Reformation Sunday
Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 Psalm 1 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 Matthew 22:34-46 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who brings us back to love. Amen Today the Pharisees set out to test Jesus, and one asks him “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Now this story comes at the end of several stories of various groups trying to trick Jesus into blasphemy or treason, and this time they specifically use the law as their trap. Remember, the law was a gift from God to the Israelites, God freed them from slavery in Egypt and brought them out into the wilderness and to teach them how to live in harmony with one another as free people God gave them the gift of the law. It was a gift given in love, intended to help build and maintain relationships, and now the Pharisees propose to do the opposite they set out to use the law to test, to trick, to divide, even to harm. they ask, which law is the greatest? and Jesus responds: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment and a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Jesus brings them back to love. This is what Jesus does every time humans take a gift from God, given in love, intended for love and use it to test, trick, divide or harm, Jesus brings us back to love. Love of God, love of neighbor, love of self. We see this in the gospels Jesus continually points those he meets back to love, love that mends relationships and brings people together, and often this takes a very physical form, when Jesus meets people whose relationships are broken because of sickness, he heals them, when the disciples want to send the crowds away to get something to eat, Jesus says you feed them, and helps them feed the masses with a little bit of bread and fish, when Jesus knows that the people despair he sends the disciples out to spread the good news that the kingdom of God has come near. Again and again Jesus points those he meets back to love, until he makes the biggest point of all, his death on the cross, an act of love so great that it defeats death, when Jesus, love incarnate, rises on the third day. Jesus, a gift given to us in love by God always brings us back to love, because of Jesus we know that God loves us, and nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even ourselves and our failure to perfectly love God, neighbor and self. God makes this promise to us at our baptisms and makes us part of the community called to always return to love. This is what our young people are affirming today, their commitment to living in the love of God, sharing it and returning to it when they go astray remembering the gift they have been given. Baptism is a gift from God given to us in love, at the font God claims us once and for all so that we may never doubt who we are and whose we are, and this is all God’s doing, we are saved by grace through faith, not by our own works and this gift of God is so great we want to share it with everyone, we want to partner with Jesus to live in a world where the sick are healed, the hungry are fed and all have a home and a place not because of what they have done or earned but because they are beloved children of God. This is the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed, the kingdom that breaks in every time love reaches across divisions. As we look around we are well aware that the fullness of the kingdom of God has not yet arrived, we face the imperfections of the world each day, and so we still need the gift of the law to guide us in communal living and to show us when we fall short, when we need to be brought back to love and this is a continual process, one that works in our individual lives and in the communal life. Today we observe Reformation Sunday, a moment in history when a monk named Martin Luther realized that the gift of God was being used to test, trick, divide and harm, and so he asked some questions and started a movement of people looking anew at the gifts of God and how they were being used and calling the community back to acting out of love and care for all, a way of sharing and living the gospel. This way of looking at the world is part of our heritage, But the work is not complete We are called to continue reforming, to continually look into the mirror of the law and when the gifts of God are being misused we are called to point it out, to bring it back to love, and of course we do not do this on our own, Jesus is with us, recalling us to the promises made at the font and bringing us to the table where with his body and blood he forgives us and brings us back to love, love that looks like a community gathered where there is enough for all, food enough for all, love enough for all, love that then gets sent out into the world. Confirmands, today you are publicly saying yes to the way of love, a way that the world desperately needs right now. As you continue to live your faith in the world there will be those who will question you, not because they seek knowledge but to test you, and you will encounter times when the way forward is less than clear in those moments, remember your baptism, remember that you are a beloved child of God, nothing can change that, and in remembering you will realize that the answer is clear, love. Because Jesus always brings us back to love. Amen
0 Comments
19th Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 25:1-9 Psalm 23 Philippians 4:1-9 Matthew 22:1-14 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who invites us to the banquet. Amen So, I always get a little uncomfortable when gospel readings include people being thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. To be fair, it’s supposed to make people uncomfortable, the threat of being cast out is used to motivate those on the receiving end of the message to act in a way that avoids this action. However, I’m more uncomfortable with it because it doesn’t square with my understanding of God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, who sent Jesus to save the world. And yet this was a teaching common in the early church which Matthew deliberately included in his gospel, the teaching where Jesus tells the story of a King hosting a wedding banquet on the day of the banquet he sends servants to remind everyone who has rsvp’d yes that the banquet is that day, and the servants are ignored. So the King sends more servants, who describe this great feast that has been prepared, surely free food will bring them in, but those invited go on about their business or stay behind to kill the servants. So the king, enraged, takes a moment before dinner, to wreak vengeance on them, and destroy their city and after that he feels a bit better but he still has no one to eat his banquet, so he sends his servants back out to gather anyone available, it doesn’t matter who they are whether they are good or bad, the King wants those seats in the banquet hall filled and so the servants do this and they fill the hall, and the king comes to look at his full banquet hal l and he sees someone, just dragged off the street, not wearing a wedding robe, and the king confronts the guy and asks why aren’t you wearing a robe?! And when the guy has no answer he is thrown out of the banquet hall into the outer darkness. The good news of the Lord? Why does Matthew include this story? I think he includes it because once we get past the hyperbole and ridiculousness of the narrative, it points to a central and uncomfortable truth: the truth that most humans will reject the invitation of God to participate in the abundant life of God. The abundant life of God that starts in this life. As Jesus travels around, teaching, preaching and healing, he spreads the news of the kingdom or God’s reign on earth, God’s reign is in direct contrast to the way the world works, think of the beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the peacemakers, these are the attributes valued in the kingdom of God, rather than the powerful, the violent, the rich, and the manipulative that seem to be blessed in this life. Jesus’ message preached