The Truth "versus" Love Project

Sermon Title: “Fight the Good Fight!”

2010-08-19T04:19:00.000-07:00

Matthew Staneck
M.Div. Student, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis
First Place, August 2010 Round

Text: 1 Timothy 6:6-19

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, powerful blessings of the Holy Spirit be with you all! Amen.

Dear Christian friends, where are we as the church, the people of God, with respect to being both orthodox and socially minded? This is a great question for our time. Many of you today know the struggle of our current economy. It’s a challenge to get food on the table every night, it’s a challenge to keep or get a job that can provide that food on the table every night, it’s a burden and a struggle to make sure your family has basic necessities, never mind the nice flat screen TV, the flashy sports car, or any other extra amenities America has made herself proud on. How are we in the church supposed to react to material riches?

In today’s epistle lesson we see St. Paul writing to this young pastor, Timothy. Throughout this letter Paul encourages Timothy to keep the faith passed down to him and to guard the truth and to pass on this faith and guard the truths from all evil, spiritual and physical. It is critical to keep this context in mind. In the verses preceding our text for today, St. Paul re-iterates the need to protect sound doctrine and to listen to the words of Christ himself, and no other man. One who disrupts this harmony in the truth is “puffed up and conceited,” a man out for himself. With this St. Paul goes into a couple of points on living well within ones own means: “For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these things we will be content.” (Pause)

All over our television sets we see the images and hear the words of prosperity. We hear that we, the consumer, are #1 and that what we say goes. The American experiment puts the individual as the center, promotes his or her own well being first, and that of the community second. For the American it is all about individual rights, most of the time without responsibilities, which dictate how we establish laws and what we feel justice really is. “I am #1, I have created all that I have, it is mine, mine, all mine.” The problem with this view, from a Christian standpoint, is that it violates another #1, namely the First Commandment. “You shall have no other gods before me,” scripture states, yet all around us all we have are other gods. These gods take the form of sports and movie stars, flashy cars, cell phones, music players, houses, food, what the perfect body looks like, etc., etc. And of course other gods takes the form of the self, when we insiston what we’ve earned, what we’ve created, and do not think of the larger community, especially in dealing with the church.

So St. Paul warns us not to be blazing our own trails and becoming puffed up and conceited. Because certainly when we take American individualism to the extent it naturally runs to we are talking about a grave theological issue. And in verse 10 St. Paul directs us to the love of money as being the root of all kinds of evils. And who can argue with that bit of advice today? The love of money is why we always have had the poor and always will have the poor. The love of money is why our economy is in the dire straights it is today, the love of money is why we have oil destroying the livelihood of an entire region and fishing industry. The love of money is what makes athletes turn themselves in Greek gods and goddesses by using performance-enhancing drugs. It’s all about getting the big contract and the bottom line. The love of money is how even people going about an otherwise normal, mundane life; size themselves up to others they see. We even wind up sizing ourselves up to friends and family, our very loved ones, and yes even those in the church. What is she wearing? Why does he have that phone? MY MP3 player is better than that. Oh yes, the love of money is certainly the root of all kinds of evil. (Pause)

And please notice it isn’t that having money and material means aren’t sins in and of themselves. For certainly God provides things for his creation, including technological advancements. It is the investment in those things that lift the self as a mini god, or god, period, that create the sin. Our violation of the 1st Commandment does not preclude us from enjoying things that are provided in a First Article of the Creed manner. It is our sinning against the 1st Commandment that damages, and effectively destroys, our relationship with God the Father. Yet the beautiful thing is, despite our sin, God still provides. You are all clothed, you all will eat today, the Lord provides. With these things we will be content. But God doesn’t stop there allowing us to get by in the daily struggle of life, no, God provides so much more above and beyond even these things with which we are to be content (Read vv. 11-19, with Bible raised to provide powerful visual).

As for you, O man, O woman, of God, flee the things of puffing up the self and give God the glory. Take hold of your calling to eternal life which provides restoration for the things of God’s creation. Work for justice and peace because you are a baptized believer. In the waters of baptism God made a claim on you and marked you with the cross of Christ. By being connected to Christ’s death and resurrection you cannot just sit back and watch the world go by. And God has provided even beyond that. Nourished as we are in body and soul by Christ’s true body and blood in the bread and the wine we receive here today, and every Lord’s day, we go forth from this table and out in the world that is full of hurt and hopelessness in all people and offer it healing and the Gospel of Hope for all people. Keep the commandment, the 1st Commandment, and give back to God the gifts and talents he has first given you. While living in America and legitimately making a living do not get caught up the American individualism which leaves people in its wake and considers community to be as large as one person.

Being orthodox, that is having the beliefs consistent with the one true church, and being socially minded are not mutually exclusive things. That is, they do not butt heads or cause consternation for each other. Being an orthodox Christian, an orthodox Lutheran, means you will venture out to provide help where it is needed. It means that instead of quibbling over the question, “Who is my neighbor,” for the purposes self justification and moralism we plainly see a human being in need and take action as that persons neighbor. My neighbor is whomever God has placed in front of me, and I am a neighbor to all. To be certain, we are limited, especially in our sinful state, so we cannot possibly save the world or be everything and anything for everyone, try as we might. But the idea of living within means and being content tells us that in our vocation we go about providing services to our neighbor as the need arises. We need not be saviors of the world, for we already have One of those. Nor do we need to be a rock star, movie star, or star athlete in order to affect change. Rather, we live as Christians, within our means, and in the vocation God has placed us, and act out of love for the Gospel which gives restoration. When we understand the greater sense of community, the Christian life is a joyous burden and not a burden that breaks our backs.

The Christian Church, the community the Holy Spirit has called and gathered us into, is where our worth is found. And where there is hurt in the world, the church is found to provide that helping hand. But even as God provides so much more for us than that which we are to be content with, namely food and clothing, so we are compelled to share the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen to all those we come across, offering them the same hope of restoration that we have that this beautiful mess of a creation is not all there will ever be. That on the last day, as Christ burst forth from the grave on that first Easter Sunday, so we too, and all of creation, will burst forth from the grave and live eternally in community with one another and our gracious God. All praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon Title: When Jesus Comes

2009-05-01T04:38:00.000-07:00

Benjamin A. Loven
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
First Place tie, May 2009 Round

Isaiah 1.1-20; Psalm 145; 2 Thessalonians 2.1-17; Luke 19.1-10

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Amen.

In our reading for today the Prophet Isaiah gives many warnings to the people of Israel, telling them to turn from their evil ways and instead to seek justice for all, especially for those who cannot help themselves. If the people refuse, they will be destroyed.

Why, then, wouldn’t the people want to do what Isaiah tells them to do? Do they like being “devoured by the sword?” Do they like being a “besieged city?”

Don’t you think they would want to “wash themselves; makes themselves clean; remove their evil deeds from before God’s eyes?” as Isaiah directs them to. Wouldn’t they want to avoid having their cities burned with fire and their country laid desolate?

If we were faced with these warnings wouldn’t we want to “cease doing evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow?”

So why don’t we?

When the World Trade Center was destroyed the entire country was united under the cause of fighting terrorism. We initially pursued this task in a just manner, following our own laws and international conventions. However, we quickly lost our way. Anything, no matter how heinous or immoral could be legalized if it could be justified as necessary for fighting the ‘War on Terror.’ Warrant-less searches and wiretaps; ‘enhanced’ interrogation methods; indefinite imprisonment without trials of any kind.

And we as a country were not outraged. There was no mass outcry as there had been in generations past.

Why didn’t we cry out for justice? Why didn’t we, as Isaiah says, “learn to do good?”

Why didn’t we, as the Prophet cries, “rescue those who were oppressed,” those who were withering away in prisons without any hope of ever facing their accusers?

Why do we insist on rebelling against God’s laws and commands, seeking our own destruction, welcoming the sword that comes to devour us, the fire that comes to burn our cities and make our lands desolate?

St. Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians writes about the lawless one. The lawless one exalts him/herself over all other things, seeking to be God.

Brothers and Sisters, we are the lawless ones. We seek to set ourselves up as God in place of the one true God. We do not do what God’s law demands: we do not seek justice, we do not rescue the oppressed, and we do not defend the widows and orphans. We do not cry out on behalf of those who are imprisoned indefinitely without their legal right to a trial, we do not cry out on behalf of those who are being interrogated with illegal and immoral methods, and we do not cry out on behalf of those whose privacy is being illegally violated.

Whether these people have committed acts of terrorism or not, we have not acted in just ways. We have not justly dealt with these captives, who are innocent until proven guilty under the law. We have not justly investigated and interrogated these and other prisoners.

God’s law shows us all of this and it accuses us and tells us how we have failed to live justly and morally.

St. Paul writes about the “lawless one;” some Greek texts call this person the “sinful one.” The law shows us that we are indeed lawless and full of sin.

Our Gospel reading from Luke today tells us the story of another great and lawless sinner: Zacchaeus the tax collector.

Tax collectors were worse than regular sinners: they were traitors. Tax collectors worked for the domineering Roman Empire. Zacchaeus, like us, did not cry out on behalf of the oppressed; he took part in this oppression. Tax collectors made their money by cheating those they collected taxes from. The Romans had a certain amount of money that they collected but the tax collectors could, essentially, demand whatever amount they wanted and the people had to pay it. I know that the IRS has a bad reputation but at least it cannot collect taxes like Zacchaeus and those like him!

You can understand why the people were grumbling in verse 7 about Jesus going to stay at Zacchaeus’ house. Why should Jesus, a great Prophet, go to stay with Zacchaeus, a horrible tax collector, a traitor against his own people? That would be like Jesus staying at the penthouse suite of Bernie Madoff, or at the mansion of the CEO of AIG or Citigroup, or any of the host of other white-collar crooks who were greedy and did not care about what they were doing to their companies, the country, and the world.

So Jesus goes to the sleazy CEO’s house; he goes to stay with Zacchaeus. But something amazing happens when Jesus arrives there.

“Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’” Zacchaeus is a tax collector and the way that he makes his money is by cheating people; all of his possessions have been acquired through cheating and defrauding people. He is going to give half to the poor and then pay back everyone he has defrauded (which we have found out is everyone that he collected taxes from) four times as much as he took!

Where will he get all of this money? Where will all of this wealth come from? These are both pressing questions but there is one question that trumps those two: why? Why will Zacchaeus do this? What has changed in him? He used to be the lowest of the low, the sleaziest of the sleazy, the Bernie Madoff of Bernie Madoffs. Why is he now so generous and so concerned with those whom he has cheated?

Jesus was probably asked this question too. “Lord, why did Zacchaeus change so dramatically?” Jesus gives us a great one-liner: “Today salvation has come to this house.” Why the drastic change of heart? Salvation has come to Zacchaeus.

When Jesus comes to even the biggest, sleaziest, nastiest sinner, salvation comes with him. When Jesus arrives at your doorstep, salvation comes in and changes you. This is the Kingdom of God breaking into our old world and making all things new. This is what it means when Jesus proclaims at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (1.15) This is the Kingdom breaking into our world and making us into new creations.

Let us be clear about this: Zacchaeus is not saved because of his good actions on behalf of the poor; Zacchaeus is saved because Jesus came to him. Zacchaeus’ change of heart came because Jesus chose him as Jesus says at the end of our reading in Luke: “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” Jesus sought out Zacchaeus, a lost sinner, and he saved him in spite of the evil that he had done.

In spite of the evil actions that we have done, in spite of our silence on the matters of illegal searches and interrogation tactics, in spite of our silence on the issue of unlawful imprisonments, Jesus comes to our homes and saves us. We, who once were lost, are now found by Christ and he brings us salvation through his death on the cross and resurrection three days later.

He went to the cross for us and because of us, to take captivity captive, to become sin to sin, to be sleazy to sleaze, greedy to greed, and to put death to death. In his resurrection he brings to each and every one of you, to every human being on earth, eternal life, salvation and forgiveness.

No matter what sins we have committed, no matter whom we have oppressed, whom we have ignored, whom we have allowed to suffer because of our silence, Jesus Christ forgives us and saves us through his death. He frees us from being bound by the power of our sins, frees us from being bound toward our own destruction at the hands of a devouring sword.

And it is out of this freedom that Zacchaeus acts. His good actions are the first fruits of the salvation that Christ brought to him. His generosity is not his own work but it is God’s salvation working in and through him.

This is our future as well. Christ has surely come and brought each and every one of us God’s salvation and it will work in and through us. You will no longer be able to sit complacently as injustice rages around you. God will work in and through you to speak out of behalf of those who have no voice, to rescue those who are oppressed, even if they happen to be your enemies: these are the fruits of your salvation and the Kingdom of God.

What is our response to this? With the Psalmist of Psalm 145 we will shout: “The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed; and I will declare your greatness. They shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness, and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.” We will praise God because of the salvation that he has given us. We will praise God because of the wondrous things that he will do through us on behalf of the poor and oppressed.

When Jesus comes to our home, as he came to Zacchaeus’ home, he brings salvation and he brings God’s Kingdom. In God’s Kingdom we are new creations, poured out on behalf of our neighbors. In this Kingdom we will seek justice, rescue the oppressed, and defend the widows and orphans. We will cry out on behalf of those who are imprisoned indefinitely without their legal right to a trial, on behalf of those who are being interrogated with illegal and immoral methods, and on behalf of those whose privacy is being illegally violated.

