Money is set up for us and aligns with the parable of the dishonest manager, did any of you perhaps sense or catch up on something else repeated and refrained throughout our lesson this morning?  It struck me more this year than it did the last time it came up in the lectionary, perhaps because of our meetings last week with Pr. Wendel.  Though the dishonest manager is praised for his shrewdness, Jesus spends  more time talking about its opposite: trust and honesty.  Whoever can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much.  If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches.  And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?  It seems at least for me today, our Lord hits us disciples hard on the issue and reality of trust.  And it is trust of which I think we need to speak today or rather our Lord needs to speak to us today.

Having learned the hard way way trust is something that is a priceless commodity of our human lives.  It is woven into the very fabric of creation, and yet almost as quickly undone in creation.  The Lord created the heavens and the earth a place of trust as everything our first parents would have needed to thrive and survive were given to them in creation.  Trust spoken as clay formed. Trust made in the depth of sleep and rib removed.  Trust seen in the face of a beautiful and perfect helper. Trust lived in the communion of one another and one another with God.  And all that trust undone in a whisper, a violation, and a fruit eaten.  What took a good two chapters of Genesis to describe, all fell apart in a few verses.  Trust broken between man and wife, between man and creation, between God and man.  We were made and created for lives of trust and honesty or shall we use the more churchly word, “faith” and yet how quickly we find ourselves naked, vulnerable, defenseless in the presence of faithlessness, trust broken.  
During my days in seminary, and this might come as a to surprise you but we’re not all perfect in seminary either. It may sound like a place filled with holiness and piety, but it is in all reality a place where fellow sinners are living out their own salvation with fear and trembling. I had what I thought was a good friend. We hung out together.  We smoked our pipe’s and cigars together whislt talking theology. Sharing cold Lutheran beverages as well.  I don’t even remember what caused our friendship to end, but all I remember was that because of something I said or did, she no longer talked with me.  I was persona non grata.  What two years together had built up was gone in a flash. Needless to say the silence of a friend only fueled my own anger and personal hurt. I dreaded seeing her in the dorms and on campus and especially at worship.  Of course only God would do this...the chapel at LTSS has its communion rail circling all away around the altar. And at communion people walk up the center aisle and then kneel around the altar.  Her and I had been sitting at opposite sides of the chapel, so we could naturally avoid one another.  That is until it came time for communion. Not only did we go up for communion at the same time, and not only were we at the same table together, but the way the spaces opened up, we knelt side by side in pain with hands extended and palms open. Both waiting to receive the same bread of life. We both wanted to pull away from each other, but there in that moment God brought us quite literally together, to heal.  In that act on that day Luther’s final words rang so deeply and profoundly true to me, “we are beggars: this is true.”        

We all are beggars, penitents kneeling, waiting, wanting to be healed from whatever and whoever has broken our trust.  And wanting to be forgiven for when we ourselves have broken another’s. WE are all beggars around this altar as we come to one and all to receive the same Lord Jesus, the same bread of Life, of the One God who has come in order to give back to creation trust, to give faith. In bread broken and wine poured God does what he has continued to do from the beginning redeem, restore, and renew His creation. To be the one God that we alone worship and adore, not money or mammon, and not ourselves or our hurts. To draw us all together, when we would rather avoid or pull ourselves apart, into one communion in His life.  At the table of our Lord, we are made by Christ and the Spirit to trust in God alone, to look to Him alone, and to expect Him to give us only good things. Because He does and He is good.  He alone gives us every good thing and by Him we are delivered from all evil. He does this all to recreate our trust.  Our trust in Him and by God’s grace and forgiveness restore and renew our trust in one another.  So that here and now we can learn to have trust in the little things, so that we may be trusted with much.  That we might be found worthy of the earthly things and be entrusted with the true riches of the Kingdom, peace, joy, love, forgiveness, grace and mercy, as individuals and also as a parish. For that is the true life of the Kingdom here and now and in the Kingdom for which we all desperately wait for to come. Gathered around the throne of God with one voice singing Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory  Hosanna in the highest!  

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is  now and ever shall be world without end.  Amen.