primarily to the powerless, the victims, the poor and the manipulated is that life doesn’t have to be this way, in fact God desires pretty much the opposite and you can start living that way now, you don’t have to wait. With Jesus, God come to earth, kingdom living starts now! And it looks like a banquet where everyone is invited and the best food and drink is served, shelter is provided and God lifts the burdens from every shoulder and all this is freely given, offered to everyone both the good and the bad. It sounds so good it’s hard to imagine that anyone would turn down the invitation. And yet it happens, the grace of God is offered and is ignored or actively, violently rejected. Why? because the invitation is for more than a banquet, it is for a way of life which means giving up the way of life where wealth leads to power and power leads to the illusion of independence. Think about it, why would those initially invited go to the banquet when their businesses will allow them to provide their own banquet? We think, why would we go through the pomp and circumstance and trouble to go to someone else’s dinner when we can come up with something just as good, better even because we can avoid social obligations And in our quest for independence, we turn down the grace of God. We pass up our seat at the banquet because we think we can do just as well for ourselves if not better. We don’t talk about this very often but the truth is that we humans are free to resist and reject the grace of God, and we do. Why? Because we are addicted to independence. We are addicted to doing things for ourselves so much that we even turn down invitations from God. Because to accept grace means admitting that we need help, that, we can’t do it on our own, because accepting grace means we are then responsible to others, living in community. But God made humans to live in community, life is better when lived together even though a small amount of independence must be surrendered to be a part of community. The other Pastors and I were talking about this at our weekly text study and you know what this reminded us of? All of the older folks we’ve walked alongside who have been adamant about staying in their own homes, maintaining their independence, even though it often means increasing isolation. And invariably when something happens where they can not avoid it any longer and they move into a community, and when we go and visit we hear some variation of the exclamation “this was the best move I ever made, I should have done this years ago!” Because now, even if they are still doing most things for themselves they are living in community. We gain so much more than we lose when we accept the grace of God and yet again and again we resist and if we’re confronted, like the man without a robe, we often have no good answer for why, why when we have been offered the chance to live in the kingdom of God, right now, we would turn down that invitation. Now you might be wondering, with all this talk of resisting God, is there any hope? And if it were just up to us, I’d say no. But it’s not just up to us, God, knowing that left to our own devices we would never be able to fully live into the kingdom of God, no matter how hard we tried, sent Jesus. Jesus who died on the cross to save all of us stubbornly independent humans who will only be right through our association with Jesus. At our baptisms, we are joined to Jesus and God promises that we are God’s, forever. And we know that God keeps the promises God makes. Even as we go about our lives turning down the many invitations God sends to participate in kingdom living, even if we turn our backs on God exiling ourselves from the presence of God, God still loves us, sets out a banquet offering life and forgiveness and invites us to come to the table because no matter what we do, God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Now, the banquet is ready, come and eat, there is a place for you. Amen 16th Sunday After Pentecost
Jonah 3:10-4:11 Psalm 145:1-9 Philippians 1:21-30 Matthew 20:1-6 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Amen If you are ever between books and need a story that will make you laugh I suggest you pull your Bible off the shelf and read the book of Jonah. It’s short, only five chapters and is satire of the other prophetic books. Jonah upon receiving the call of God does what most of the other prophets frankly wanted to do, he runs away. But as he finds out he can run but he can’t escape God, and after a lesson in humility learned in the stomach of a big fish he goes and gives the message from God to the Ninevehites, that in 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown. Now usually people ignore the prophets, Ezekiel and his brothers busted their buns trying to get God’s message out and nothing... and in a way Jonah is counting on this response because he really doesn’t like Nineveh, they conquered his own people, he’d actually like to see them be destroyed by God, but wouldn’t you know it, Jonah’s reluctant prophesy works, the whole city repents and God decides not to destroy them and as we heard in our first reading today this displeases Jonah and he throws a temper tantrum “He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’’” He’s so dramatic, it makes me laugh every time and the thing I find most funny is Jonah’s ability to make God’s virtues sound like a bad thing. Jonah, for all his faults knows his scripture, where God is described as gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and Jonah knows that God really is gracious and merciful slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love which is why he didn’t want to go to Nineveh, because he knew that God would be this way with the Ninevites, and Jonah didn’t want them to be on the receiving end of God’s grace. God’s grace makes Jonah angry. Well it makes him angry when it’s directed at people he doesn’t think deserve it. This happens in the parable in our gospel for today as well with the landowner who keeps hiring people throughout the day, now in a sense his continual hiring of people is an act of grace, each time he goes out into the marketplace he sees people who want to work, need to work, but for some reason have been overlooked for jobs. Think of it like picking teams on the playground, the strongest most noticeable are chosen first and the rest are left on the sidelines to watch, no matter how much they want to take part. So it is a matter of grace that these leftover people are hired to work for even part of a day, and he promises to pay them whatever is right, this of course is determined by the landowner and I’m guessing that none of those hired later expected a full days wage, and yet when it comes time to settle up for the day the landowner tells the manager of the vineyard to pay those hired last first, and to their great surprise they receive a full daily wage, more than they expected but surely much needed. And so it goes on down the line until those who were hired first are paid, and they receive, the usual daily wage. And they grumble at this, having seen those hired later get paid they expected more. It’s not fair they grumble, those others don’t deserve to be paid the same as we do, we did all the work. And the landowner reminds them that they are getting exactly what they agreed to at the beginning of the day, had the landowner never hired the others the outcome would still be the same, and the landowner asks them “are you envious because I am generous?” The short answer is ‘yes’ they are. The longer answer is that we humans tend to live our lives from the perspective of scarcity. Where whether it is true or not, we think there is only so much to go around before it runs out and so we hoard what we have and seek to acquire more and come up with all sorts of ways to judge who is worthy to use the resources, who we think should get a piece of the pie and from this we get our sense of what we think is fair and this transfers to our idea of justice where we think people should get what they deserve and what they deserve is an eye for an eye, it’s Jonah