We will do these things not because of our own volition but because God has saved us and created us anew. It is God working in and through us that we do these things and we will give thanks to God because of this. “[We] will extol you, [our] God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day [we] will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised!” (Ps. 145.1-3)

Hear the gospel of your salvation: Jesus Christ lived, suffered, and was crucified for the forgiveness of sins, yours and mine. On the third day he was raised from the dead for the salvation of the world. You have this forgiveness and salvation not because of any good works that you have done to deserve it, but you have them in spite of the sins that you commit. God promises this to you: that he has come to seek you out, you who are lost and have fallen short of the glory of God. God does this through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon Title: “Selective Hearing”

2009-05-01T04:31:00.000-07:00

Justin Mootz
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
First Place tie, May 2009 Round

The other day, I went over to visit my good friend. While I was at his house, I had a chance to watch him interact with his two young daughters. One of them is two and the other is three. For the sake of confidentiality, we’ll refer to them from here on out as #2 and #3, with their number referring to their age. As we observed both children at play, their dad began to tell me about their personalities. He mentioned that #2 had particularly selective hearing. Just a few seconds after telling me this, I was able to witness an example firsthand. The dad called to #2 and told her not to follow her sister up the stairs. She stopped in her tracks, but didn’t turn her head. It was obvious that she heard him, but didn’t quite want to let him know. Instead of running up the stairs, she changed her pace to a slow gait. However, she continued on her journey of defiance. Again, her dad called and told her not to go upstairs. Again, upon hearing his voice, she stopped in her tracks, but didn’t turn her head. She didn't quite want to hear what he was saying. Finally, he called her over to the couch, and she grudgingly obliged. While there, her dad handed her a glass and asked her to put it in the sink. She took the glass and placed it on a chair nearby, and asked, “here?” Her dad and I laughed, as we both knew she was very clear on the location of the kitchen sink. She had been through this same drill many times before. She just didn’t feel like going all the way over there. She was listening very selectively. Finally, her father reminded her that the kitchen sink was located in the kitchen, not on the living room chair. She looked at him, and made her way over to the sink. #2’s antics were humorous to us because of her age. Kids are so transparent when they selectively listen. You can tell by their body language and eyes when they hear and understand an outside voice. They act like they don’t hear so they don’t have to oblige. As adults, we laugh at the transparency and foolishness of these acts.

However, I often wonder whether adults are any different with their selective listening. Sure we become much more refined at the craft, but do we ever really change? In fact, I wonder if we don’t become so good at selectively listening that we ourselves don’t even realize we’re doing it. We don’t want to hear an outside voice that might take our independence away. We want to listen to our own inner voice, which allows us to trust in ourselves. We refuse to listen to the outside voice that birthed us and has our best interests at heart. Instead, like a two-year old child, we assume we know what is best and we want to follow that path.

There is precedent to this idea of selective hearing. It’s called Original Sin. We all have it, whether we like to admit it or not. In the garden, Adam and Even heard God’s voice, but selected not to trust it. When faced with the question of whether they should trust God’s exterior voice, or their own, they sided with themselves. They decided to be their own Gods. The result of this decision was a broken relationship with God. The result of that broken relationship was disobedience and separation.

ORIGINAL SIN IS LISTENING TO YOUR OWN INNER VOICE INSTEAD OF GOD’S VOICE THAT COMES AT YOU FROM OUTSIDE. (all capitalized sentences are spoken slowly)

Listening to our own voices gets us into trouble very quickly. We stop hearing God’s promises that he will keep and sustain us. We start listening to our own voice that worries about where we will find happiness and life. It does not trust that God will provide these things to us on a daily basis and instead looks to accumulate them through material wealth and other such avenues, even when it comes at the cost of others. We then act as though we don’t see our neighbor’s resultant pain, or explain it away through other means.

In fact, we are reminded by our Lutheran Confession, that we commit this sin of selective hearing so often, we can’t even count the times it happens. We have become blind to our surroundings, and deaf to God’s exterior voice that cries out to us through his words of law and gospel. We don’t even know that we are sinning. During the Reformation, one of the main points of contention between the Roman church and the Lutherans was the principal of confession. Lutherans believed that we were not responsible for enumerating all our sins because we are not even aware of them all! There are too many too count! Worse still, we are addicted to these sins in much the same way an alcoholic is addicted to liquor. We sin at every moment and we cannot break free through our own efforts, regardless of how hard we try or how many times we are lectured.

WE ALL SIN AT ALL TIMES – WE CHOOSE TO LISTEN TO OUR OWN VOICE INSTEAD OF GOD’S. WE SIN SO OFTEN, WE AREN’T EVEN ALWAYS AWARE OF IT!

That is where the word of God, the ultimate exterior voice, comes into play. As we hear in our reading from Thessalonians today, this word is “at work in [those] who believe.” This word consists of God’s law, which causes us to recognize our sin. As Luther reminds us in the Heidelberg Disputation, this word calls a “thing what it is.” It pulls no punches. It tells us where, and how, and why we sin. It exposes the nasal-gazing focus of our inner voice and demonstrates all that we have done wrong to both God and our neighbor. It brings about contrition and finally the death of our old selves. This is the work of the law, the alien work of God. It comes from outside us.

THE LAW IS GOD’S VOICE THAT CONDEMNS US FROM THE OUTSIDE.

Fortunately for us, God’s exterior voice doesn’t stop with our death, but also brings the word of life. It tells us that God will raise us anew. We are no longer the same, but now live in Christ and act on account of this. We have new life, even if we cannot see it through the skin of our old selves. Upon hearing this exterior voice, we are overwhelmed with joy. We react as someone on death row whose sentence has just been commuted. “You mean I’m free to go? In spite of my guilt? Someone else has taken my place?”

THE GOSPEL IS GOD’S VOICE THAT GIVES US LIFE FROM THE OUTSIDE.

In our gospel for today, we hear the wonderful story of Zacchaeus. He was a rich tax collector who was part of a corrupt system that defrauded people. He was a tool of the oppressing empire that ruled over Israel, and a tool of his own ambition that encouraged him to take more than what was owed. Although we aren’t told specifically about Zacchaeus’ sins, we can make a fairly educated guess at their nature. He himself promises to pay back by four anyone he has wronged. In addition, we can see by looking back at other cases in the Gospels that tax collectors were known for committing this very sin. In Luke 3:13, a group of tax collectors ask John what they can do, and he tells them not to collect more than is required. Not only did Zacchaeus most likely cheat the people, but they rejected him for it. He was an outcast. He had to climb a tree because the people would not move for him. This could be seen as a sign that the community would not accept him.

Here is where a little conjecture must come into play. As the readers of this story, we are going to make the educated assumption that Zacchaeus feels this rejection and understands it. This rejection is that of the law. It is condemning him for his dishonest practices and his harm of the community for selfish gain. By his offer to pay back those he has wronged, he demonstrates that he has knowledge of his sin. He has heard the exterior voice of God. This voice may have come through angry people he has cheated, or maybe at the synagogue, or maybe even through non-Jewish people. He has heard the voice of God which cries throughout scriptures that injustice and oppression are not okay. Maybe he has even heard the voice of Isaiah in our reading from today. The verses which must have stung Israel with the accusation that their bahavior betrayed the fact that they did not “know the Lord.” Maybe he heard the voice that pleaded with Israel to stop bringing “meaningless offerings” and to do justice instead.

IT APPEARS THAT ZACCHAEUS HEARD THE OUTSIDE VOICE OF GOD’S LAW THROUGH ONE OF THE METHODS GOD USES TO MAKE HIMSELF HEARD.

In spite of this rejection and his participation in an oppressive system, Zacchaeus climbs a tree in his effort to “see” Jesus. Even the use of the verb “to see” is not accidental in this verse. In the story right before this, we are told of a blind beggar, another outcast of society who receives sight from Jesus. Now we have a man who can see, and yet he is searching for more. Surely he has already heard of this famous Jesus. The one who performs miracles and is ridiculed because he associates with “sinners and tax collectors.” Jesus is the man who accepts people in spite of who they are.

So, Zacchaeus climbs the tree in search of Jesus, an act one might expect from a child but never an adult. And this is where the real scandal takes place. Jesus reaches the tree, and calls out to Zacchaeus. He finds this man who has humiliated himself and he tells him to come down, “immediately, for I must stay at your house today.” What an amazing statement by Jesus!! There are two important points I would like to make regarding this sentence. First, how interesting that Jesus calls Zacchaeus to “come down” to meet him. How many times do we try to climb UP to meet God? How many times do we look beyond and through creation to find the divine? It is interesting that the whole time we do that, Jesus is right here in the flesh. He is calling us to “come down” and join him where he is. He has come down in the flesh to meet us where we are!

Secondly, it is important to pay attention when Jesus says, “I must stay at your house today.” As 21st century Americans, I don’t think we have the cultural lenses to understand the gravity of this statement. Entering into someone’s house and staying there signified acceptance in the New Testament world. Jesus was telling Zacchaeus that he accepted him. Essentially, he called Zacchaeus to “come down” to earth where Jesus was present because JESUS had chosen him. Zacchaeus, having already heard the outside voice of the law through the condemnation of the community, rejoiced at this fact. He realized he was a sinner, and therefore he rejoiced at being chosen and accepted by Jesus. He received great joy, but only because he saw a thing “as it was” and recognized that he was not a worthy host for Jesus. This gift was pure grace, and Zacchaeus “welcomed [it] gladly!”

ZACCHAEUS HEARD GOD’S PROMISES THROUGH THE OUTSIDE VOICE OF JESUS.

Just a few verses later, we find Zacchaeus’ reaction to his justification. Out of his joy for being accepted by God, for being chosen, he proclaims, “Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." Zacchaeus has already been accepted by Jesus, in spite of who he is. He has done nothing to deserve his justification. This automatically turns him to paying back past wrongs and giving half his wealth to the poor. He’s not doing this for acceptance, for this was given to him at the tree. Instead, his giving is an outcome of God’s acceptance of him. It is the gift of someone who sees himself as he is, and exactly for that, is overwhelmed by Jesus’ call.

AS A RESULT OF THE GOSPEL, ZACCHAEUS CANNOT HELP BUT SERVE THE NEIGHBOR.

However, it is important to point out that if he had not heard that outside voice of condemnation and the law at the beginning, he would not have been overjoyed at the calling. If he didn’t realize his sin, he wouldn’t have marveled at the grace! It was necessary to hear God’s outside voice of the law, in order to hear God’s outside voice of gospel, which brought him back to life. The two go hand in hand, God’s alien work and his proper work.

So today, as we all sit here together and read this story, what do we get out of it? Luther often reminds all of us as pastors that our job is to distinguish between the law and gospel of God, and to apply it to people with the proper pronoun - YOU. In order to say that Jesus died for “YOU,” we must also tell why he had to die for “YOU.” To do any less, to let any sins remain unexposed would diminish our need for Christ and would take away our joy from being chosen by him! It is the job of all Christians to expose hidden sins, whether they be individual or societal!

As Americans, we commit many sins we don’t want to hear about. We hear God’s voice of law through the scriptures, through the news, and through other people in his creation. We hear God call for systemic, social justice in our interrelated world, and yet we refuse to acknowledge this outside voice. We hear God tell us that economics should be fair, that we must use balanced scales, and yet we refuse to hear! Today, I would like to tell you about one of these sins that is an epidemic in our country.

I WANT TO APPLY THE LAW TO YOU RIGHT NOW.

While I was working in Nicaragua, I had the chance to meet thousands of Banana workers who were protesting. You see, some major American fruit companies had been farming in Nicaragua for decades. Throughout this time, they used an insecticide called Nemagon on their banana trees. The fruit companies were aware that Nemagon was carcinogenic and affected people at high rates. And yet, they continued to use it without giving any warning to the workers. It is now estimated that 67% of the people who worked on these farms in Nicaragua have been affected. Many have been sterilized, gotten cancer, or given birth to deformed children. The fruit companies knew they were harming people and yet they said nothing. The chemical companies knew they were harming people and yet they said nothing! All the while, thousands of poor people’s lives were being taken for granted. All this happened not to keep the fruit companies in business, but to maintain their maximum profit potential. In other words, they knowingly allowed thousands of people to suffer not just to make money, but to make as much money as possible!

What’s sad is that these kinds of activities aren’t limited to one instance with bananas. Instead, we find similar sins in different shapes and colors throughout many industries. Whether it is carcinogenic insecticides or low-paying sweatshops, American industries often cause a lot of harm to people around the world. So what does this have to do with me you ask? Even more importantly, what does this have to do with our gospel lesson for today? As citizens of this country, and as beneficiaries of their profits, we must understand that we are involved in these activities. Whether you are a consumer or stockholder, you are gaining from these systems that harm many for your benefit.

Much like Zacchaeus, we are participating in an oppressive system. The question is, will we react to this information, to this outside voice of the law that exposes our need for Christ, or will become selective listeners? Will we decide that we don’t want to hear God’s law and that we don’t need Christ in this area of our lives? If we listen, then great things can happen! We will realize that in spite of who we are, Christ is calling us down from the tree. We will realize that we have a God that is gracious and compassionate, just as our Psalm for the day reminded us. In spite of all that we have done, Christ chooses us and wants to stay with us. And, as a reaction to that justification, to that outer voice, we will be amazed by our joy! We will be set free from our old selves so that we may turn to the neighbor! We will be set free so that we can serve our neighbor in every way possible.

AS PARTAKERS IN ORIGINAL SIN, WE REALIZE WE ARE ADDICTED. WE DON’T WANT TO HEAR GOD’S OUTSIDE VOICE OF THE LAW, REGARDLESS OF ITS FORM, BECAUSE WE DON’T WANT TO BE CONVICTED. HOWEVER, WE RECOGNIZE THAT WE MUST ALWAYS BE WILLING TO LISTEN TO OUTSIDE VOICES IN CASE THEY ARE BRINGING US GOD’S LAW! LIKEWISE, WE MUST ALWAYS BE READY TO TRUST IN GOD’S VOICE WHICH ALWAYS BRINGS THE GOSPEL THAT OVERCOMES OUR FAILURES. GOD DELIVERS THIS VOICE THROUGH HIS HOLY WORD AND THE SACRAMENTS.

So, as we all leave today, let us pray that God may help us to realize that we are all sinners. Let us pray that God will help us all to hear his voice – both the law and gospel, by whatever method he chooses to deliver it to us! Let us pray that as we hear it, God will allow it to work in us! Let us pray that his words will call a thing what it is and expose our sin! Let us pray that we will hear his gospel, which tells us we are saved in spite of what is exposed! Let us pray that we may follow Zacchaeus’ example and let our justification push us toward the neighbor.

WE HAVE ALL FALLEN SHORT, BUT THAT DOES NOT STOP GOD FROM LOVING US. HE SENT HIS SON FOR YOU. LISTEN TO THE GOD’S VOICE AND TRUST THAT PROMISE. AMEN.

Sermon Title: Every day is a free gift

2008-04-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Hopman
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
First Place, April 2008 Round

The voice of one crying out in the desert rings out, “You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit worthy of repentance.” John the Baptist does not gently tell us to try to do a little better. He doesn’t offer constructive criticism; he’s not welcoming and accepting; he’s not a helpful part of any dialogue. Instead John is a theologian of the cross. He calls a thing what it is. He calls sin “sin” and doesn’t hold back.