Pentecost 16–C

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost- Sermon
9/8/13- Year C

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the Lectionary is an amazing and beautiful thing, through whom the Holy Spirit works His work of speaking the truth of Jesus to us. More often than not on a given Sunday it speaks to the world and to our lives in ways that its creators could never foresee. We stand on the verge of an attack with Syria. One where there is no clear side to take. No clear reason and no united front by the world. And in churches who use the Revised Common Lectionary all around this nation, from Presbyterian to Methodist, Roman Catholic and even us Lutherans, the word of the Lord is being read in all of them, Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty-thousand. And hopefully in those churches all around our nation, we are united in their prayers for just that to sit down truly and count the cost. The cost of human life. The cost of our soldiers. And the true cost of our action might look like.  

Our Gospel lesson speaks to the world this morning and its current situation, but it also speaks directly to us as well. Doesn’t it?  Leaky roof.  Check.  Unfinished holes in the ceiling.  Check.  Incomplete chancel, from what I here there was supposed to be an altar rail here for kneeling.  Check.  Bare concrete floor Narthex. Check.  Missing baseboards.  Check.  I could go on, but you likely could add more yourself than I could ever name.  Everywhere we turn in this building, this tower of ours, we see unfinished and incomplete work.  I’m at least fortunate though that we have a solid foundation upon which this building was built. On top of all the incomplete work in this building that would make any teacher shutter at her students paper, the cost of the building itself become an overbearing weight that is tied around our necks. A yoke which we placed upon ourselves, once gladly and freely, now has us at least weekly or even daily living out the words of our Lord’s parable.  We question in our hearts and minds did we truly and rightly “consider the cost.”  Did we lay a foundation, which we can not complete? Did we bite off more than we can chew?  In its unfinished status are we being mocked?  Being laughed at by our enemy and the enemy of God.  

  But this is only a building.  It is mere concrete and wood, steel and glass.  Pieces laid out in a structural arrangement to house something that is more sacred, more holy, more priceless: the Church of God.  Though our Lord mentions speaks of buildings, it is only an illustration and to speak to the deeper and greater construction: discipleship and the upbuilding of the the Church, His body in the world. It is speaking to discipleship and the fellowship of the Body that our Lord directs His question laden in the parables, have we truly considered the cost? Have we considered carefully exactly what our Lord seeks from us? To pick up our cross and follow after Him. Which to bear the cross is not a catch phrase nor is it talking about your bunions, an unruly child, or whatever mild inconvenience you happen to be suffering at a particular moment in time.  The cross, as we should all know by now, is symbolic of something much more costly, it is our death.
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.  Notice how these are all people of relationship and fellowship.  They are, at least for this illustration of our Lord, the people most dear to us, our friends our family.  In this Jesus calls those who would bear His name, Christians, truly not to hate in the way we think, but to hold Him higher than everyone we love, even ourselves. If we love our selves more, He tells us then we can not follow Him.  If we love our sin, more than His holiness, we cannot follow.  If we love our way more than Christ’s Way, we cannot follow.  If we love our family or our clicks, above His body, His family, then we cannot follow.  If we love our past wounds, our pain, or grudges more than Christ’s word to forgive and be reconciled to our brothers and sisters, then we have not considered the true cost of what it takes to build this Church. If we hoard Christ’s mercy and forgiveness for ourselves and do not forgive one another, then this building left unfinished will be an everlasting mirror to ourselves: His work left unfinished in us.  BTW Anyone happen to notice who isn’t included in Jesus list of people we are to “hate”, who our wills would want on that list? Anyone? Our enemies. Jesus calls us to love them.

You may be surprised to know this, well because I was a bit surprised, that Luther never included in his German Mass a brief order for confession and forgiveness.  It actually comes to us from Philip Melanchthon, which is another story. Luther never included it in his revision of the mass, for Him he was always pushing for people to go to  private confession and absolution before their pastors. There to confess actual sin which troubled actual souls as opposed to a generic confession of sinfulness.  For Luther, he saw the clear balm of absolution in the Mass, not tied with a brief Order, but rather in the sharing of the Peace. In his Formula Missae of 1523 Luther writes, “[The peace of the Lord be with you always, followed by its response]...is a public absolution of sins of the communicants, the true voice of the gospel announcing remission of sins, and therefore the one and most worthy preparation for the Lord’s Table, if faith holds to these words as coming from the mouth of Christ himself.” And true faith does hold them so, they are the Words of Christ and before coming up to the altar to receive His Body and Blood we receive His word which creates what it speaks, true abiding peace.