wanting God to destroy the city of Nineveh in return for what they had done to his people. But God views the world differently. God looks at the world from the perspective of abundance where resources are shared with everyone and justice looks like people getting what they need which they deserve because they are beloved creation of God and this perspective is in such contrast with the way of the world that when it is applied in the world, it upsets people, though not I should note, the people on the receiving end of the grace of God. Which makes it odd that anyone should get upset, because we are all on the receiving end of the grace of God. If we got what we deserve, according to our own understanding of justice, it would be us up on the cross rather than Jesus and yet on Good Friday, there Jesus was, for us, living and dying the truth that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and that truth continued on through to Sunday morning and the empty tomb, and when Jesus appears to his disciples, alive, he claims them, and all of us who have come after, for the perspective of God. Having been claimed by the risen Christ we are to see the world from the perspective of abundance where justice is everyone getting what they need. And not only are we to look from this perspective We are to make it a way of life We are to live lives that work to make sure That people get what they need Whether the world judges them as worthy or not And yes, this is difficult because we live in the world and sometimes the generosity of God upsets people, us included and we get angry and dramatic like Jonah and that’s when Jesus comes to us once again and gathers us at the table where all are welcome and there is enough for everybody and breaking his body, pouring out his blood, Jesus gives us not what we deserve but what we need, forgiveness, and then he sends us back out into the world to live from God’s point of view, God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Amen 13th Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 15:15-21 Psalm 26:1-8 Romans 12:9-21 Matthew 16:21-28 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who does things the divine way. Amen Perspective matters. How we look at things influences what we see. The view from the top of a mountain and the view from the bottom are very different, even though we’re looking at the same mountain. How I see the world without my glasses is certainly a lot fuzzier than when I put in my contacts and the world springs back into focus. On a sunny day I change how I see the world by putting on sunglasses and the dark lenses allow me to focus on more than just how bright it is outside. These are all physical examples of perspective but perspective also comes into play in how we understand the world and like putting on sunglasses or climbing a mountain we can influence to a certain degree how we understand and interpret the world around us. Now some things, our past experiences, our beliefs, our place in society all impact our perspective whether we are aware of it or not and the things that are most deeply ingrained are the ones we turn to in times of stress, the ones we go to without thinking about and that can get us into trouble. That’s what happens to Peter in our gospel for today Jesus tells the disciples that “he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’ But [Jesus] turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’” Peter, when faced with a threat to his teacher and Lord responds from the human perspective. The perspective that holds tightly onto life at all costs, the perspective that says pain is to be avoided, the perspective that is more concerned with ourselves and our loved ones than the whole world. And Jesus scolds him. He puts him in his place, ‘get behind me’, Jesus says, ‘I am the teacher, you are the disciple, you’re getting ahead of yourself, you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ And while it is true that Peter is human, we know that he is capable of seeing from the divine perspective. Just last week in our gospel at a retreat in Caesarea Philippi Peter proclaimed the truth about Jesus, that he is the Messiah, the Son of the living God and Jesus praised him for trusting the revelations of God. There Peter had his mind set on divine things. But it only lasts a moment, and in seemingly the next breath Peter is back to human things. Jesus puts Peter in his place and turns to the disciples and spells it out for them “If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” To be a disciple of Jesus means looking at the world from the divine perspective, a way of looking at things that at times seems to be exactly the opposite of what our instincts tell us we should do what the world had taught us makes the most sense. The worldly perspective teaches us to put our lives and those of our family ahead of anyone else, the divine perspective teaches that a life well lived is one that is lived in service to others, even if that means sacrificing our own lives. It’s what Jesus did, he lived everything he taught he lived the divine way, the way that fed people because they were hungry and healed people because they were sick and forgave people because they were sinners. His living the divine way in the world so upset those in power (those who were supposed to be living and teaching the divine things) that they got together to serve out the ultimate punishment of the world, death, the thing there’s no coming back from, but Jesus did rising on the third day, and he promises that joined to him death is not the end his followers are free to live in service of others following the divine way. But Jesus realizes that living the divine way does not come naturally, that like Peter when we hear something that frightens us our instinct will be to go back to the way of the world, that we will need to be put in our places and reminded again and again that God will take care of judgment and that we are to view the world from the divine perspective. And while this is difficult, Peter shows us that it is possible, again and again Peter jumps at the chance to follow Jesus, and again and again he falls back on the human way of doing things, and yet each time Jesus puts him in his place, reminds him of the divine way, forgives him, and gives him another chance. This is what Jesus does for us, as we seek to follow him he calls us to set our mind on divine things rather than human things and sometimes, most times it flies in the face of worldly wisdom. As Paul reminds the Romans “Let love be genuine...bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep...Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” It takes practice to live in the world with our minds set on divine things, we will mess up, and when we do, Jesus will put us in our place, remind us of the divine way and give us another chance, and the more we practice the easier it becomes to look at the world from God’s point of view but always Jesus calls us to set our mind on divine things because he knows that when we are frightened or disrupted we will see the world from the human perspective once again and once again we will need to be reminded to set our minds on divine things. Dear people, right now as individuals and as a society we are frightened and disrupted and we are falling back on the human mindset, the mindset that draws those with whom we agree closer and villainizes those who are different from us, whether the difference comes in the form of politics, nationality, the color of our skin, or even how we think we should live together. To get through this we must set our mind on divine things, before we react, pause and look at the world through the eyes of Jesus, to see how we might live in service to others even though it may mean making sacrifices in our lives so that others may live. We must overcome evil with good. And yes, we will make mistakes along the way, and Jesus will put us in our places, and then he will forgive us, offering us his broken body and blood poured out, with bread and wine join us once again to him, setting our mind on divine things then sending us out to try again. This is the divine way. Amen 12th Sunday After Pentecost