We all know that we are sinners. Every religion and belief system has a notion of sin. But usually we are very confused about this. We tend to think of sin as imperfection. We think we do our best, but just fall a little short of the standard. But John preaches the truth. We are a brood of vipers. We are warriors in a great struggle with God for supremacy. God has revealed to us that true life comes from trusting fully and completely in him to provide us with all things. But we would rather be God; we would rather trust ourselves. And so God has given us commandments for how to live well on earth, but we trust our own schemes for achieving the good life; we trust our own sin.

Our sin, of course, does not exclude having some religion, or even repenting. John is cursing particular people who have come to him to repent. But John senses that these men have what Martin Luther called “gallows repentance.” They see the punishment for their sin coming over the horizon and fear it. So they come to be baptized by John to avoid it. So even their repentance is sin. Their repentance is one last rebellion against God, one last attempt to save their own skin. Moreover, it is their attempt to avoid true repentance and stay safe and secure just the way they are.

So John cries out, “Produce fruit worthy of repentance.” If you truly repent of your sin, you do not do it to save your own skin, but you repent because you love God. So you fear and love God and care not only for your own skin, but for your neighbors. Loving your neighbors, your friends and your enemies, that is the fruit worthy of repentance.

Ultimately caring for our neighbors is always a matter of alleviating poverty. Whether it is poverty of companionship and friendship, poverty of health, poverty of days left in this life or lack of money. Love is always attacking poverty.

God’s law demands that we care for our neighbors. The fifth commandment is “You shall not kill.” Our Catechism asks what this means for us: “We are to fear and love God so that we do not hurt our neighbor in any way, but help him in all his physical needs.”

If we really repent of our sin, if we are really sorry for it we will obey the fifth commandment and help those who are poorest. When we repent of or sins we realize that we are beggars. We have nothing to offer God except our sin. We must rely totally and completely on his mercy. In such a circumstance, how can we neglect to care for others in need of mercy? How can we claim to repent of our sin and desire God’s mercy, while not having mercy on those around us?

So God’s law is clear. Repent, and produce the fruits of repentance. Do the works that the truly repentant do. This in a way is good news to those who need mercy. This is good news to the poor, that God demands we help them.

However, the law in insufficient in its help of the poor. In whose hands does the law place the poor? In the hands of sinners. As Paul said [Romans 8:3], the law has been weakened by the flesh, namely our sinful flesh. The law speaks for the poor, but it leaves them in our sinful hands.

The law commands us to help those in need, but how many times have we already failed them? How many times throughout scripture did prophets rage against the people, telling them to care for the widow and the orphan? Is John the Baptist, the last prophet of the law, crying out in the wilderness, “Produce fruit worthy of repentance,” is he finally going to get people to start behaving themselves? Is this sermon today, is my preaching of the law finally going to revolutionize the world and start a movement that finally gets the rich and the powerful to start doing what they should for the poor and the weak?

Unfortunately the answer to those questions is simply “no.” “The law says ‘Do this,’ and nothing is ever done (Luther, Heidelberg Disputation).” The language of the law is the language of scarcity. Sure one or two people here or there might hear the law and bear fruit worthy of repentance, but sin is strong and shows no signs of letting up. Even the alleged “dictatorship of the proletariat” lead to just one more society of powerful and weak, rich and poor.

Today our nation finds itself in big trouble because of greed. Housing prices were soaring, so rich lenders wanted to give out as many loans and make as much money as possible. Now the whole system has blown up and the poor are losing their houses. Not that the poor are without sin, not even in this situation. Being poor does not prevent you from being greedy and trying to get deals that were too good to be true.

Furthermore, even on those rare occasions when the law works like it should poor people are hardly dancing in the streets. In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, we’re told that Lazarus longed merely to eat the food, “that fell from the rich man’s table.” Eating other people’s crumbs is hardly abundant life. The poor Israelites in the wilderness eating their daily gift of manna from the sky must have reflected on how far they were from the land of milk and honey.

But, as I said, John the Baptist was the last prophet of the law. Preaching repentance and obedience to the law was his proper office, but he also had an alien office. John also pointed beyond himself, beyond the law. John said, 11 ‘I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals.”

The one who came after John is Jesus. He preached the law at times, but his proper office was to preach the gospel and to be the gospel. He healed the sick, he healed beggars. But even Jesus’ own healings were a scare trickle in comparison to the poverty and suffering that fills the world. He said so himself using historical precedent: [Luke 4] “the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

But Jesus ended the trickle of help for the weak and the poor with a ragging torrent of blessing: [Luke 6] “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.” [Matthew 5]3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. 8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Christ brought overflowing blessings to the poor and the weak. He brings life so abundant that it’s eternal. Christ is the one the prophet Isaiah wrote about, “with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. 6The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 7The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 9They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Christ has come to give righteousness to the poor, equity for the meek. It makes sense that these are eternal and not worldly gifts. Lions laying down with lambs, these things do not happen in this age. They point to Christ’s kingdom that is not of this world.

Christ is the answer to David’s prayer, “2May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.3May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness.4May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.5May he live while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.6May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.7In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more.8May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” “12For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper.13He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy.14From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight.” All these things were written so that we might have hope in the Christ to come (Romans 15:4). Once again in Psalm 72 we hear that Christ’s kingdom is an eternal kingdom (v.5-7).

I quote these passages at length because I cannot equal their beautiful language. Perhaps as Christians we’ve gotten too used to these passages or we expect language like this in the bible, but they are of course true, and shockingly true when compared to the reality that surrounds us.

However, Christ did not fulfill these words of the Old Testament in a straight-forward way. He did not come with a mighty army slashing away at the oppressors. He did not end the reign of sinful rulers with shock and awe. Instead Christ entered into poverty. He had no place to lay his head. He suffered under the hands of the religious leaders, who claimed to teach God’s law while neglecting the poor. He died under the command of a rich government official. So Christ blessed the poor in a strange way.

No doubt we would have preferred that he provide money for everyone instead of eternal life. We would have been happier if he had been like Robinhood or if he had established a kingdom of justice for the poor on earth for everyone to see. We would have preferred that he heal all the sick and the weak. In fact when Jesus reminded the Nazarenes that he had not come into the world to heal them all by reminding them that Elijah only helped one widow and Elisha only healed one leper, what happened? [Luke 4] “28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.”

The crowd didn’t kill Jesus that day, but we did another day. Sure the rich rulers were opposed to Jesus. Rich Pilate was to afraid to do the right thing, but the crowd of common poor people also chanted, “crucify, crucify.” We wanted Christ to fulfill the words of Isaiah and David exactly as we had expected. Instead Christ fulfilled these promises through his death and resurrection. And when his death and resurrection enter us through the ears as a living word, they kill us and raise us to new life. This story of Christ’s mercy on his cross is precisely the striking down of the wicked and the oppressor that Isaiah and David promised. Christ crucifies us with his words of mercy because we are the wicked oppressors, because our dreams for a kingdom of God on earth lead us to crush Christ. But this death he brings us through faith in his words is the only death that leads to resurrection. Faith alone in Christ alone makes us sons and daughters of Abraham (Matthew 3).

So we do not get the justice we wanted in this world. But justice is a matter of getting what you have coming to you. What do the poor have coming to them? What do we poor people who live under the oppression of our own sin, of death, of scrapping out a living day after day, what do we have coming to us? 21“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.”

Some people will always hate us because of Christ. Some will always view the gospel of the forgiveness of sins as merely an excuse for not doing more to create justice in this world. Some will always see our looking ahead to the kingdom of God as an excuse for the suffering in this world. Like Christ before Pilate, we finally can’t defend ourselves against these accusations. We must let our enemies stumble over the stumbling stone that is Christ’s cross. Then when you’re down on the ground, when you actually are poor, when you have no righteousness of your own to brag to the world about, no righteousness to show the world for it to see with its eyes, then when you’ve stumbled over the stumbling stone, you’re ready for faith, ready for the words of eternal life to enter in.

And what has Christ to say to such poor people? 3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [Luke] 4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” And when people curse you for the gospel’s sake? [Matthew] 23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven.”

So perhaps now we should step back. You, who already have overflowing eternal life in faith, you will quickly realize that you are not yet in the kingdom. Lions and lambs aren’t lying down yet. The poor do not appear to be the most blessed of all people. So what are we to do? Should we think that the gospel isn’t really real? Should we turn back to the law in an effort to start making some things happen?

You who have abundant life in faith now have your time on earth as a bonus. Every day is a free gift. So what else is there to do but care for the poor and the needy? What else do we have to do with our time? Unlike the Sadducees and Pharisees we read about in Matthew 3, we are not trying to prove our righteousness to God through our obedience to the law. We have God’s own righteousness in Christ by faith. So we are free to care for all those around us who need our help and service. As Luther said in his essay, “The Freedom of a Christian,” we need no law to guide us, no Ten Commandments to order us what to do, because the Christian writes her own Ten Commandments. Before someone asks for her help, the Christian is already helping.

So I can’t turn you back to the law today like John the Baptist. I can’t leave you with the demand that you produce fruit worthy of repentance. Because the one to come, the one whose sandals John was not fit to carry, Jesus Christ has already come and he has changed everything. You have not produced the proper fruit and served others as you should, but Christ has forgiven this sin and made you righteous through his gospel. “(Romans 8:3) For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin.” Now go in peace and freedom.

Sermon Title: The way is prepared

2008-04-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

Ben Krey
M.Div. Student, The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
Second Place, April 2008 Round

Let us pray. May I decrease so You may increase and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to You, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

My sermon title this morning is “The Way is Prepared.” Again the sermon title is, “The Way is Prepared.”

The River Jordan is a fascinating geographic phenomenon. In Northern Israel, the Jordan flows into the Sea of Galilee. You may recall the Sea of Galilee as the location where Jesus says to Simon Peter and Andrew “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” And immediately they did. Also at the Sea of Galilee, Jesus calls James and John, the sons of Zebedee out of their boats and they too immediately leave their nets and follow Him.1

Why are Peter, Andrew, James, and John at the Sea of Galilee? Because they are fishermen. And if you know anything about fishing, you know fishers go to where the fish are biting. There are a lot of fish biting in the Sea of Galilee. According to the Gospel of Luke, there are enough fish to rip the nets of the fishermen and even sink their boats.2

It is interesting that the Jordan runs into the Sea of Galilee and leaves it teeming with life. Then the very same Jordan River, the very same water, runs into the Dead Sea and stays there. The Jordan River and its life-giving water stops dead in its tracks in the Dead Sea.

The difference between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea is that the Jordan River both enters and leaves the Sea of Galilee, while it only enters in the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee is teeming with life, while the Dead Sea is filled with salt and minerals, which might be great for your skin if you have $28 to burn at the mall, but even the quick-to-follow-fishermen turned dumb-as-doornails-disciples knew that you can’t catch a fish in the Dead Sea. In fact, the mineral deposits left in the Dead Sea have killed everything, even the vegetation, in the water.

The story of the River Jordan, the Sea of Galilee, and the Dead Sea teaches us about life. What goes up, must come down. What goes in, must come out. To have life a river must run THROUGH it. Not to be too crass, but this is true with our bodily functions also. If we keep taking food in but never let the food out, we would have problems too and ultimately we would be as lively as the Dead Sea. But when what we take in also flows out in a healthy manner, we will be filled with life like the Sea of Galilee.

Saint Paul reminds us not to keep our spiritual drink3 and life-giving-water4 to ourselves but “that with one heart and mouth” we “may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”5 Brothers and Sisters, we cannot keep the Good News of Jesus Christ to ourselves and be alive! We must glorify God if we want to be the Sea of Galilee. If we keep it to ourselves, we will suffer the same fate as the Dead Sea.

Let’s face it. Let’s be real with ourselves. Overall, Lutherans have problems with this. We are justified by faith through grace, and not by works. We don’t need to do anything to be saved. Even if Lutheran Services in America serves 6 million unduplicated clients a year,6 we don’t have to do it. That’s just a nice little bonus.

In an interview with Dr. Lauren Artess, a specialist in Labyrinths, Artess explains that the whole Christian tradition has a false sense of the relationship between contemplation and action. We do not think going to Church and contemplating God’s grace and unconditional love has any real impact on our actions in the world. We say “Go in peace and serve the Lord” or “Go in peace and remember the poor” or “Go in peace, Christ goes before you.” But when we leave the prayerful house of God where we have contemplated the Law and Gospel in our Scriptures and our world, do we then forget what we just contemplated when we watch the evening news? As Luther put it, “it is impossible to separate works from faith, quite as impossible as to separate heat and light from fire.”7 And we should not forget, John the Baptist prepares the way for the One who “will baptize … with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”8 We are not baptized with apathy or cultural amnesia, but quite the opposite. We are baptized by a God of the living, not of the dead.9

We tend to put our contemplations and our actions into different compartments. When Luther said a thousand monks could pray for a thousand years and not do the good that a father does changing one of his son’s diapers, Luther was not putting faith and actions into different compartments - just like you can’t put heat, light, fire, and the Holy Spirit into different compartments. It doesn’t work that way. As Garrison Keillor put it, “going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.”10

So, now, what is a Christian, then, if it is not someone who just goes to church? A Christian, by definition, is Christ-like. And Christ, or the shoot from the branch of Jesse according to Isaiah, bears fruit. Notice in verse 1 of Isaiah 11, Christ doesn’t hold onto the fruit, He doesn’t keep the fruit for Himself, He only bears the fruit or produces the fruit. The fruit passes through Him, if you will. Isaiah’s words are not meant just for Christ. Isaiah’s words are meant for the bride of Christ – that is the Church – also. Isaiah’s words are meant for us.

This shoot from the branch of Jesse has the Spirit of the Lord resting on Him, with the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord-and He will delight in the fear of the Lord.11

What if we delighted in the fear of the Lord? What if we were Christ-like?

According to Isaiah, we would not judge by what we see with our eyes or decide by what we hear with our ears. But with righteousness we will judge the needy, with justice we will give decisions for the poor of the earth. We will strike the earth with the rod of our mouths; with the breath of our lips we will slay the wicked.12 Does this mean we maintain our Lutheran quietism? I think if we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to get a little louder as a Church!