His peace is given to us and before we dare approach His altar, we share His peace with one another, with our friends, but more importantly with our supposed enemies. Here in this seemingly small liturgical exchange is lived out, what Luther calls the mutual consolation of the brethren. A means of God’s grace in which we are the actors of His powerful work, of healing, forgiving one another, and uniting us together under His holy banner.  There in the receiving and sharing of Christ’s peace the Church is continually built to be what it truly is to be: the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ. We receive His peace, share His peace, and then come with joy to receive His life given and shed for us in bread and wine.  In the depth of His forgiveness and forgiving one another our true salvation and the joy of paradise is lived and encountered here and now.  Therefore in a few moments, my brothers and sisters, let us take all the time we need to truly share the peace of Christ with one another, keeping at bay the taunts and laughs of our true enemy, the Evil One, and continue being built by the Holy Spirit into the Church of God.  Amen.

Pentecost 13 C–Sermon

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost–Sermon
8/18/13- Year C

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

In peace, let us pray to the Lord.

For the peace from above and for our salvation, let us pray to the Lord.

For the peace of the whole world for the wellbeing of the Church of God and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord.

Glory to God in the highest and peace to His people on earth.

The Peace of the Lord be with you always.

Lamb of God you take away the sin of the world, grant us peace.

The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace.

Go in peace, serve the Lord.

If there is one common thread that runs throughout the whole of the divine liturgy each Sunday, apart from Christ it is the petition, receiving, and offering of peace.  In the Kyrie we begin by praying for peace for our selves, our community, our congregation, and the entire world. Having been fed and nourished at the table and received the Word proclaimed we depart in what?  In peace.  We do so because the kingdom of peace is what our Lord establishes. Though Christmas has been a few months ago we could probably recall Handel’s For Unto Us a Child is Born, taken from Isaiah 9:6.  For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Christmas came and now we have peace, that is the great claim of our Christian faith. We are at peace, through Christ who by His death and resurrection has made us one with God and one with each other.  Atonement is the theological word for this, but it is not as much of a five dollar word as it seems. It was a creation of 16th century English child’s level words “at”+ “one” + ment (unity). Through Christ we are at one unity with the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit and by baptism we are united to each other. And the Church is a mere reflection of the that everlasting Kingdom of Peace, where God will dwell with his people and wipe away every tear.

 So what happened?  Has Jesus forgotten the song of the angels and shepherds that accompanied His birth some 33 years ago?  Did He wake up on the wrong side of the mat that first century morning? Or like St. Paul is he suffering a thorn in the flesh?  How do we confess and praise this King of Peace, who himself confessed to His disciples, Do you think I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. Not only a division between the disciples and the world, but a division in the very foundation of human life, the family. Three against two and two against three.  Jesus’ words sound counter intuitive to what we claim to know about this King of peace. They are harsh and they are mixed with anger, perhaps even rage about the reality that he is witnessing. The crowds fail to see their salvation staring them in the face, and at times even His own disciples don’t seem to get it. We see here a passage from our Lord that might even scare us. We don’t like angry Jesus. We like Jesus meek and mild. He’s much tamer that way and fits in the box we’ve made for Him better. We want him to be nice, because nice is of course the highest of virtues.

 C.S. Lewis captures quite well the tension that is present at hearing this text in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Lucy and Susan are speaking to Mr. & Ms. Beaver and they are telling them about Aslan the King of the Wood, the great lion.  Susan surprised that the King of Narnia is a lion asks, “Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”  “That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking they’re either braver than most or just silly.”  “Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.  “Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you.”  Our life with Christ is not always safe, but it is always good.