Isaiah 51:1-6 Psalm 138 Romans 12:1-8 Matthew 16:13-20 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one whose salvation is forever. Amen Have you ever had a song pop into your head and act kind of like a soundtrack for your life? Maybe you’re getting psyched up to do something and all of a sudden you hear in your head the opening chords of Eye of the Tiger, bum, bum bum bum, bum bum, bummmmmmmm. Do, do de de do do do, de de dum dum dummmmmmmm and it really seems to fit. Or perhaps those of you who associated with young children a few years ago when Frozen was at its height of popularity find yourself at times channeling your inner ice queen when faced with something out of your control and all of a sudden Elsa is in your head singing “Let it go, Let it gooo” anyone? Well for me sometimes this happens with hymns, I read a piece of scripture and all of a sudden there’s a hymn running through my head, many hymns are adaptations of scripture or reference scripture so that’s usually the connection and this is what happened when I read the gospel for this week, Jesus asks the disciples who they say he is and when Peter responds “You are the messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus praises him and says “and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church” upon reading this I heard the opening phrases of the hymn “Built on a Rock” (of course accompanied by a big pipe organ) “Built on a rock the church shall stand, even when steeples are falling” and these two phrases became the soundtrack to my week, I’ve been walking around humming and singing in my head “built on a rock the church shall stand, even when staples are falling” Now sometimes earworms just get stuck in our heads but with this the words were more persistent, and when I thought about it, it made sense to me why this hymn connected with this gospel kept following me, they both have to do with identity, and the question of who and what defines us in the midst of turmoil. Right now this is something that we are all struggling with, many of the things we have used to identify ourselves both as individuals and as communities have disappeared or changed over night, which leaves us wondering who are we now? If I can’t work who am I now? If there is no Husker football who are we as Nebraskans? Or at least what will we do on Saturdays in the fall? if we can’t gather in the same way for worship and fellowship who are we as a congregation? All these steeples, the things that have pointed to our identity have seemingly fallen and we’re left wondering who we are and where we are to turn for answers. But here’s the thing, while steeples are the most visible points of church buildings, they are a sign that even from far away proclaims ‘here is a church’ they are not the most important part of the architecture, that honor falls to the foundation the base upon which everything else is constructed and so when those things that point us toward our identity fall we must return to the foundation. Isaiah points this out in our first reading “Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you;” the prophet is speaking to those in exile who have been removed from their homeland, who are wondering how can we be the people of Israel if we are separated from Israel? the prophet exhorts them to go deeper when searching for identity, back to Abraham and Sarah who never saw the promised land but who first received the promise of God to create from them a great nation. The prophet is reminding the people that even when it seems like everything normal is gone there is a deeper identity and promise, the promise from God that “my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.” This is the foundation Jesus is building for his disciples as he sits them down in Caesarea Philippi, he knows that he will soon be heading to Jerusalem, and his death at which time all the disciples’ points of reference for their identity will crumble around them so he starts to put who he is in perspective, first he asks “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and the responses he gets are the equivalent of spires, people who point to God but who are not God, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” the people on the outside focus on the most visible parts of Jesus, but then he turns to the disciples, the ones who have gotten to know him intimately, who have heard him teach without the great crowds around and he presses them “But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, ‘you are the messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.’” Peter gives the right answer as to who Jesus is, but note that Jesus is quick to point out that Peter didn’t come up with it on his own, the truth was revealed to Peter by God the Father and the faith given to Peter by the father allowed him to speak the truth. This faith is what Jesus is going to use as the foundation of the community that gathers in his name, faith that comes as a gift from God. As Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” God gives faith, and Peter trusted God with a trust that Jesus could build on, trust that accepted the truth even when it didn’t make sense. Faith, a gift from God, is the foundation And our soundtrack hymn notes this, while it begins “built on a rock the church shall stand, even when steeples are falling;” it continues “crumbled have spires in ev’ry land, bells still are chiming and calling calling the young and old to rest, calling the souls of those distressed, longing for life everlasting.” Yes the spires that point to identity may fall but they are not everything, as Paul Westermeyer remarks in the Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship: “The church bells in stanzas 1 and 5 provide the frame and point to the center. The clue is in the bells the hymn references, both in a general and a specific sense. What church bells do generally lie behind the hymn, as, for example, in the inscription on the Danish church bell that was rung in West Denmark Lutheran Church, Luck, Wisconsin from 1937 until a fire in 1985. It tells what church bells are ‘chiming and calling’ about. To the bath and the table, To the prayers and the word, I call every seeking soul.”(Hymnal Companion 501-502) The font and table, prayer and word, these are the rock from which we were hewn, and the quarry from which we were dug, at the font God washes us, adopts us, promises that nothing will separate us from the love of God. Giving us our primary identity as child of God At the table God reminds us of that identity forgives us for our shortcoming, feeds us to strengthen us and sends us out into the world. In the word God speaks to us reminding us of the promises of God, the promise of salvation, salvation that lasts despite exile, destruction, pandemics, salvation that lasts forever. Salvation, the gift to us from Christ, The Rock on whom we stand. 1 Built on a rock the church shall stand, even when steeples are falling; crumbled have spires in ev'ry land, bells still are chiming and calling-- calling the young and old to rest, calling the souls of those distressed, longing for life everlasting. 2 Surely, in temples made with hands God the Most High is not dwelling-- high in the heav'ns his temple stands, all earthly temples excelling. Yet he who dwells in heav'n above deigns to abide with us in love, making our bodies his temple. 3 Christ builds a house of living stones: we are his own habitation; he fills our hearts, his humble thrones, granting us life and salvation. Where two or three will seek his face, he in their midst will show his grace, blessings upon them bestowing. 4 Yet in this house, an earthly frame, Jesus the children is blessing; hither we come to praise his name, faith in our Savior confessing. Jesus to us his Spirit sent, making with us his covenant, granting his children the kingdom. 5 Through all the passing years, O Lord, grant that, when church bells are ringing, many may come to hear your Word, who here this promise is bringing: "I know my own, my own know me; you, not the world, my face shall see; my peace I leave with you. Amen." 10th Sunday After Pentecost