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to tell someone that there’s too much violence in Philadelphia.

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to tell someone that it is not okay for the elderly to be choosing between medications and groceries.

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to tell someone that it’s not very Christian for a nation to have 1 out of every 99.1 adult citizens in prison.13

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to tell someone that it’s not righteous and just that more black men go to prison than to college. We need to tell someone that the rates in wealthy, predominantly white, Chestnut Hill and Lafayette Hill are much smaller 1 out of 99 while the rate in poorer, predominately black, North Philly and West Philly is much larger than 1 out of 99.

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to start by admitting that “the land of the free and the home of the brave”14 is in a social exile in this enslaved, imprisoned, and fearful country.

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to judge the needy with righteousness.15

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to give decisions for the poor with justice.16

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need stop judging by what we see and hear17 and start loving our neighbors as ourselves.18

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to open up our hearts and mouths19 and breathe out the spiritual blessings that we have received, for we do not fight evil with evil, but overcome evil with good.20

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to love our enemies as Christ loved us21 even as we were still His enemy.

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to love because “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”22 and “force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness,”23 and apathy begets apathy, and love is the only way.

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we need to find those religious folks who are not accepting others as Christ accepted them and call a spade a spade24: “You brood of vipers!”25

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we just need to shout: Hey World! Jesus loves you!

If we are going to be slaying the wicked with our breath, we will overflow the banks of our Dead Sea with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit because we are filled with all joy and peace as we trust in God.26 We can’t keep it in. We can’t hold it in any longer. The flood is coming in the form of a Child.

The Reformers could not hold it in any longer. We have a Lutheran tradition of overflowing. We have embraced our label of Protestants or protesters because we protest the wicked with our breath. When we found religions that preach buying and working your way and others’ ways into heaven, we protested. When we found religions that lifted up a quote-unquote sinless person in Rome as having spiritual powers, we protested. When we find religions that are oppressive and teach people that if they are poor God doesn’t love them and if they have become wealthy by oppressing the poor then God really loves them, we protest and say Jesus was poor. When we find religions that claim if you just pray harder you will be healed, we protest because Jesus prayed pretty hard on the cross and yet He still died to wash us clean in His blood.27 When we find religions that judge sinners, we must protest because we are all made in God’s image28 yet fall short of the glory of God,29 we are saints and sinners. When we find religions that say there is a separation of church and state so quiet down and keep your beliefs out of politics, we must protest and say God is God of everything – spiritual and political!

When we find religions that say modern people are intelligent, sophisticated, scientific, secular, post-enlightenment, critical thinkers who either disperse with the supernatural and miraculous as mythical elements of ancient and bygone dreamers who simply didn’t know any better. Or we tolerate Scripture as perhaps having allegorical significance or metaphorical value at best. “The wolf will live with the lamb?”30 Most of us don’t believe that even as we read it. Please …. Let’s face it: we no longer believe the earth is flat or that the sun revolves around us. We won’t believe we can take a passage like this seriously.

The wolf will live with the lamb? That is about as likely as having a black man, a woman, and a person over 70 as serious candidates for president.

The leopard will lie down with the goat?31 That is about as likely as having a black man and two women being the three finalists for Bishop in the SEPA Synod.

The calf and the lion and the yearling together?32 That is about as likely as the 18 and 0, previously undefeated New England Patriots losing their recent Super Bowl dominance to the lowly and unlikely New York Giants.

And a little Child will lead them?33 That is about as likely as the Word becoming flesh.34 God becoming a baby, God becoming a carpenter, God allowing God’s-self to suffer, cry, be rejected, tortured, mocked, taunted, scoffed at, nailed to a cross, God actually dying and being buried and God raising God-self three days later.

The cow will feed with the bear and their young will lie down together?35 That is about as likely as God using a prostitute like Rahab,36 the youngest son of Jesse: a shepherd boy named David,37 the “I don’t want to go to Nineveh!” Jonah,38 the zealous for the Lord39 Christian-persecuting Saul, or a belt-and-camel-skin-wearing locusts-and-wild-honey-eating40 voice in the wilderness41 preparing the way for God. It is about as likely as God using me and all my sins or you and all your sins.

The lion will eat straw like the ox?42 That is about as likely as the human race persisting through the historical record of human sacrifice, the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, slavery in all its forms, genocide and ethnic cleansing to continue to reach for the societal ideals of life, liberty, justice, freedom, righteousness, and peace.

Water coming out of a rock?43 That is about as likely as the third rock from the sun in this particular solar system having just the right conditions for life.

6 jars of water turned into 6 jars of wine at a wedding feast?44 That is about as likely as a prodigal alcoholic being accepted back into their family.

5 loaves and 2 fish being multiplied to feed 5,000 people with a surplus of 12 basketfuls?45 That is about as likely as Gandhi fasting so India could gain independence from England through non-violence.

7 loaves and a few small fish being multiplied to feed 4,000 people with a surplus of 7 basketfuls?46 That is about as likely as a black preacher moving America to social change in the 1950’s and 60’s.

People walking on water?47 That is about as likely as the world’s largest religion beginning from a motley crew of 12 uneducated men, 4 of whom were going-nowhere-fishermen, who hardly ever understood their teacher.

The blind receiving sight, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, the leper cleansed, the demon-possessed exorcised, sinners forgiven, the lost found, the dead raised? That is about as likely as a group of people coming together every Sunday morning to serve rather than to be served48 and to worship a God they cannot see.

Jesus Christ coming again? That is about as likely as the same Jordan River connecting a lively Sea of Galilee to the lifeless Dead Sea.

It was in that very Jordan River where Jesus was baptized.49 We too are baptized into a death like His.50 We enter this torn up world filled with people divided among themselves. Through our baptisms, we enter this dire place as new creations.51 New creations filled with hope that “Thy kingdom WILL come” through the power of God which has been given to us.52 Hope that our faith in Jesus’ resurrection is not in vain.53 And an unfailing certain hope54 that our sins are forgiven, that if the Son sets us free, we will be free indeed,55 and that as Christians we are free to sin boldly (and have faith more boldly still) to prepare the way for “Thy kingdom”56 to come.

Isaiah, John the Baptist, and Saint Paul did what they could to prepare the way. They prophesied about the ills of society, they proclaimed the forgiveness of sins, and they raised money for the poor in Jerusalem.57 All of those things prepared the way for “Thy kingdom” to come. They have passed on that tradition to Augustine and Ambrose and Athanasius. Who used theology to prepare the way for “Thy kingdom” to come. And they passed it on to Jerome and Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas. Who refined theologies for their world to prepare the way for “Thy kingdom” to come. And they passed it on to Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon and all the Reformers. Who reformed the world away from earthly kingdoms and corrupt theologies to prepare the way for “Thy kingdom” to come. And they passed it on to Jonathan Edwards and Henry Muhlenberg and John Wesley. Who did what they could to prepare the New World for “Thy kingdom” to come. And they passed it on to Dietrich Bonheoffer and Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa. Who fought against cheap grace, racial injustices, and poverty to prepare the way for “Thy kingdom” to come. And they passed it on to us.

Now, if I may ask one more question, what are we going to do with it? Are we going to keep it to ourselves? Are we going to stop dead in our tracks like the Jordan River in the Dead Sea? Or are we going to pass it on and rejoice while overflowing with hope until we are teeming with life? The way has been prepared for us to prepare the way. The way is prepared for us to prepare the way.

“There’s a voice in the wilderness crying,

A call from the ways untrod:

Prepare in the desert a highway,

A highway for our God!

The valleys shall be exalted,

The lofty hills brought low;

Make straight all the crooked places

Where God, our God, may go!” 58

Amen.

1 Matthew 4:18-22
2 Luke 5:4-7
3 1 Corinthians 10:3
4 John 4:14
5 Romans 15:6 (NIV)
6 “Lutheran Services in America” http://www.lutheranservices.org. March 8, 2008.
7 Luthers Works, volume 35
8 Matthew 3:11 (NIV)
9 Matthew 22:32, Mark 12:27, Luke 20:38
10 Multiple citations online including “Garrison Keillor – Wikiquote.” http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Garrison_Keillor. March 8, 2008. and “Garrison Keillor quotes – Famous quotes from Garrison Keillor from Basic Questions.” http://www.basicquotations.com/index.php?aid=980. March 8, 2008.
11 Isaiah 11:1-3 (NIV)
12 Isaiah 11:3-4 (NIV)
13 Liptank, Adam. “1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says – New York Times.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?ex=1361941200&en=9f78e91a7de6aabc&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink. February 28, 2008.
14 U.S. National Anthem
15 Isaiah 11:4
16 Isaiah 11:4
17 Isaiah 11:3
18 Matthew 22:39
19 Romans 15:6
20 Romans 12:21
21 Matthew 5:44
22 Mahatma Gandhi
23 Martin Luther King Jr. “Loving Your Enemies”
24 Luther would describe the Theology of the Cross as calling a spade a spade, where a Theology of Glory does not call things as they are.
25 Matthew 3:7
26 Romans 15:13
27 Revelation 7:15
28 Genesis 1:26
29 Romans 3:23
30 Isaiah 11:6 (NIV)
31 Isaiah 11:6 (NIV)
32 Isaiah 11:6 (NIV)
33 Isaiah 11:6 (NIV)
34 John 1:14
35 Isaiah 11:7 (NIV)
36 Joshua 2
37 1 Samuel 16
38 Jonah 1:1-4:11
39 Galatians 1:14
40 Matthew 3:4
41 Matthew 3:1
42 Isaiah 11:7 (NIV)
43 Exodus 17, Numbers 20, Nehemiah 9:15
44 John 9:1-10
45 Matthew 14:14-21
46 Matthew 15:32-38
47 Matthew 14:25-29
48 Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45 (also part of the mission statement of the congregation I imagine preaching to)
49 Matthew 3:13
50 Romans 6:3
51 2 Corinthians 5:17
52 John 16:15
53 1 Corinthians 15:58
54 Hebrews 11:1
55 John 8:36
56 Luke 11:2 (KJV)
57 Acts 24:17 and Romans 15:26
58 James Lewis Milligan. “There’s a Voice in the Wilderness.” Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Hymn #255. Augsburg Fortress. Minneapolis, MN. October 2006.

Sermon Title: Are we chaff?

2008-04-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

Judy Mai
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Third Place, April 2008 Round

Do you ever run back into your house just to make sure that you have turned off the coffee pot or the iron? I do it all the time. No matter how much of a hurry you are in some things are just too important not to double check. It doesn't matter if you are running late—you have to check. You don't want to lose everything you have in a house fire. Today's Gospel makes me feel the same way. It makes me feel like no matter what else is going on in my life right now, no matter how busy I am, I had better take some time and figure out if I am wheat or chaff. That is what I have been doing for the past few days as I studied and prayed about this text. I must confess I have found the whole process disturbing. I find this text disturbing. I think I am chaff. I am worried you all might be too.

At first, I tried to fool myself. I try and keep the commandments. I'm in church on a regular basis. I tithe. I can't be chaff, right? You are probably thinking the same thing about yourself. Here you are in church and this intern pastor is saying you might be chaff instead of wheat. How unfair! What about all those people who are sleeping in today? What about all those people who don't come to church at all? What about the people who don't give anything to support the church's work? Why are we chaff and not them? I don't know about them. I only know about us. I will explain.

When I first read the lesson I was relieved to see that John the Baptist was talking to the Pharisees and Sadducees. In verse 7 it says, “When he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Whew, what a relief. He is talking to them, not me, right? That verse started to get me wondering. Why was John the Baptist so harsh to them? Why should they be chopped down like a tree that doesn't bear good fruit or burned up like worthless chaff? What is so bad about them? Who were they anyway?

This is what I found out about the Pharisees: they were one of the two great Jewish religious and political parties of the second commonwealth. Their opponents were the Sadducees and it appears that the Sadducees gave them their name, perushim, Hebrew for “separatists” or “deviants.” The Pharisees upheld an interpretation of Judaism that was in opposition to the priestly Temple cult. They stressed faith in the one God; the divine revelation of the law both written and oral handed down by Moses through Joshua, the elders, and the prophets to the Pharisees; and eternal life and resurrection for those who keep the law. Pharisees insisted on the strict observance of Jewish law, which they began to codify. While in agreement on the broad outlines of Jewish law, the Pharisees encouraged debate on its fine points.

I am sorry, but that doesn't sound that different from us. We also have faith in one God. We also believe that scripture is divine revelation handed down orally and in writing. We believe in eternal life and resurrection. We believe in the broad outlines of Jewish law and we certainly engage in debate on it's fine points. If you attend a Lutheran Bible study, you will most likely hear plenty of debate on the finer points of scripture. Except that the Pharisees didn't believe in Jesus and they didn't eat Jello salad, the Pharisees could have been Lutheran.

We don't know as much about the Sadducees. They were a sect of Jews formed around the time of the Hasmonean revolt (c.200 B.C.). They were the other powerful religious and political party during the time of Jesus. They upheld only the authority of the written law, and not the oral tradition held by the Pharisees. They are believed to have had a small following, drawn primarily from the upper classes. Eventually, they reached an accommodation with the Pharisees, which allowed them to serve as priests in exchange for acceptance of Pharasitical rulings regarding the law. Their sect was centered on the cult of the Temple, and they ceased to exist after its destruction in A.D. 70.

So the Sadducees were not that different from the Pharisees and the Pharisees were not that different from us. Why did John call them a brood of vipers? Would he call us a brood of vipers?

If we go farther into the Gospel of Matthew we can hear Jesus explain why Pharisees would be condemned so harshly. Jesus had no problem with their teaching. He actually told the disciples to do what they teach. He warned them not to do what they do. The Pharisees were condemned for not practicing what they teach. Jesus said they place heavy burdens on others and don't lift a finger to help them. I think Jesus looked around at all the poverty and injustice on earth and he couldn't stand it. He was so mad at the elite groups because they had the power to change it and they wouldn't. They knew better, they knew God's law and refused to keep it. They were more worried about being respected. They went to worship and they wanted people to see them and know that they were better than others. They wanted people to know that they were better than the people who slept in on the Sabbath day.