We look to the world and see the danger that is so very present for those who believe and trust in this King of Peace. From the Coptic Christians in Egypt who fear for their very lives just to go to worship and whose churches are continually being destroyed by Islamic extremists. To Christians in China and Vietnam who live under the daily threat of government oppression and force. There are places in this world where those under the banner of Christ have not seen civil peace in quite some time, where the division of three-against-two is a daily reality. His baptism has been completed in His death and resurrection and the fire that He longed to be kindled at Pentecost has been let loose on the world through the Holy Spirit. The faith Jesus longed to stir in the hearts of those who first heard Him speak has now spread to the ends of the earth. And His baptism and His fire has been kindled in us. Because of that we too will feel the division of which our Lord speaks.      

For Christ is not indifferent to our lives, to how we think, act, and feel. He does not blindly go along with our desires. He is not nice, for niceties sake.  But He is good and He has laid claim to our lives.  As St. Paul reminds us we are not our own for we were bought with a price.  A price, as St. Peter reminds us, not of gold or silver, but the precious blood of Christ. That is the Truth and reality of which we now live and gather together to confess and proclaim to the whole world. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead to the glory of God the Father. The prince of Peace has come and it is no one other than Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man. There is no other name or false god or political institution or self-creating spirituality that can save and redeem. Only Christ. And that confession will always cause strife and division not only with the pantheism of the world, but even in our own lives. For His truth and His Word are always shaping and forming us to live more and more into His life and less into ours. The old Adam killed, so that the new man may live, shaped and molded by the cross. Actually calling us to love, forgive, and show mercy to others just as He has shown us.    

In the face of this division of our flesh and spirit and discomfort though our Lord has promised to us, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.  For the Peace of Christ is not the absence of conflict though we pray mightily for that day and for us, but for now it is His abiding presence in the midst of it and through it. It is the joy of knowing that we are God’s and that He is with us in the Valley of the Shadow of death. That is the promise and peace which the Cross truly gives to us. That peace is what the church continues to pray for.  It is that peace which we receive at the table and extend to one another in Christ’s name.  And it is that peace in which we are sent out into the world to serve the Lord, for though Jesus is not safe. He is now and eternally good.  

Amen.  

Pentecost 12 C–Sermon

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost–Sermon
8/4/13–Year C

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

This past week at the NALC convocation I got the chance to reconnect not only with colleagues from Iowa, old friends from seminary, but also a couple of my professors at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, where I attended, who are now teaching at a new branch of the new NALC seminary system.  One of my mentors Dr. David Yeago was there earlier in the week at the theological conference giving a presentation.  Having missed the conference, I was glad that he was one of the first people that I got to see when I pulled into the hotel an hour and half later than I had expected to.  Getting to converse with him brought back some of those wonderful times of sitting at his feet and listening to him teach the faith.  It also brought back some of those one-one-one moments when he would impart a bit of personal wisdom upon me and other students.  One such nugget has always stayed with me.

Alicia and I returned from internship in Huntsville, AL in a completely different state than we went.  We were single at the time and she dotingly followed me to Alabama as I began my third year of course work in the parish setting. That summer we got engaged and at the nudge of my internship supervisor we got married in November.  Four months later we found out about the coming advent of our Paige.  Coming back for my senior year and preparing for fatherhood with all my fears, Dr. Yeago shared a bit of wisdom with me.  He told me, “It surely is the sign of a good, gracious, and trusting God that he gives to parents His children to nurture and raise without including an instruction manual.”

And He doesn’t.  We parents for the most part have to figure out things on our own and learn all the tricks of the trade.  Feeding.  Changing diapers. Forging an iron will against the manipulation and cuteness of a demanding 2-year old.  All of parenting comes with trial and error and the wisdom of other generations. When we think we are imparting education to our children they also impart education to us on better parenting skills.  The dynamic at work in any loving relationship.  Hopefully anyway Alicia and I have learned to pick our battles.  We have learned child speak.  And we have learned the proper time at which to announce things to our children.   As naive parents we thought kids needed to know things at the precise moment we did.  So at first it made sense to tell them a month in advance we were going to Grandma’s.  As we learned….NO it didn’t!  Maybe a weeks notice would be better. Wrong again!  And in order escape the daily, if not hourly inquiries of whether or not it was time to go to Grandma’s house, we now tell them when the car is already packed.