1 Kings 19:9-18 Psalm 85:8-13 Romans 10:5-15 Matthew 14:22-33 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who comes to us in the midst of storms. Amen Today we have the story of the miracle of Jesus walking on water, and after spending time with this story this week I actually think that part is the least interesting thing about it, the walking on water was a means to an end, rather what I’ve found exciting is that in this short story is found the whole of a life of faith. Now this story isn’t an isolated event and much meaning comes from what happens in the life of Jesus and the disciples before we get to this point. Jesus is baptized by John starts his public ministry and gains wide acclaim as a teacher and healer, but then he goes home to Nazareth the folks in his home town reject him and he is unable to do many deeds of power among them, right after this rejection he hears of the death of John the Baptist, beheaded in prison, and he needs some time alone to grieve and pray, so he gets in a boat and sets sail across the sea intending to go out to the wilderness alone. But the people get wind of what he is up to and they go by land so that by the time Jesus reaches the other shore he is met with a great crowd who need healing and guidance, and he has compassion for them and so works among them, at the end of the day the disciples point out that the crowds need something to eat and with five loaves of bread and two fish the vast crowds eat until they are full. And that’s where our story today picks up, Jesus still needs that time alone with God and so we are told that “Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.” Our English translation sounds like Jesus strongly suggested the disciples get into the boat but the Greek paints a stronger picture, what we hear as “made” can also be translated as “compel or necessitate, drive by force or threats”. Jesus makes the disciples get into the boat in the same way a parent makes a reluctant toddler go to bed and once he’s gotten them into the boat and on their way he dismisses the crowds and finally has time to pray. Now while Jesus is off praying the disciples are in the boat out on the water, and a storm has come up, the boat is being tossed about by the waves and the wind is driving them farther and farther from Jesus to a point far from the land, so far that the separation now seems permanent. The disciples are afraid. And that’s when Jesus comes to them, defying all logic and the laws of nature to be with them in the midst of the storm, but when they see him they are terrified, they think he’s a ghost, they cry out in fear “But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’” Jesus speaks peace into the midst of their terror and he uses the name of God, or at least the name God gave Moses all the way back at the burning bush. Remember God appears to Moses in a bush that is burning but not consumed by the fire, and God tells Moses to go free the Israelites from Egypt on God’s behalf and Moses reluctantly agrees but says, who shall I say sent me and God replies “tell them I Am sent you”. So anytime we hear Jesus say I Am, he is revealing his divinity, his intimacy with God. This is what Jesus says to the terrified disciples in the midst of the storm, and these words produce great faith. Peter hears these words and he says “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Now here again is a nuance of translation, we hear the ‘if’ as Peter testing Jesus but the sense of it is more ‘because’, Jesus’ word of revelation moves Peter to great faith and so he cries out “Lord, because it is you, command me to come to you on the water” Because you are Lord I believe that I can do the impossible. And Jesus says “come” and Peter gets out of the boat and he walks on the water to Jesus, That is until he loses focus, he takes his eyes off Jesus and he notices the wind and the waves and he realizes that he can’t walk on water and he becomes frightened and begins to sink and cries out “Lord, save me!” “Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him.” and together they climb back into the boat and at this point the storm stops, and in the calm after the storm the disciples worship Jesus saying ‘truly you are the Son of God.’ The disciples’ experience is the life of faith in a nutshell. Jesus has called them and they have followed him, seen him do great things, even worked with him to do some great things and then just when they’ve seen an amazing sight, Jesus puts them in a boat and sends them away. So there they are, in a boat that they don’t want to be in, and circumstances out of their control are driving them away from the one they want to be with to a point where the gap seems to great to bridge, feeling alone, maybe a little abandoned, and probably more than a little bit scared. And when Jesus comes to them in a seemingly impossible manner they are terrified and don’t recognize him, until he identifies himself and offers peace, And then their faith is stronger than before, so strong as to be able to do the impossible, and they want to do the impossible so they try and they’re doing it! Until they look around and notice all the reasons they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing and they get scared and start to sink, and they cry out to Jesus ‘save me’ and Jesus reaches out, catches them, brings them to safety and as the storm is calmed and the disciples’ faith is strengthened once again with the realization of the greatness of the one in their midst. We’ve all had times like this, where we’re following Jesus who has called us, and things seems to be going really well, and then all of a sudden, it seems like Jesus is sending us away, Jesus is putting us in a place we don’t really want to be, sending us somewhere we don’t really want to go amid circumstances that seem to separate us from God. Maybe it has been a time of learning and growth that challenges us, or maybe it has been a time of sickness of body or relationship, now to be clear I don’t think Jesus ever causes illness but it is are certainly a time where we are in the midst of something we don’t want to be a part of and circumstances seem to drive us far away from God. So there we are out in our boat And just as we’ve been battered about by the waves and think that we have been permanently separated from God, Jesus comes to us, often we don’t recognize him at first and we are afraid, but then Jesus reveals himself speaking peace into our fear and our faith surges and even though the storm is still raging we get out of the boat to go toward Jesus. Have you ever seen someone going through a difficult time and wondered just how they are able to handle it with grace and strength? I’d say they are at this point in their life of faith, where Jesus has spoken peace to them giving them the strength to get out of the boat. Maybe you’ve experienced this yourself, the peace of Christ to move forward through a seemingly impossible situation and others around you are telling you ‘I don’t know how you do it’ but you are able to with the call of Jesus. And then of course there are those times in our life of faith where we look around at all that is going on and we begin to sink, where our faith is overwhelmed by the pain and chaos of the world around us and yet, when we cry out to Jesus, he reaches out to catch us and brings us to a place of calm. The life of faith is a journey, there are times that we experience great joy, and times when we are terrified and feel separate from God, and no matter how terrified, or far away we feel, even when we lose focus, Jesus comes to us, Jesus catches us, reveals himself to us and brings us to a place of peace. So wherever you are on your journey of faith, take heart, and may the peace of Christ be with you. Amen 9th Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 55:1-5 Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21 Romans 9:1-5 Matthew 14:13-21 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who