I don't think things have changed that much today. I think Jesus looks around at all the poverty and injustice and he can't stand it. We know that Jesus had a special place in his heart for children. He rebuked the disciples sternly when they tried to keep them away from him. What do you think he would say about poor children today?

Health systems in poor countries around the world are rapidly deteriorating, and in some cases, have failed entirely. Young children and pregnant women bear the brunt of these inadequate health systems. Every year, 10 million children die before their fifth birthday, nearly all of them from preventable causes—causes that we have the power to prevent. Each year, more than 500,000 mothers die from complications during child birth. There are affordable technologies and interventions in existence that would prevent nearly all of these deaths.

What about orphans? I found at least 25 different places that the Bible talks about caring for orphans. I'll just mention one, James 1:27, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” The world is full of orphans that are not being taken care of properly and soon there will be even more. Eighteen million children have already lost one or both parents to AIDS, 12 million of them are in Africa alone. Unless more is done, there will be 25 million of these children around the world by 2010. If pure religion is to visit orphans and widows, what does that mean for us?

It is not just children that are in trouble. Around the world, one person in seven goes to bed hungry each night. Look around at each other, imagine we lived in one of those poor countries. Imagine 10 of us here not getting any dinner. It doesn't have to be this way. We could address hunger not just by giving food, but by helping farmers in poor countries grow better crops and helping countries build farm-to-market roads so farmers can supply distant cities.

One person in seven has no access to clean water for drinking, cooking or washing. In addition to spreading disease, this has multiple negative effects -- girls growing up in villages without water are far less likely to attend school because they're too busy spending hours walking to and from the nearest water source.

Sometimes we wish poor people would just help themselves right? They need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. How can you better yourself and have a better life than your parents if you can't even go to school? But around the world, 77 million children do not go to grade school because their parents cannot afford fees, books or uniforms for all their children. Those of you who are parents or grandparents, try and imagine choosing which of your kids gets to go to school because you can only afford to send one.

This is getting pretty depressing. I know you didn't come to church to get depressed. Let's look at some of the other lessons for today. Maybe that will make us feel better. I have always liked today's first lesson—Isaiah 11. I love the idea of every creature getting along with every other creature—the wolf and the lamb, the cow and the bear—even the little child and the poisonous snake. It is such a beautiful picture. Unfortunately, it is not any better than the parable of the wheat and the chaff. Verse 4 says that the coming savior will judge the poor with righteousness and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. He will kill the wicked with the breath of his lips. I am not so sure this text is good news for me. I am not poor and I am not especially meek. I don't consider myself to be a wicked person, but what if not helping the poor counts as being wicked? Can we look at the psalm instead?

Psalm 72 is a royal psalm in which the Israelite king, as the representative of God, is the instrument of divine justice and blessing for the whole world. The king is human, giving what he receives from God. The language of this psalm is beautiful and extravagant, but it is all about justice for the poor again. “May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.” This one makes me worry too. It isn't good news for us. It seems unjust for nations like ours to have more than enough, while people go hungry all around the world. “Crush the oppressor” makes me uncomfortable. I am a citizen of a nation that spends less than 1% of it's budget on helping people faced with extreme poverty and AIDS around the world. We are doing next to nothing. I am doing next to nothing.

Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” His command is that we love one another as he has loved us. I don't want to be like the Pharisees who knew the law and didn't keep it, but sometimes it is so hard to do the right thing. Exactly how much would I have to give away to be sure that I wasn't chaff instead of wheat? How many people would I have to help? I wish I knew exactly how much would be enough. The rich young man in Matthew 19 wanted to know that too. He wanted to be sure. He asked Jesus what he had to do to gain eternal life. Jesus told him to keep the commandments and that was not a problem for the man. Then Jesus told him to sell his possessions, give the money to the poor and follow Jesus. This was a terrible problem for the man, just as it would be for us. Jesus explained to his disciples that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom of God. This just made me sad and frustrated. It is too hard! I can't give away all my possessions. Many of Jesus' teachings found in the Gospel of Matthew are just impossible for me to live up to. Matthew 18:8 says that if your hand or foot causes you to stumble, you cut them off. I stumble all the time. There would be nothing left of me if I cut something off each time.

I find myself asking the same question that the disciples asked Jesus after the rich young man left. “Then who can be saved?” Jesus' answer is the comfort that I have been looking for all along. Finally, the good news. “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” Salvation is impossible for me to accomplish by myself. It is only possible with God's help. I think we are chaff, but there is hope for us. Jesus is that hope. Jesus is the root of Jesse that we read about in the second lesson for today. Look at Romans 15:12, “The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles shall hope.”

At baptism, we are united with Jesus. We enter into his life, his death, and his resurrection. We come to Jesus and yoke ourselves to him. Matthew 11:28-30 explains what it means to be a Christian.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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." I have always loved this text. I picture myself weighted down with all my sin and fear. I am weighted down because I know I am chaff. I am afraid because I know I am not good enough. I have not tried hard enough to live up to Jesus' commandments. I picture myself handing all these burdens over to him and resting at his feet or maybe being carried by him. The picture I have in my head of this text isn't right. I have recently realized that I have not been reading it carefully enough. This text is not about having no burdens. I am giving my burdens to Jesus and yoking myself to him. That means his cross is my cross now. I share in his pain. His heart breaks for the poor and the orphan so mine does too. I share in his cross, but I will also share in the glory of his resurrection. That is my hope—my only hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon Title: Sinners under the Eyes of a Gracious God

2008-04-15T17:10:00.000-07:00

Christopher Lee Halverson
M.Div. Student, The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
Fourth Place, April 2008 Round

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Today John shouts out from the Gospel of Matthew “Repent!” “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” God is going to rule in this world with power and might. “Now, I know,” John probably admitted to the cynics, “it might seem like the glory, and might, and rule of Israel has been crushed by Roman, by Greece, by Babylon, by Assyria, by its own people in the civil war between the Northern and Southern kingdom. It might seem like Israel is just a stump, nothing more than rot and ruin.” Yet, John believes something is about to happen. The history of Israel’s domination is about to be overturned. The great eschatological judgement has come!

John is announcing God’s coming rule. He is making way for God’s vice-regent to come baptizing with “The Holy Spirit and Fire.” And when God rules His promises are fulfilled. This vice-regent is a Davidic king who is coming to return to the throne of Israel. There will be an idealized king, an ideal David. A David, filled with the justice and the righteousness of God—A David who defends the poor—A David who, in the words of Isaiah, “shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.”

This is a scary proposition; this is a proclamation not to be taken lightly. When the religious leaders came down to the river Jordan where John was baptizing, they did not fully grasp this fact.

“He sees what you really have done!” says John. “Seriously! Repent! For the one that is coming sees the inner heart, he gazes beneath the fear of wrath, down to the center of your soul! Do you really want to draw attention to yourself with a fearful repentance, a repentance of convenience, of cowardliness… of covenant? That Abraham stuff isn’t going to cover you! This man who is coming sees things as they are, and he’s going to separate out the wheat from the chaff, and ‘the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire’.”

Here is seems John the Baptist is channeling Jonathan Edwards, preacher of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” fame, who wrote, “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.”… or perhaps Johnathan Edwards’ was channeling John the Baptist. At any rate, John is calling for repentance and warning that presumptions of righteousness are just not going to cut it, for he, “shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.”

An image that comes to my mind when I think of the difference between exterior and interior, between perception and reality, an image from my experiences with Mkate wa Leo, the homeless ministry my seminary is involved in, is Philadelphia’s City Hall. It is located in the center of the city. The iconic Love Park is near by, as is our slightly less famous landmark, the giant clothespin found in Center Square Plaza. City Hall a large beautiful building, Pennsylvania’s founder William Penn stands in statue form atop it. The mayor has an office there; the city council meets there.

But there is another side, an underside if you will, to this place. Underneath this building there is a series of underground walkways leading to SEPTA public transportation and to several shops. Off to one side, past an elevator, there is a fairly vacant section. Here, on hard concrete floors, propped against unyielding concrete pillars, one can find the homeless. Collapsed cardboard boxes for both pillow and bed, the far corner used as a urinal, this is where they live. A far cry from the powers above—the power brokers, and deal makers. This above ground monument, is in reality a mausoleum, a white washed tomb. If one uproots this stump the roots show, the underside appears.

“The worst thing about being homeless” I was once told, “is that people don’t see you, its like you become invisible.” This statement was later affirmed by Philadelphia’s own head of the Office of Supportive Housing. “Some people believe ‘the ideal solution is to do something so they can’t visibly see the homeless.” [1] Looking at the dual nature of the City Hall and noticing the action of looking away from the homeless, how can we say anything other than “Repent!” For he, “shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.”

Philadelphia has a serious homeless problem. People are living in destitution right underneath our noses and embedded in the very bowls of our city, and yet we have put on magical blinders that have given us such tunnel vision that we do not see our sisters and brothers suffering on the street. Our vision has become myopic, but more than that it has been curved in upon itself. After all why do we refuse to see? Because it would inconvenience us—because it would take time out of our day—because it might force us to see the similarity between we and they, I and thou.

The neglect of our neighbor has gotten so bad—the crowds of homeless in center city have become so gigantic—that even the most firmly entrenched blinders have scrapped against and been jarred by the homeless. The Mayor elect has described the situation so: “when day turns to dusk, Center City becomes ‘a Philadelphia version of a South African shantytown’.” [2] Having been so offended by squalor in the city streets action is being taken. There is a political solution in the works here in Philadelphia. Instead of the band-aid of shelters and handouts, the very area I have focused my own energies on, the city will focus on getting people houses. This is wonderful, no doubt about it! This really will help people, transform lives, and maybe even the city!

Yet, John the Baptist, informed by Isaiah and bristling at Pharisaic falsity, echoes in my ears. “Seriously! Repent! For the one that is coming sees the inner heart, he gazes beneath the fear of wrath, down to the center of your soul!” The problem of homelessness in Philadelphia is not simply sociological. We are still a people moved only by shantytowns in our backyards. We still have magical blinders bound to our eyes like perverse phylacteries. We are still curved in upon ourselves. The root problem of the eyes, of human indifference to the despoilment of the image of God indelibly possessed by our brothers and sisters, has not been changed. The root and foundation of our personal City Hall is still build in blindness.

I feel that the three words immediately after today’s gospel reading are so important to remember and read when reflecting upon the fire of John the Baptist, “Then Jesus came.”

The mighty King of Israel, the Great and Terrible Judge, this hatchet swinging hack, this thresher of men, pitchfork in hand, is none other than Lord Jesus. If there is anyone we hope can straighten out sight and heal hearing it would be he. Jesus who makes the blind see and the deaf hear. The anointed who is baptized with sinner folk, the son of man who has no place to lay his head. Yes, the ax is at the edge of the rotten stump, ready to uproot the whole thing. But that ax is not picked up; it sits there by the tree, rusting. Instead, a tiny leaf pops out of that old stump; a shoot of green stretches out of the dead tree trunk.

This is not fantasy—nor something located exclusively in Jesus’ generation, recorded for our mere edification—nor something we can only hope for in the future. We are caught up between these two times, yearning for both Christ’s resurrection and the general resurrection. And here we are given a foretaste. Radical transformation rooted in other centered love is possible. New birth is possible.

A little over five years ago now I was volunteering at a homeless shelter in Wyoming, transporting laundry and donations by van. Sometimes a shelter resident would ride with and help me load or unload things.

There was one resident in particular who would ride with me often. He happened to have a swastika prominently tattooed on his forehead. We worked together for several weeks and during that time I did my best to pretend I didn’t see his tattoo. I put on my blinders, because his appearance made me uncomfortable.

Then one day we were driving along and he said to me, “I know you look at it.”

“Look at what?” I asked.

“The swastika,” he replied.

I was this close to responding “What swastika,” but, by that time, I was staring at his forehead instead of the road, so I replied guiltily, “yeah. I do.”

“I got it while I was in prison down in Denver,” he said. This is, of course, just the kind of thing you want to hear while alone with a guy twice your size.

“Oh.” I said, looking back at the road.

He then told me how he had hated blacks and latinos, though he used much stronger language than that.

“Oh,” I replied again, limply.

He continued, “Then I got out. No landlord wanted an ex-con as a renter. The only place that would let me in was an African American co-op. It took a while, but I just couldn’t hate them any more.”

Christ turns us toward our brothers and sisters, so that we may see! That we may, like Francis of Assisi, turn to a leper and see Christ. That we may see a branch rise up from the root of Jessie. That we might see the kingdom of God, painfully not yet here, yet extraordinarily already here.

Amen and Alleluia.

1 http://www.philly.com/inquirer/hot_topics/15848292.html

2 IBID

Sermon Title: "Poverty: So What?"

2007-04-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Weber
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
First Place, April 2007 Round

Let us pray: “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.”¹

This morning, we consider what it means to be a church to the fallen, broken world that we live in. No elaborate proofs or logical arguments are needed; we need only go to the local homeless shelter or walk down one of the streets of the city to see that this earth is broken in some fundamental way. Let us consider the Church’s role in the fight against poverty, the Church’s treasure, and what should be done with this treasure. In order to better understand what the Church’s response should be to the penniless and destitute, let us look at our Gospel lesson. On the face of it, the reading doesn’t seem to point to Good News at all. We are informed of our duties by Jesus: feed the poor, give water to the thirsty, be welcoming and hospitable, and visit those in prison. He threatens us with the prospect of eternal damnation if we do not do these things. Where is the Gospel in that? Put aside your indignation at the difficulty of these saying for a moment. Instead, try to look at this passage from the perspective of someone who is hungry, thirsty, in need of shelter or is in prison. Isn’t this section good news to them? Is it not the promise of care and compassion to the needy by the followers of Christ? Indeed, this passage is good news to those in need. Not only that, it is good news to those of us blessed in our own lives with the resources to help others. The gospel lesson shows us who are blessed how to be a blessing to others. In order to further understand the role of scripture, the Church, and the members of the Church in the eradication of poverty and its causes, let us look at a branch of theology dedicated to this task: liberation theology.