The anxiety and excitement prevalent in the unending questioning of children—“are we going to grandma’s today?”—is a naturally occurring anxiety in humanity.  Even more so now we are bread to expect and demand immediacy.  Have it your way and have it right now, is the backbone of every ad-campaign.  The gratification of instantaneous reward is the drug upon which our culture feasts and our current market thrives on.  There is no way else to explain the deep frustration when we find our iPhone, tablet, google searches taking longer than the 1.35 seconds to upload than normal!  And forever let Dial-up internet be accursed!  I don’t want to wait for my Netflix to download at a snails pace.  Yet technology is only one facet of anxiety and frustration with things not moving quickly enough in our time. The extra minute we have to wait at the drive through line while getting are not so fast, fast-food. The long lines at the grocery store, which delays going about our day’s business.  We want it, we want it our way and we want it right now.  And growing up in this culture I too am thoroughly infected by it.  Our flesh longs for instant gratification of whatever or whoever it is we want, desire, and lust after.  We have all breathed deeply from the ether that whispers “quicker is better” and “now is best.”  A whisper not unlike that first one spoken in man’s ear in the garden, “Did God really say…?”  We hear a promise and we want it now.

Yet what is it we learn from the biblical witness. What do we see in the life of Father Abraham?  You know the hero of that silly children’s song by the same name.  Father Abraham had many sons.  Many sons had father Abraham.  He was given a word and a promise from the Lord, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars–if indeed you can count them, so shall your offspring be.”  A promise to make Abraham the father of many nations with many descendants. Yet how many sons did he have by his wife?  One, Isaac.  Not too hard to count.  Well then surely that promise was fulfilled in Isaac’s life time.  How many sons did he have?  Two.  Jacob and Esau.  Okay so the numbers are doubling.  Well within Jordan’s counting ability.  Surely it was fulfilled through Jacob’s birthright then, right?  He had 12 sons forming the 12 tribes, but even 12 with their children are not more numerous than the stars.  Not in Abraham’s lifetime.  Not in Isaac’s or Jacob’s life time.  Not even in the heyday of Israel’s time is God’s promise to Abraham fulfilled.  So when is it then?  Thousands of years later when as St. Matthew calls him the Son of David and the Son of Abraham, defeated death, descended into hell smashing its gates asunder, and rose in everlasting victory. Only in the victory of Christ does that silly kid’s song find its refrain, I am one of them and so are you.  So lets all praise the Lord.  Through Christ, Abraham’s descendants are indeed immeasurable and His promise is being fulfilled to this day.      

Abraham models what faith and our life with God is.  A firm belief and hope in the Word of the Lord, in a promise given.  As we hear in Genesis, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”  A first sounding of our reformation cry, the righteous live by faith. You and I baptized in the waters, made children of God, descendants of our forefathers in the faith are given daily the promises of God.  He is with us always to the close of the age and the pledge of that is ours in Word and Sacrament and seal of the Holy Spirit upon us.  Though we fail, He never does.  Though we walk through the valleys of the shadow of death, His rod and staff accompany us.  To beat back the wolves and to keep us in His path.  He has given His promise to us and He has given it to this parish.  Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom.  This is the Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.  Christ has spoken His promise and he has His plans for our parish. A promise which we may not fully realize in your lifetime or mine, but one that is well within His. A promise we will only fully see standing on the other side of the grave. For it is that eternal and everlasting life which is the fulfillment of His promise given to us and which we receive and live by faith.

There is another old or saying that I’ve found to be true in my own life, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”  Every time I’ve tried to declare my plans to God, He’s laughed and said in not quite so many words, “nice try, son, but think again.” We can not fully plan out God’s plans for us in this place and we are not called to do that. Though we try, just as Abram did.  But what God invites us to do rather is to trust Him and to live by faith in Him and daily pray, thy will be done.  For His will is far better than any of our own, because it is eternal.  Resting in His life, we live out our salvation here in this place by faith.  Faith, which is sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. He calls us to faith, because only faith can hear the promise of Christ, receive the Kingdom given, and answer all our fears.  Amen.