does the most with next to nothing. Amen When we join Jesus today in the gospel he is going through a rough patch in his ministry. It all started out well, preaching, teaching and healing the crowds who have loved him, until he goes home to Nazareth, where the people look at him and say ‘isn’t that Joseph and Mary’s boy? The one we used to see running around with all the other kids? We know he’s not special’ and they won’t listen to him, and he is unable to do many deeds of power among them because of their disbelief. He expected this would happen, prophets being without honor in their own country and all, but it still had to hurt and then on top of this rejection he hears the news of the death of John the Baptist, beheaded in prison by Herod and it’s too much he needs some time alone to grieve and pray So “he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.” It seems like Jesus only gets the time in the boat to himself because we are told that “when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd” and though we know that Jesus is tired and sad and needing time to pray when he saw the crowds that greeted him “he had compassion for them and cured their sick.” Now ‘compassion’ is a weak translation of the greek. What Jesus feels is a visceral, gut wrenching reaction to the crowds, he feels their pain and need in his body and he responds to their need with the care they seek. It’s a big crowd so he’s busy all day. His disciples have caught up with him and they’re helping as they usually do but when it gets to be evening they’re getting tired and are ready to be done they say to Jesus ‘look we’re in the middle of nowhere and it’s getting late, send the people away, they uh, they need to eat, yah maybe if we put our request out of care for the crowd we can get a break.’ But Jesus responds “They need not go away; you give them something to eat. They replied, ‘we have nothing here, but five loaves and two fish; and he said bring them here to me” and Jesus blesses and breaks the bread and gives it to the disciples to distribute “and all ate and were filled; and they took up what was leftover of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.” Jesus takes the scraps, what the disciples call ‘nothing’ and turns it into an abundant feast. When Jesus tells the disciples to give the crowds something to eat, their immediate reaction is to say ‘we have nothing.’ We tend to exaggerate when it comes to counting our resources, we often discount or pass over the last little bits, the five loaves and two fish, because we see them as not enough, ‘it might as well be nothing for all the good it will do’ we are programmed to think and so we don’t immediately count it, but when we pause and take stock, and it turns out we do have at least a little bit, Jesus says, ‘bring them here to me’ and Jesus blesses our leftovers, then gives them back to us to distribute, to work with. Did you notice that? The disciples point out the problem of the crowds of people needing food and Jesus turns it right back around to the disciples, they are capable of fixing the problem that they’ve noticed he seems to say. This seems impossible to the disciples, but when they bring what they have to Jesus, he makes it possible for the disciples to feed the whole crowd. This is how Jesus works, Jesus takes what we call ‘nothing’, our leftovers that we forget about or discount, creates new life and then hands it back to us to distribute in the world, and he does it with more than just loaves and fish, we see this throughout Jesus’ ministry. He comes as a baby to a people that pretty much count for nothing in the grand scheme of the Roman Empire, he grows up in a little town where people ask if anything good can come from there and when he starts his ministry he goes out to the desert where people are so desperate for hope that they have gathered around a man dressed in camel’s hair who dines on locusts and wild honey. After he is baptized he takes the leftover people, those whom society counts as nothing and turns them into disciples, blesses them and sends them back out into the world to share the good news with even more people. He teaches them how to live so that they bear good fruit, and when people bring Jesus those who are sick and therefore at that time counted as unclean, Jesus heals them, he even heals based on the request of friends who come to Jesus and say, I trust that if you just say the word my friend will be healed and based on this belief Jesus heals. The leftovers, the next to nothings, the small things are Jesus’ favorite things to work with, last week we heard Jesus’ teaching about faith the size of a mustard seed and how the kingdom of heaven is like yeast, just a little bit will make a whole lot of bread. Jesus works with the smallest of things The things that are overlooked or discounted as not enough in his hands they change the world. This applies to us as well, when we’re on our last nerve, or our patience is wearing thin, or the world has told us we’re lacking in some way, if we don’t think we can go on because we are weary, if we have come to believe that we have nothing to give. Jesus still finds something to work with in us. As a world, as a country, we are going through a rough patch right now, a time when it seems like there is not enough all around us, whether it is medical equipment, support for families or even normalcy and it is frustrating and disheartening and Jesus is with us. Jesus hears us when we cry to him. When we pour out our pain and suffering Jesus hears us and has compassion for us, and then takes what little we have left and uses it to change the world, even if it is just our small piece of the world, and the kingdom of God comes near. Jesus will gladly take the scraps we bring to him and turn them into new life, that’s what he does but we shouldn’t be surprised when Jesus turns it back around on us saying “you give them something to eat” because in Christ, we are more than enough. And Jesus will take us And turn us into abundant life. Amen 8th Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 3:5-12 Psalm 119:129-136 Romans 8:26-39 Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who intercedes for us. Amen “Have you understood all this?” Jesus asks the disciples “Yes” They answer Really disciples? Do you really understand? You understand how the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, and yeast, like a treasure hidden in a field and a merchant in search of fine pearls, like a net cast into the sea that caught all kinds of fish that were then sorted. “Have you understood all this?” “Yes” Some how I doubt it, at text study this week the other pastors and I got a kick out of this yes, it reminded us of the “yes” we get at the end of a particularly confusing confirmation class where the kids are tired and just want to go home. So you understand the mystery of the sacraments? Yes Pastor. Or maybe it’s like one of those user agreements, where all this fine print legalese is presented and at the end it asks you to sign that you have read and understood the document, and you sign your name “yes” because otherwise you don’t get to use whatever service is on offer, yes I get it, just let me use your app. But then there are other times, the more serious times, like the time at the doctor’s office where you haven’t heard a word the doctor has said after “diagnosis” because your heart has dropped and your tongue gone numb “do you understand all of this?” they ask, and you nod your head “yes” There are a lot of things we agree to, to move life forward, that we simply do not understand. And of course a good confirmation teacher knows the mystery of the sacraments will never be taught in one session, or even understood in a lifetime, and a compassionate doctor knows that their patient didn’t hear anything after diagnosis and so will provide literature and other sessions for explanation. The user agreements, that one I think we’re just stuck with, but the point being that it seems like our automatic response to the question ‘do you understand?’ is ‘yes’ and it takes conscious effort and humility to answer ‘no’ to admit that we lack understanding, or that we’re in over our heads, but when we do, life opens up. We saw this with Solomon in our first reading. God comes to Solomon in a dream and offers him, anything, and Solomon who has just been made King after his father David, realizes that this offer is being made because David and God had such a good relationship, and that he’s only King because of that relationship and the goodness of God. So Solomon responds “O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen...Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern your people?” He’s already got the job, but he is brave enough to admit just how little he knows and so when he is offered literally anything by God, he asks for wisdom to better serve God in leading the people of God. And God is pleased by this selflessness, God realizes that Solomon could have easily asked for a long life or riches or victory in battle but instead he asks for wisdom to better serve God, so God gives him a wise and discerning mind. It struck me that this passage, where Solomon admits how little he knows and asks for understanding to be able to discern between good and evil, has been, I think is the prayer of anyone in leadership faced with making decisions these days. I know it’s been my prayer, and I suspect the prayer of those on school boards, superintendents and principles, elected officials and coaches. O God, give us understanding to discern good from evil, we need some help as we make our way through this unknown territory. the Israelites were in an unknown territory, both literally in their wandering and in their freedom after God led them out of Egypt. They didn’t know where they were and they didn’t understand how to live in freedom. So God provided for them, manna and quail for food, and the commandments to give them understanding for how to discern good from evil as free people. God gave the commandments as a gift for times when the unknown is greater than the known, which is why the psalmist cries out “your decrees are wonderful; therefore I obey them with all my heart… Let your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes.” and praises God for the understanding the laws of God bring and weeps for the people who do not follow God’s laws. The difficult part is that the laws of God do not address every specific problem we may face, the Bible is not a How To Manuel, or even a Self- Help Book, rather it is full of stories of people and God, stories of God guiding people and how people respond to that guidance, some like Abraham follow God, and others like Jonah run the other direction. But no matter what the people do, God is there, God doesn’t give up. At our most basic level, I think we all want to follow God, we want to understand, we look for guidance, ways to discern good from evil, we even pretend we understand, the old fake it ‘til you make it approach, and yet in our hearts we know that we don’t understand, we don’t even know how to pray. But thanks be to God who gives us the gift of the Spirit who intercedes with sighs too deep for words. The gift of the spirit who searches our heart, who knows us better than we know ourselves and brings it all to God. And thanks be to God, for the gift of the Son, Jesus who summed up all the law Love your God with all your heart and mind and might, and your neighbor as yourself, Jesus who God gave up for all of us, who God made the firstborn within a large family, so that joined to Christ we are all members of that large family and now Christ the firstborn sits at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. God has claimed us. We are God’s. Even in the midst of the uncertainty and chaos of the world, even when we don’t understand and struggle to discern good from evil, even when we don’t know how to pray, even when we are unsure how God is working or if God is even there. We are God’s. we don’t have to understand how this works for it to be true, nor do we have to do anything. God doesn’t need us, God has acted. And God has given us signs to remind us Water to remember our baptisms by Bread and wind, body and blood To be forgiven, nourished and strengthened Joined again to God. And so cleansed, fed and forgiven we proclaim with Paul “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is with this conviction we are able to move forward through the wilderness times and when God comes to us and says, ‘you are my children, have you understood?’ We answer with a resounding. ‘Yes.’ Amen 7th Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 44:6-8 Psalm 86:11-17 Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who tells us to wait in hope. Amen It’s hard to wait when we know what is possible. That’s the reality of our lives right now and that is the reality that our lessons address today along with the promise that the waiting is worthwhile, necessary even. Jesus starts us off with a parable, a farmer who has prepared their fields for planting sows good seed. From the preparations they have made they have every expectation that when the seeds sprout it will be a field full of the best wheat. But we are told, an enemy comes in the night and scatters weeds in the field. When the plants come up the workers realize that there are weeds among the wheat, they are confused, they say “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then did these weeds come from?” and the Master, the farmer, responds, it must have been an enemy who did this, and at this the workers are galvanized for action, they are ready to go out into the field and get those weeds out of there, defeat the enemy and return the field to the way it was intended full of only good wheat. But the Farmer stops them saying “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” It goes against our instincts to leave the weeds in with the wheat. When we see something whether it is a field, a garden, or even a community that is not growing as we know it could be, or even as we think it should be, our first instinct is to go in and root out what is not supposed to be there but the hazard of that is there is often collateral damage, in our quest to get rid of the weeds we also rip up some of the wheat, we cause harm to members of our community. Weeding disturbs more than just the weeds. I know in my own garden I’ve pulled up many a little carrot or beet that has just barely begun to form in the process of my weeding, and I’ve even accidentally stepped on other plants in my quest to rip out that hunk of crabgrass. These accidents are not ideal but I prepared for them, I planted more than enough seeds, knowing that some would not grow and some would be pulled with the weeds, I’m willing to take that risk with my garden. Jesus is not willing to take that risk in his garden. Jesus’ grace means that he’d rather let the weeds grow with the wheat than to risk hurting any of the wheat in the process. Jesus is willing to settle for less than perfection to protect the wheat. But just because he’s willing to let the weeds grow for the sake of the wheat doesn’t mean that in the end the weeds will be treated the same as the wheat. When it’s time for the harvest, the whole point of growing the field in the first place, the weeds will be separated out from the wheat and while the wheat will become food for the world, the weeds will be burned but until that time he tells us to wait. Waiting is hard, especially when we know what could be and especially if we think we know a way that we could act, but Jesus has cautioned us to wait and promised that at the right time, God’s time, it will end as it should. But it’s still frustrating. That frustration is what Paul is speaking to when he writes: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” As children of God we know what God has promised, the vision for the future which means that we are even more aware of how this world falls short of that promise and in a way that adds to our frustration, our suffering, it’s almost enough to ask why God would even make us aware of the difference. Why? Because we come to this awareness through the gift