My brief history of liberation theology is indebted to the article on the subject in the New & Enlarged Handbook of Christian Theology. Liberation theology started in Latin America in the 1960s. It came about as a result of many factors: the defeat of democratic governments in military coups, raised hopes for a better economic future, the decline of Roman Catholicism, and the increased social awareness caused by Vatican II among Roman Catholic priests, monks and nuns.² The term was first coined by Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Roman Catholic theologian in his article “Toward a Theology of Liberation,” printed in 1968.³ This is the point at which liberation theology began to be defined and have an impact on the lives of those in Latin America.

You might say, “That’s great, but what is liberation theology?” It is “. . . a theology whose main thrust is precisely to understand and nurture [the struggle of the poor against oppression] in light of the Christian faith, and to illuminate and deepen the Christian faith with the challenges of that specific life experience.”⁴ In other words, when viewing the world this way, “real life” informs theological reflection and vice versa. As Luther says, “It is by living, no – more – by dying and being damned to hell that one becomes a theologian, not by knowing, reading, or speculating.”⁵ With this outlook, thinking about God and the church does not happen in a vacuum. A Christian’s visit to a home, workplace or business should shape his or her reflection in the study and reading of the Bible. This duty of theological reflection is not excluded to clergy: it is the calling of every Christian in their respective communities. So, liberation theology in a nutshell: the theology that uses a lens of what is liberating to view the Bible, theology and history. It doesn’t come about by sitting in a study, reading about it, but rather by reaching out to those in pain and suffering. Liberation theology has done great things by reminding the church that it exists not to exist, but to serve.

For all the good it has done, liberation theology has a fatal flaw. Gutiérrez illuminates it with his words, “. . . charity has been fruitfully rediscovered as the center of the Christian life.”⁶ Here we must depart from liberation theology: charity should not be the center of the Christian life, or the life of the church.

The life of Christ refutes the idea that the aim of the Christian life is to escape or be liberated from earthly suffering, the idea of liberation theology. The God-man who called his followers to “take up their crosses and follow”⁷ is clearly not promising liberation from oppressive rulers and powers: he promises the opposite! The coming of Palm Sunday also points us away from the conclusions of liberation theology: the crowds looked for a political leader to free them from the oppression of the Romans. Instead, they got a sovereign on a donkey, a king on a cross.

Nor can we recruit Paul to support our ideas of flight from earthly troubles. He writes, “. . . everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted . . .”⁸ This is hardly a promise of freedom from earthly suffering. Nor can we recruit the martyrs to our cause: they did not try to slowly reform the Roman Empire to be more congenial to their religion; rather they embraced the persecution and paid the ultimate price.

We cannot pretend that we can liberate the world on our own, either. Despite how many programs we start or how many people we feed, we still fall short. As Paul says in our second lesson, “For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.”⁹ By this we see that we cannot do good works on our own, we need God to come and save us from our sins.

All this begs the question, “What should the center of life be?” According to the 62nd of Luther’s 95 theses, “The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.”¹⁰ Therefore, the center of life both in the church and in an individual Christian’s life must be that treasure – the gospel found in Jesus Christ.

What, then, does the gospel of Jesus Christ mean? It means that with all our faults, our oppression of others, our passivity in helping those who are suffering, we have forgiveness of sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Not by what we do, but by what Christ has already done for us. Our first lesson points to this with the words:

For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will seek out my flock. I will rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered on a cloudy, dark day. I will bring them out from among the peoples and gather them from foreign countries; I will bring them to their own land.¹¹

This shows us God’s care for His people, that he retrieves them from the places they were scattered and nurtures them. In the same way, God cares for and nurtures us, and rescues us from sin through Christ.

Thus we see the shortcomings of liberation theology and the true treasure of the church. Here is the good news: by what Jesus has already done, we have eternal life and can begin the walk of discipleship with Christ.

However, by tossing in our lot with Jesus, we become involved in taking up our crosses and following him. These crosses involve some difficult things: being called to share the good news with those who might not wish to hear, suffering for that good news, and serving others (the poor and those oppressed).

To some, it might seem like I have just played a mean trick. You might say, “You’re right back where you were before you went off on that Gospel rant!” On the contrary, it is very important that we put gospel, not works (even the good work of eradicating poverty and advocating for the oppressed) at the center of life. It is like a car: if we toss out the engine, we can’t power the wheels. However, if we keep the engine, we can have the wheels as well. The gospel of Jesus is the engine of church: by it we are powered.

Martin Luther once defined this paradox with the following: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none,” and “a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”¹² In other words, our freedom in the gospel is to be used as an occasion to serve. Luther points out that we should not live for ourselves, but for all people. As Christ served others, so are Christians called to serve. Acts of service should be a natural and joyful response to what God has done for us, not to earn our salvation.

Indeed, as C.S. Lewis points out in The Weight of Glory, each human is an eternal being. This concern with eternity must lead the church and its members to preach the news of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ to others.

Looking at Psalm 100 in this light, we can see that we are made by God, and do not make ourselves. This fact must urge us to care for all people as ones made and shaped by God, not self-made people whom we can ignore. Our life must also point to God with our joyful praise.

By this view, we can now regain the witness of Paul: he lived for Christ and because he lived for Christ, he lived for others. He was not afraid to exhort Philemon to free Onesimus from earthly slavery.13 He also called the Corinthians to give money for the poor in Jerusalem.14 James confronted the hypocrisy of Christians who welcomed the rich warmly, but treated the poor badly with these words:

My brothers and sisters, do not show prejudice if you possess faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if someone comes into your assembly wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, and a poor person enters in filthy clothes, do you pay attention to the one who is finely dressed and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and to the poor person, “You stand over there,” or “Sit on the floor”? If so, have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters! Did not God choose the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor!¹⁵

This shows us that we are called to not only serve the poor, but we are also called by God to treat them as brothers and sisters, not as lesser people. Thus, by our Christian freedom, we are called to love and serve others.

So now we seem to be back where we started with our Gospel lesson. Now that we have seen why we are called to serve the poor, we can better respond to Jesus’ call to love and serve others and to also defend them from the difficulties and oppressions they might face. On this day when we consider poverty and service, let us thank God for his gift of saving us from the spiritual poverty of sin and consider how we might use our riches to serve the needs of others. Amen.

1 Psalm 19:14
2 Otto Maduro, “Liberation Theology – Latin American,” in New & Enlarged Handbook of Christian Theology, ed. Donald Musser and Joseph Price (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 301.
3 Ibid, 299.
4 Ibid, 300.
5 Qtd. in Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 7.
6 Gustavo Gutiérrez, "Theology: A Critical Reflection," in A Theology of Liberation, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 6.
7 Mark 8:34
8 2 Timothy 3:12
9 Romans 7:18-20.
10 Luther, qtd in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 2nd ed. Timothy Lull, ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 44.
11 Ezekiel 34:11-13.
12 Martin Luther, Three Treatises, 2nd rev. ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1970), 377.
13 Philemon
14 1 Corinthians 16:1-4
15 James 2:1-6

Sermon Title: "Black Sunday"

2007-04-16T20:30:00.000-07:00

Judy K. Mai
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Second Place, April 2007 Round

Good morning. Welcome to our first annual “Black Sunday” worship service. Today is about recognizing the sin that is in us and around us and deciding to try and do something about it. From the time we are born, we live with the effects of other people’s sin and then with the effects of our own sin. We see pettiness and prejudice, greed and selfishness in others, and if we are honest, we see it in ourselves too.

This is the first Sunday in Lent. Lent is a time that we have set aside to be really truthful with ourselves and with God. Now is the time to stop pretending that we are better than we really are. God already knows our shortcomings. If we are going to be completely honest, we have to admit that we have failed God miserably. In our first lesson for today, Ezekiel describes God’s justice in terms of sheep and goats in a pasture. Where do we fit in to this analogy? It is unfortunate, but I suspect that we are the strong animals that have taken more than our fair share of the pasture and are polluting the rest. This passage frightens me because it makes me think of things like world hunger, global warming and acid rain. What are we going to say when the Lord asks, “Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?”

As Lutherans, it is pretty easy to get too comfortable in our spirituality. We have been taught since Sunday school that we are all sinners and all saints at the same time. We know God loves us and forgives our sins. We read John 3:16 “For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son so that whoever believes in him won’t perish, but have eternal life.” St. Paul’s word to the Ephesians is the foundation of our Lutheran faith. It is by grace that you have been saved, through faith—not from yourselves, it is a gift from God. It’s not by works, so none of us can boast.” We Lutherans know that we are saved and that it isn’t because of anything we have done.

The sad truth is that we know we couldn’t even come close to saving ourselves if we had to. Every time I read the second lesson for today, I marvel at how well it describes me. I do not understand my own actions. I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I can will what is right but I can’t do it. Has that ever happened to you? You set out to be a good person, to avoid a certain behavior and you end up doing it anyway. I tell myself I am not going to gossip and that I am going to be charitable and patient. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I find that I have not been anything like the person I set out to be. If I am honest with myself, this makes me very uncomfortable.

Today’s Gospel lesson should make us all uncomfortable. It is one of the saddest stories in the Bible, or anywhere else for that matter. You have a group of people who think they are righteous. The second coming—the end of the world as we know it happens. These people expect to be welcomed into Heaven with open arms and Jesus does not even recognize them as his sheep. He says I was hungry, thirsty, alone, sick, naked and in prison and you didn’t lift a finger to help me. Of course they think it is a mistake, because they never saw Jesus in trouble. He tells them, just as you ignored the least of these—the most unfortunate members of society—you ignored me.

I think this passage should make us more than uncomfortable. It makes me ashamed. Think about it—Jesus is the starving orphan in Malawi. He is the single mother on food stamps who is in line in front of you at the grocery store. Jesus is the homeless man huddled beneath the Hudson Bridge. The bridge that I drive under every time I go to Luther Seminary. Jesus is a member of that family who camps at the park all summer because they don’t have a home. Raise your hand if you did all these things in the past month: fed the hungry, welcomed a stranger, gave someone clothing, took care of someone who was sick, and visited someone in prison. (Pause.) I didn’t either. We are goats. In the story, the goats went away into eternal punishment.

We know we deserve punishment for letting the world get like it is. There is so much poverty. Last week Pastor talked about the feeding stations that our church is trying to help support in Malawi. I know he talked about it already, but I just can’t get over the fact that sometimes they can only afford to feed people once a week. I hope the work our synod is doing can help. We certainly deserve punishment when there is a whole continent with not enough to eat and one of our nation’s biggest health problems is obesity. How could we not deserve a punishment for that?

The poverty in the world is over-whelming. Even the poverty in our own nation seems insurmountable. There are 36 million people living in poverty in the United States. Sometimes it is too hard to imagine doing something that would help to solve such a huge problem. Sometimes it is easy to push this problem to the backs of our minds because we don’t see it everyday. Maybe it would be a small start if we concentrated on our own county—the people we see all the time. There are 971 families in St. Croix County that earn less than 15,000 a year. Many of these families have an adult working full-time. If you are a minimum wage earner and you work 40 hours a week without taking a single vacation day, you make only $13,520 a year. I don’t know what the answer is, but something is wrong when a person can work hard every day and still not be able to pay their rent and feed their children.

Living in poverty in Wisconsin is not the same as being hungry in Malawi. Hunger in Africa is rampant. This means that in some areas there is nothing to eat. Here in Wisconsin, to be poor means you often don’t know where your next meal is coming from. People who study hunger call this being “food insecure.” It is a terrible thing. 407 of these families have children under the age of 5. I cringe when I imagine my own 3 year old daughter, Olivia, in this situation. What would I do if she asked for something to eat and I didn’t have anything to give her? What if I couldn’t keep a roof over her head and we had to live in a car or under the Hudson Bridge?

We do so little to help the less fortunate in our society and it is the main thing that Jesus asks of us. You can’t be a Christian and not be concerned about the poor. There are several thousand verses in the Bible on the poor and God's response to injustice. Our black wristbands and our black box are a small response to this call to help the poor. The donations for our wrist bands will go to support Salvation Army’s Grace Place. Grace Place takes in people who have no where else to go. The staff there also works to help people not to become homeless in the first place. They provide emergency assistance to keep people from getting evicted from the homes they have. They also work to teach people the life skills they need to help them achieve independence and self-sufficiency.

The black box we have in the narthex will be used to collect food for the Five Loaves Food Pantry. It will help those 971 families in our area that can’t always make ends meet. These are modest efforts and they won’t be enough. At least we will be doing something. We will wear our wristbands for all of Lent to help us remember the poor and to be more honest about our own shortcomings. We don’t want Jesus to say He doesn’t recognize us when He comes again.

We are right to worry when we hear the Gospel lesson because we know we are goats and not sheep most of the time. The good news is that we have a God who can turn goats into sheep. We have been adopted into God’s family. St. Paul writes that we are children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

You can’t stop being a child of God, no matter how bad you mess up. That is another thing that your wristband should remind you of when you wear it from now until Easter. Just as we heard in the psalm for today, God’s love endures forever. He made us and we are his. Nothing changes that.

My preaching professor, Mike Rogness, once told a story about love and adoption. He lived in Germany in the 1960’s. One of the things he did there was work as a chaplain for the military. He became very close to a group of other Americans who worshiped together. This group included a married couple who were in the process of trying to adopt a child when they had been sent to Germany. The chaplain suggested they try and adopt a child in Germany. The couple took his advice and in a very short time, they received a little boy. He was seven years old and his name was Frederick. Frederick had been moved from one foster home to another and the authorities were very pleased to have someone offer him a permanent home.

The couple was happy to have him, but there was one problem. Frederick did not speak any English and the couple did not speak any German. Every Sunday the chaplain would come over for lunch and translate for them. It must have been hard to save up all their questions for a week. One day after church, the chaplain saw the boy waving to him from the window of his parents’ station wagon. He motioned for the chaplain to come over because he had something to tell him. The boy was grinning from ear to ear, so the chaplain expected to hear some sort of good news. Frederick said, “My father spanked me,” and he kept smiling. Of course the chaplain thought this was a really odd reaction for the boy to have after getting spanked and he was anxious to get the whole story.

At lunch he found out that Frederick had been trying very hard to be good, but that he had done something he wasn’t supposed to and his father spanked him. Frederick ran to his room, threw himself on the bed and cried inconsolably. His father didn’t understand his reaction because what Frederick had done was not very serious and his father had not swatted him very hard. When Frederick was finally able to talk he explained, in what little English he had picked up, that at all his foster homes, he had been sent away forever when he had misbehaved. He was crying because he thought he would be sent away again. The father put his arms around Frederick and explained in what little German he had, that Frederick was his son forever and that no matter how often he misbehaved he would always love him.

Fortunately, that is how it is for us. Through Christ’s death and resurrection we are adopted into God’s family and our behavior doesn’t change that. We do God’s will in response to that amazing love, not out of fear of punishment. St. Paul said it best, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…..Amen.

Sermon Title: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

2007-04-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

Nicholas R. Hopman
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Third Place, April 2007 Round

Ezekiel 34:11-24
Psalm 100
Romans 7:15-25
Matthew 25:31-46

God once spoke through his prophet Hosea saying, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus twice quotes Hosea’s most famous declaration (Matt. 9:13, 12:7). This distinction between mercy and sacrifice, points to the distinction between law and gospel. It creates a type of religion that is foreign to the world and its thinking. God’s desire is not to hold us in subjugation as lesser beings than the almighty. God does not want to selfishly glory in sacrifices offered to him.

Instead God wants mercy. He himself has mercy on us. What is all of creation, but God’s mercy? In Luther’s Small Catechism, he explains that God has made us and all creatures; he has given us and preserves all our powers. Why has God done all this? “Out of pure fatherly and divine goodness and mercy, without my merit or worthiness.” All of creation is God’s free gift, God’s mercy to us. God likes to create. He likes to have mercy. God gains glory for himself not through sacrifice or religious ritual, but through having mercy on his creatures. God is jealous because he wants his creatures’ faith all for himself. But this jealousy is for our own good. Mercy comes through faith in the merciful one.

God’s mercy is so plentiful and abundant that it should spill out of you onto your neighbors. Mercy is the end of law and ethics. The law demands that we respect our neighbors and help them to an extent, but when the gospel comes God’s mercy is out of control. Christ did not stop at giving ten percent of his money to charity. He didn’t even stop with his healing miracles. He gave his life in order to have mercy. He who knew no sin became sin that we might becomes the righteousness of God (2nd Cor. 5:21).

What does this mean for how we live our lives? For us who through Christ have become the righteousness of God? There’s nothing left for us to do but have mercy. I suppose that you could say that we live our lives by an ethic of mercy. But ethics are all bound up in trying to do the right thing to keep ourselves pure and sinless. Christ had mercy by becoming sin. Because of Christ, we no longer have to worry about ethics, but are free to have mercy. We are free to get ourselves dirty in the sinful world and have mercy on sinners. We are free as Luther said to become “little Christs” for our neighbors.

This overflowing mercy is what Christ is describing in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. He is describing the fruit of faith. Faith is created by Christ’s mercy, and it overflows onto the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. This is the religion that Christ desires us to practice.

As God once said speaking through Amos, “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. (Amos 5:21-22)” God does not desire ceremonial religion. Of course, we no longer offer burnt offerings to God, but do you think that God feels any differently about our so-called Eucharistic offerings of praise? Does he love our solemn assembling for worship or does he hate it?

I am convinced that many people think that one becomes holy in God’s eyes by giving him an hour on Sunday mornings. We see this as a great act of sacrifice. We fit in an hour for God amidst our hectic schedules.

This is a false understanding of worship and faith. We come to worship not to make ourselves holy or increase our holiness. We do not come to offer sacrifices to God. We come to worship because we are sinners and we need to be forgiven.

Worship then is not a sacrifice of a small part of our lives to God. Worship engulfs our lives. The mercy, which we receive from God in his word and sacrament, spills out of worship into the world.

The doctrine of vocation was at the heart of the Wittenberg Reformation. Luther claimed that we serve God through our vocations in the world. We serve God by serving our neighbor, just as much as the clergy serves God by giving away God’s word to his creatures. So for Luther all vocations were given by God, and serving your neighbor by giving her food or water was just as holy as serving her by preaching the word to her.

This is why Luther raged against medieval monasticism. He claimed that becoming a monk or a nun was to become the servant of the devil rather than God. This was not because celibacy is always wrong, or because living together with others in a communal environment is wrong. Luther did not like monasticism because the theology of his day taught that it was more holy to be a monk or a nun than a husband or a wife. Furthermore, monasticism was seen as a way of withdrawing oneself from the sinful world to have more perfect communion with God. Luther abhorred monasticism because monks and nuns did not serve their neighbors, but ran away from them and avoided them.

Christ’s words in Matthew twenty-five shatter medieval theology. They show us that if we want to be close to God, if we want to be close to Christ, we must feed the least of his brothers. One comes into contact with God in the sinful world by having mercy on those with whom Christ identifies.

No doubt there will be many seemingly religious people who on the judgment day will be cast into the eternal fire by Christ. They will be people who thought they were serving Jesus just fine. They think by showing up to church once a week, or by giving a few alms, that they have gained favor with Jesus. But Jesus wants us to practice our religion; he wants us to serve our neighbors all the time. He wants us to do this especially out in the world where we meet the naked, the sick, the starving, and the dying. Jesus does not want a religion of so-called family values. He does not want us to condemn those who have struggled to care for themselves. He wants mercy.

But you poor people, those of you who are sick or poor and cannot take care of yourselves, have no fear. Perhaps your neighbors might neglect you, but God himself won’t. God usually acts through creatures. He usually raises up a woman or a man to care for those of you who are troubled. But through his prophet Ezekiel God has promised that a day is coming when he will care for you himself. Listen to his promises to you:

For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness… and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. (Ezekiel 34:11-12, 13-15)

Listen to what he says to you who are lost and broken in this world, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. (Ezekiel 34:16)” God is even strong enough to overcome our sin. He sends Christ to be the good Shepard to the poor and the sick, even when sinners neglect them. You are the ones with whom Christ identifies (Matt. 25).

It is tempting to try to deny Christ’s words in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. It is tempting to claim that he somehow does not mean what he says. But Jesus means it when he talks about the eternal fire and sending some people there on the judgment day to suffer eternal punishment. If there is going to be any hope for us, who sin and do not always feed the hungry and care for the sick (Romans 7) it is not in denying Christ’s words, but through Christ’s words and sticking to what he actually says.

The amazing thing about what Christ tells us about the day when he will come in glory is that those who are sent to the eternal fire and those who inherit his kingdom are surprised. They are both surprised that they have either served or not served Christ. Christ is not telling a parable here. He does not say, “the kingdom of heaven will be like this…(Matt. 25:1)” as he says at the beginning of the parable in the first half of the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. Instead Christ begins this story by saying, “when.” “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him…(Matt. 25: 31-32)” Christ is telling us how things will be. We will actually be surprised on the judgment day when Christ rewards us for serving our neighbors and punishes us for neglecting them.

In order to understand what Christ is doing in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, we have to go back to the beginning and understand the original sin. Adam and Eve were in the garden and they had words from God. God told them to eat from all the trees in the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told them that eating from that tree would be bad for them. God said to them, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die, (Gen. 3:3)” but then the serpent comes and tells Eve that God has an ulterior motive. He says that God’s words do not simply mean what they say, but that God does not want them to eat from the tree because they will become like God, knowing the difference between good and evil. So Adam and Eve believe the serpent. They look beyond God’s words and we sinners have been doing that ever since. We look behind God’s words for a deeper motive. A motive that is not for us, but is against us. We reject God’s mercy, and desire to have a wrathful God, whom, rather than trust, we can attempt to defeat with our actions and become like God.

The same thing has happened with our understanding of the story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew twenty-five. Christ is telling us how things will be, but we think he has ulterior motives. We take him to be giving us cliff notes on the final judgment, giving us the answers so we can study them before the final test. But if Christ were merely telling us what to do or how we can get ourselves into heaven, if he were merely giving us new ethics to live by, then no one would be surprised on the judgment day. If Christ were replacing the system of religious sacrifice with a system of ethics based on caring for our neighbors, then you and I would know before the judgment day how well we have been feeding the poor and clothing the naked. We would know that we are serving Christ when we do such things. Those who do not serve the poor would be prepared and ready to suffer the eternal fire.

Instead Christ says that both the goats and the sheep will be surprised. This is because Christ is talking about the good works, which spring forth out of faith. Faith’s works are spontaneous and they are not motivated by fear of punishment or hopes of reward. Faith serves the least of Christ’s sisters and brothers simply because that is what faith does. Faith does not serve the poor because it is using them to serve Christ and get into heaven. Faith serves the poor for their own sake. That is why the faithful, even having read Matthew twenty-five, will be surprised on the judgment day when they learn that through serving their poor neighbors, they have been serving Christ.

God’s love is what Luther called “a lost love (eine verlorende Liebe).” He makes it rain on the good and the evil (Matt. 5:45). He gives his love away even though we abuse it. This love is often “lost” on us, but God gives it away anyways. So it is for those in whom God’s love creates faith. Believers give away themselves without any consideration of the objects of their love saying “thank you,” without consideration of the judgment day. The damned might very well spend more time worrying about ethics and the law than the faithful. They might have value systems and belief systems that say serving the poor is all that matters and Christ and faith are irrelevant, but this will only lead to their surprise on the judgment day. When you use the poor to establish your own righteousness and show the world that you alone are caring or wise, you are not treating the suffering the way Christ wants them treated. Faith alone does the works that Christ describes it doing in Matthew twenty-five.

Matthew twenty-five has often been taken to directly contradict what Paul says about the righteousness of faith. It has been taken to reassert works of the law as the way to righteousness. But faith alone serves the least of Christ’s sisters and brothers. Christ is not describing works of the law, but works of mercy. The faithful will be rewarded for these good works, but the reward does not motivate the works. Your neighbors’ needs motivate your works, just as our need motivated Christ to come down and die for us. Faith is the great miracle that, as Christ says in another place in Matthew, gives alms with the right hand while the left hand does not know what the right is doing (Matt. 6:3). This is why you faithful sheep will be surprised on the judgment day.

We always try to turn righteousness into a system. This can be a system of sacrifice, or worship, or charity. We like to do this so that we can then try to beat the system. How often do I need to go to church to be saved? How much money do I need to give to church? How much is enough to give to charity? Is helping out at the homeless shelter once a month enough to satisfy Jesus demands in Matthew twenty-five? But Christ is not installing one more system. He wants overflowing mercy. He wants you to give your lives away for the poor and the suffering. “Those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 10:39)” This kind of sacrifice and love can only come from faith.

So where does faith belong? What do we have to believe in? We have the one who told us about the judgment day. We have the one speaking in Matthew twenty-five. This Jesus, whom we have often let go hungry, by not feeding the least of his hungry brothers, was crucified. By whom? By you, by me. On the cross he was naked and we gave him no clothing, thirsty and we gave him no drink, sick unto death and we watched him die. Considering all this, listen to what he had to say about you while he was hanging on his cross: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34)” Even this sin Christ forgave.

He is the same one who taught us to pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. (Matt. 6:12)” About this petition he said, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matt. 6:14-15)”

So too you who have been hungry and have been betrayed by those who should have feed you as Christ was betrayed, have mercy. Forgive those who trespass against you. You will be greatly rewarded in heaven because you have the greatest opportunity to have mercy. Do not let your fellow sinful goats descend into hell because their sins have not been forgiven. Forgive, as your Father in heaven has forgiven you.

And you who have the means to care for the sick and cloth the naked, you know who you are. Have mercy. Do what you should. Have mercy on the least of Christ’s sisters and brothers just as he has had mercy on you. Have mercy as he has had mercy on us, the worst of sinners. No doubt, you will find out like the apostle Paul that you fail in serving your neighbors. You will find out that you “do not do the good” you “want, but the evil” you “do not want is what” you “do. (Romans 7:19)” Sin is so strong and deep that even you saints will be sinners till you die and are raised. It will often look to you like all you do is sin, but even in your sinning and failures you will be serving your neighbors and Christ in them, even though you do not realize it (Matt. 25).

But before you go out into the world, take a moment to pause from your labors. Take a rest from serving the poor. Take a break from your thirst and sickness. Take a break from forgiving sin. Take a rest from giving mercy and come receive mercy. Come receive the mercy that gives you something to believe in. Come receive the mercy that creates the faith to do the good works Jesus describes. Come receive the body and blood of Christ given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

Rejoice in Christ’s sacrament. In the forgiveness of sins he takes goats and makes us into his holy sheep (Psalm 100:3).

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing. Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. (Psalm 100)

Sermon Title: “My sheep hear my voice,“”

2007-04-16T19:00:00.001-07:00

Steven Broers
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Fourth Place, April 2007 Round

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.“ Here is God, portrayed as Donald Trump, separating his hopeful employees into two groups and getting ready his firing finger. The problem is we don’t know when the final episode will be playing. When will we know who is fired from the kingdom of God and who is not?

Or does this text remind you of another T.V. show? American Idol? American Idol has three judges that give their opinions from week to week, but, really, the viewers who are text messaging and making the phone calls actually make the choices. And we like it that way; in fact, we love it! We don’t really care who actually wins, we just like to make the comparisons. Sinners like to sit in the judgment seat. We watch, compare and decide. So when Jesus starts talking about separating the sheep from the goats you can bet on one thing . . . Everyone has got their own opinion about who’s gonna make it and who’s not.

Who are the sheep and who are the goats? Is that the question on your mind? Well, that is not the question brought out in this text. The primary issue is not who is a sheep or what is a sheep but when do you find out? When will this event take place? When? That’s the big question, and it is even more important to find out that answer than to find out whether you are a sheep or a goat.

But, doesn’t it matter whether you are a sheep or a goat? Well, yes, it matters a great deal. However, I do not believe any of you are truly worried about this matter at the present moment. Why not? Because you figure you’ve still got time. Time to repent. Time to make a change. Time to start doing the things a sheep does and give up the goatly life.

No doubt you’ve already made a list of the things you could’ve done and should’ve done to those who were hungry and thirsty, sick and in prison. You probably have another list of what you could do and should do from now on. Whether or not you ever find an opportunity to exchange your guilt into something worthwhile, perhaps God will be happy enough that you at least feel bad and want to change. And, of course, when Jesus Christ returns, perhaps you will have made enough changes in your life to make the cut.