of grace, God’s love for us that is already transforming our lives. You see each of us are like the field in the parable, while God created us good, the evil one has sown weeds in us, weeds that tell us that it is okay to only care about ourselves, weeds that turn us away from God and in on ourselves, weeds that tell us the lie that we are supposed to be the judge of others. All these weeds are in us along with the wheat, the gifts of the spirit, and God refuses to reject us because of our weeds. This is grace, that even though we are less than perfect, less than we could be and even less than we should be, God loves us. and that love gives us hope. As Paul says “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Grace leads to hope, hope leads to patience. Now remember hope is not optimism, where optimism says I think things will just turn out okay, hope looks at the reality of the world, the despair and seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and says, nevertheless I believe that God will bring new life. We have hope because we have Jesus, who faced the most insurmountable obstacle, death, and three days later appeared to the disciples, proclaiming that death had been defeated. And joined to Christ in our baptisms’ we have been joined to his death and resurrection, assured that in the end where Christ is, there we will be, that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even the weeds within and around us and when we have this, this grace, this new life that we get glimpses of along the way, we can wait. As Paul says “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” We are well aware of the imperfections of the world, all the things that could be and should be, and Jesus has promised that in the end there will be new life, even if, especially if, it is nothing like we imagine and so we have hope, and in hope we wait. Amen 5th Sunday After Pentecost
Zecheriah 9:9-12 Psalm 145:8-14 Romans 7:15-25a Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who offers to teach us another way Amen. Life is full of contradictions, some are as simple as the fact that chocolate cake tastes better than broccoli, but it is far healthier for us to eat broccoli than it is to eat chocolate cake. Other contradictions are more sinister like the fact that those who gain positions of power In order to work on behalf of many people often use that power to work only for themselves. whatever the example it seems that as humans, even if we are aware of the conflict and which is the better part, we almost always seem to choose to do more of the thing that is less beneficial to ourselves and even when we try to regulate our actions with outside rules and laws, we invariably seem to return to that chocolate cake even though we know we need to eat the broccoli. This is what Paul is struggling with in our second reading remarking that even though he logically knows what he should do, and he wants to do it when it comes time to do it, he invariably does the opposite, he says “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not what is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” Here he names the greatest contradiction we experience, that even as we have free will to act, there is another force working against us, sin, that embeds itself in the fabric of life so even as we try to do what is right, we are led astray. The buzz word for this right now is “systemic” we talk about systemic racism, where racism is so embedded in how we live that as individuals we are unable to extract ourselves because the everyday options available to us within the established way of life have sin woven into the fabric such that it is impossible to separate out the individual threads. Jesus, teaching the disciples points out another contradiction with humans, the inability to make everyone happy, he observes that when John the Baptist came fasting as part of his religious experience people claimed he had a demon and when Jesus himself came eating and drinking and interacting with normal everyday people the people say ‘look a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ These are the two main options for a messianic figure and yet people have rejected them both. Lately, the best example of this has to do with face masks, on the one hand there are people who refuse to go anywhere they are not required, on the other hand there are people who refuse to go anywhere they are required. Confronted with the contradictions within ourselves and humanity, it’s enough to drive us mad, so what are we to do? Paul himself throws up his hands and cries “Wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death?” and there is the key, to acknowledge that we need help, and Paul immediately follows with “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” Jesus is God’s answer to the contradictions of life. Jesus himself is a living contradiction, God and human, who lived among and experienced first hand the contradictions of humanity the reality that it’s impossible to please everyone. Observing the contradictions in the gospel he concludes ‘yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds’ he knows that time will tell who was wise and made the better choice and which was the wrong decision and then he offers to help in making those choices “He says all things have been handed over to me by my father” Jesus has the inside scoop and he offers to share that with everyone, but unlike those get rich quick scheme infomercials Jesus offers this for free: He says “come to me all, you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon, you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” What Jesus is offering is not a quick fix scheme, a magic wand that with a flick of the wrist makes all trouble disappear, what he offers is an invitation to self-reflection and the pursuit of wisdom, he offers to teach us another way to deal with the contradictions of life. The yoke, was a common image in rabbinic literature that referred to obeying the Torah (working preacher), the law that God gave as a gift to help humans live with one another. Jesus is a teacher of the law, and he has said that he’s not come to abolish the law, but he has seen how the pharisees and sadducees have taken to following the law for the sake of following the rules and not for the original intent of the gift of the law, for abundant life of the people. Following the letter of the law has gotten in the way with the spirit of the law and so Jesus offers another way, one that is lighter, that can be summed up as “love the lord your God with all your heart and soul and might, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus offers a gentler way, and even then he sees how impossible it is for humans to do the right thing, which is why Jesus goes to the cross for us, to make us right with God, to offer us forgiveness for when despite our best efforts we mess up, when we continually choose the chocolate cake instead of the broccoli. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Paul has named it, we can’t dig ourselves out of the hole we’ve created, we need help, and Jesus is that help. Now that doesn’t mean that we should keep intentionally digging holes for Jesus to get us out of, but when we invariably do Jesus is gentle with us, and again and again helps us out of the pit and shows us another way, one where burdens are shared and wisdom is revealed. This doesn’t mean that life will be easy or without contradictions, Jesus did after all instruct his disciples to take up the cross and follow him, but what it does mean is that we have a way to navigate the contradictions of life, One where we share one another’s burdens, where we strive to live lives turned toward God and neighbor, where we know that because we live in Christ we are not condemned by our failures no matter how deeply entwined they are. We have been set free, free to live the lighter path of gentleness and humility, of wisdom that carries on through the midst of the contradictions of life. Amen |
AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
March 2022
Categories
All
|