Sometimes we believe our lives are like a season of American Idol or like the goal of life is to win a job with Donald Trump. We just want to survive to the next week so we can keep playing the game. As long as we are not the worst at any particular time we’ll still make the cut. We’ve always got a chance to improve. There is always next week. As long as we don’t really mess up, we’ll be fine. There is always that word “When” to fall back on. When is not now. “When” is sometime in the future. A future that is bound to wait for us as long as it takes so we can learn how to be sheep.

Once we have suspended time with the word, “When”, we can put our energy into what we are really interested in: Who? Who are the sheep and who are the goats? We start describing what a sheep and a goat look like. Based on today’s reading, the sheep have clothed the naked, the goats have not. The sheep have fed the hungry, the goats have not. The sheep has visited the sick, the goats have not. But when you hear that God is separating the sheep from the goats, do you really care about the naked, the hungry or the sick? No. You want to do whatever it takes to make the cut. You just want to be God’s choice, or better yet, you want to force his hand so that he’ll have no other decision than to choose you.

So maybe you’ve decided to make a change in your life. Maybe you’ve decided to start acting the way a sheep acts. Perhaps you will begin donating more food and money to the food shelter and feed the hungry. Perhaps you will stand up on behalf of a sexually abused relative and clothe the naked. Perhaps you will volunteer at an AIDS clinic and care for the sick. Perhaps you will swallow your fears and visit those in prison. Amen. Those are all very noble acts of compassion for your fellow neighbor, but is it enough? Enough to make you a sheep?

What about when you looked past someone holding a sign asking for food? Will God look past that? What about the racism we are a part of in America, where people of color are abused and oppressed? Will God speak out against our silence? What about the pesticides used on our farms that poison the water table for those around us? Will God forget those who we have harmed? Make your own list. I’ll make mine as well. As much good as we can do, we have done much worse before and we won’t be stopping until we reach our graves. Like it or not, we act like goats.

The question is not “What is a sheep?” but, “How is a sheep created or made?” Have you made your list? A list of the things you are going to do? Do you think that you can make yourself a sheep by doing those things? If you bark like a dog and eat kibbles and bits, will you soon grow a tail and paws? If you are a goat, and you start acting like a sheep, will you become a sheep? Wooly coat and all? Do you think that this will really work? If not, then you’ll have to trust in another power. A power that has the ability and the desire to create a sheep where there was no sheep before.

In the book of Ezekiel, the Lord God, says, “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak; but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” We want God to choose us because we have chosen to be the best sheep in town with the purest woolen coats and a life full of good works. Well, how’s this for a surprise: You who are fat and strong! You who appear to be the very best sheep of them all! Hear this: You will be destroyed.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.“ This text is not read to encourage you to be a sheep or to be a particular kind of sheep. You don’t need to go on a diet for God or increase your giving to the church. God wants none of that. God wants everything! It’s not about being a sheep or a goat. It’s not about what you are in yourself. Salvation is about what you are in relationship to God. What does God think of you? What are his intentions toward you? Are you blessed or are you cursed? Will he put you on the left or on the right? And when are you going to find out his answer?

I declare to you today that you are a goat. You are fat. You are strong. You will be destroyed. There are no more episodes or immunity idols. When you bring the best that you’ve got before God he sees all that you have is completely worthless. You cannot act like a sheep, because you are a goat! You have run out of time. There is no more room for improvement. God has made his choice. You are not the judge. You are judged lacking. You are judged sinful. In relationship to God, you are dead.

Hear these words of Paul in Romans chapter 7, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is in my flesh. 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 want is what I do. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” And for you, more importantly, who will rescue you from yourself? Who will rescue you from this body of death? What is to be done with the dead you?

God has chosen you in your death. Jesus Christ has come to separate the sheep from the goats and he has found that all his sheep are lost. He looks to his left and sees a pile of corpses, dead goats, strewn like dung across the fields of his beautiful green earth. No one has fed them. No one has given them anything to drink. His beloved sons and daughters lie naked and sick, imprisoned in their own sin. You have believed the biggest lie of all. You were blind and ignorant of the truth. You believed you were a sheep, fat and strong. In fact, you are a goat, sick and dying. A helpless goat before the eternal wrath of God.

What will God do with a dead goat like you? Make a sheep out of you. Give you a new life out of the nothing you are. When? Right now. At this very moment. Your sins are forgiven on account of Jesus Christ. Your death is killed by the good shepherd himself. There is no more time for improvement because Jesus Christ is all in all. You are under his care now. “My sheep hear my voice,“ your Savior declares, “I know them and they follow me, I give them eternal life and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” Your time is up and now there is only eternal life for you.

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” Amen.

Sermon Title: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did also for me.”

2007-04-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

Katya Ouchakof
M.Div. Student, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
Honorable Mention, April 2007 Round

Jesus said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did also for me.”

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

For many summers in my life, I have been blessed enough to spend time in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This is a national wilderness area on the border between Minnesota and Canada, composed of many lakes and rivers, dotted with granite boulders, and connected with vast stretches of evergreen trees. The primary method of transportation through the wilderness is the canoe.

I worked at a church camp near the Boundary Waters, and most of my canoeing and camping experience has been through that organization. My camp had a “wet foot” policy for trail. This means that when we got in and out of the canoe, we would do so in water, while the canoe was still floating, so that we didn’t scrape the bottom of the canoe or puncture holes in it by sitting on rocks or tree roots. As you can imagine, sometimes it was an adventure to be stepping out into water rather than onto solid ground.

There are two things I look for when I’m about to step out of a boat into the water. First, how far down is it to the bottom? It’s much safer to step out into water eight inches deep rather than four feet down. Second, how solid is the bottom? If there is rock down there, it could be flat or sloped, stable or loose, or even slippery and covered in algae. If the bottom is sand or mud, will it be solid enough to hold my weight?

These questions are pretty easy to assess if I am in the first boat coming in to a landing. I will have clear footing and will be able to safely disembark from the canoe without toppling either myself or the boat into the water. So, coming in first, I’ll get out of the boat, unload the gear from the canoe, and carry it up to land.

The people in canoes following me have a harder time of it. They are left with the sand or mud or algae floating in the water that I stirred up. They come in and cannot see to get firm footing, and are more likely to tip their canoe, landing both themselves and their gear in the water.

In this sense, when I go canoeing, I am sometimes like the fat sheep in Ezekiel’s story. I have used the clear water for my own purpose and muddied it up for those who follow me. Maybe you can relate, having been either the one who muddies up the water or the one who comes after and is left struggling, trying to find the sure footing. I know that I can often be like the sheep who eats from the good pasture and tramples the rest, without leaving anything else for those who come after me. I focus on myself instead of the good of the whole flock.

So, I’m in trouble:

God, in the reading from Ezekiel, warns against people like me. We push the chosen ones out of the way to get the good stuff for ourselves, and God wants no more of it! The time has come for the separating of the fat sheep and the lean sheep, or for the separating of the sheep and the goats.

The Gospel reading today also addresses the separation of God’s chosen ones from those whose actions deny God. Jesus reminds us that when we do good things for other people, we are serving him. When we fail to think of others, we have fallen away from God.

It’s really a matter of attentiveness. When we are attentive to the needs of others, Jesus says, we are serving him.

When we miss seeing another’s need, we have passed up an opportunity to serve Christ.

That is to say, when we see that someone is hungry or thirsty or lonely or cold or sick or imprisoned—when we see that need, we have a duty to fulfill it. Jesus expects us to fulfill it. And our reward is eternal life.

This sounds a little bit—or a lot—like works righteousness, I know, but let’s try to ignore that fact for the moment and focus on Jesus’ words.

Jesus is describing a scene that is coming, when all the nations are lined up before him, and he lets the sheep pass on the right but sends the goats off to the left. The sheep are those people who have followed his example in serving others. The sheep are those people who have taken stories from the prophets to heart, like today’s from Ezekiel. The sheep are those people who have helped their neighbor in times of need.

The goats are the ones who haven’t done so. Notice that the goats aren’t the ones who caused the hunger or thirst or loneliness or cold or illness or imprisonment to begin with—the goats are not people who actively harmed other people. The goats are just the ones who didn’t bother to pay attention to the needs of their neighbors. They allowed suffering to continue by their apathy and inaction.

So who do I want to be?

Well, obviously I want to be the one on the right of the judge. I want to be the sheep. I want to be the one earning eternal salvation.

But my actions betray me.

For, as Paul writes,

“what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ... For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”

Or, to summarize,

“I don’t understand what I’m doing!”

I try to be the good follower of Jesus, but I get in the way of myself. My own sinful nature won’t allow me to do all the good things I wish I could. I try, but my personal desires get in the way and I fall short. I waste my time on computer games instead of volunteering in the community. I forget to bring in donations when my church is having a particular drive. I spend money on luxury teas and coffees instead of the fair trade variety that many churches have available.

And I’m guessing that I’m not the only one in this situation. Usually—no, always—we humans fail to live up to our God-given potential for doing good. We sin and fall short of the glory of God. We forget to put others first, and instead focus on our own needs.

This is where the good news happens. Just when I’m about to give up and give in to sin, because I can’t seem to find a way out of my own selfish actions, Jesus comes along with my salvation. He comes, offering himself. He takes care of the debt I owe to God.

I have tried to help others and to put them before myself, but I have failed. I still get out of the boat first and muddy up the water. The difference—the good news—is that God keeps the water clear for the next boat coming in. Despite my muddying up the water, God makes sure that all the boats get in to the landing safely.

Jesus’ grace takes care of my shortcomings, and yours, and praise be to God! This is not to say that we should “sin more, that grace may abound,” but it means that when we can’t find a way out of our sinful nature, grace will shine a little light through. Grace will clear up that muddy water. Jesus himself fills in where you and I fall short.

With Jesus’ actions, our eternal salvation has been assured. I no longer have to worry about earning it. Grace, and not works, proves me righteous before God.

So we are freed! We are freed from the need to earn our way into heaven. We are freed to see the needs of our neighbors, without any guilt attached to the seeing. Because of grace, when we see that someone is hungry or thirsty or lonely or cold or sick or imprisoned, we are able to respond in joy. It is not out of guilt that we serve others, or personal ambition for eternal life. We serve others out of joyful desire to serve Christ.

We don’t need to serve! But Christ has given us the opportunity to serve him by sharing a little love with our neighbors. If we so much as offer another person a blanket or a drink of water, we are serving Jesus himself. But even before we serve, our salvation has already been secured by the grace of the Judge; by the actions of Jesus.

Thanks be to God!

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth!
Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Amen.

Sermon Title: The Verdict Is In

2007-04-16T18:30:00.000-07:00

Kari Casper
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Honorable Mention, April 2007 Round

Whenever I read this Gospel text, I am reminded of the song, “What if She’s an Angel?” The verses describe events when someone could have responded to the need of another, such as raising money for a sick child or overhearing a domestic argument, but instead did nothing. The chorus of the song goes, “Maybe she’s an angel, sent here from heaven. Makin’ certain that we’re doing our best to take the time to help one another. Brother are you gonna pass that test?” Quite frankly, although the song is catchy, whenever I hear it on the radio, I move to quickly change the channel. Maybe it’s because of the uncertainty it stirs up. Maybe it’s because I am uncomfortable with the idea that the Christian life is a test, and that it is up to me to pass. It makes me think, despite my best intentions, if we really are judged based on what we do, like this song suggests, I’m not so sure I would pass the final test.

In the same way, this Gospel text is one that has reasons to make us squirm. After all, in it we meet a God of judgment who is separating all the nations gathered before him like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Goats on the left. Sheep on the right. The sheep are determined as those among the righteous but the goats are not.

Clearly, we all want to end up on the right. We want to be included among the righteous and those who are blessed with God’s favor when that final judgment comes. So as part of the competitive, driven culture that we are, we get our notepads out and start to make a list of what we need to do to guarantee our spot. Step one: Feed those who appear hungry. Step two: Give those who are thirsty something to drink. Step three: Welcome strangers. And the list goes on.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. If this is our approach, sooner or later we will find ourselves in a trap, trying to determine those who are the least among us and doing everything we can to meet their needs, while at the same time never being certain that we are doing enough. Then we may wonder, “How do we know if we are doing enough, if we will indeed be included as among the righteous? Did we give food and water, shelter and clothing to all those we saw who were in need? Did we befriend and serve others as though they were Christ himself?” Eventually we will end up like a gerbil on an exercise wheel- spinning and spinning but never really getting anywhere.

The truth is, if this is how our eternal life is decided, we are all doomed. We will never be able to do enough to guarantee our salvation. Try as we might, we can’t make it on our own.

This is where the story gets us, because to all those gathered before him, Jesus’ words come as a surprise. Those determined as righteous are just as surprised at God’s verdict as those who have been determined as unrighteous. “But Lord,” they wonder aloud, “When was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty? When did we clothe you or visit you in prison?”

Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. Just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

By this response, it seems that the problem with those who were determined as unrighteous, the goats if you will, was not that they did not do enough. It was that they did not do anything at all. Of course, sometimes it is hard to decide just what, or how much to do. But frankly, more often the opposite is true. In our culture where achievement and power are prized, although we know there are needs to be met, unless we intentionally set aside time to meet them, often they get lost in the shuffle in our race to the top.

It is here that Jesus’ words meet us. He reminds us that we are not in this for ourselves. What strikes me the most is that Jesus says, “Just as you did to one of the least of these in my family, you did it to me.” Here he is, with all the nations gathered before him, telling those who think they are closest to Jesus that his family is all-inclusive. The point Jesus is getting at is not just that we are to love and serve the least among us. While that is necessary and good, it is not the whole story. The point is that we are all a part of the family of God. We are all made in God’s image. And we all belong to the body of Christ, gathered together by the Good Shepherd.

When we were in Guatemala two weeks ago on our mission trip, we had the opportunity to experience this truth first hand. One of the things about San Lucas that impressed me the most was that it is a land of many stark contrasts. The scenery is absolutely breathtaking, and yet there are heaps of garbage lying around because they do not have a waste removal system. Lake Atitlan is large and beautiful, yet it is 98 percent polluted. And while most of the people in San Lucas live in poverty, across the lake from this small village are huge lake homes, owned by celebrities and people from around the world who come there for vacation. Perhaps most ironically, the coffee grown there is some of the best in the world, yet they cannot even afford to drink the coffee they produce themselves.

While at first glance the Mayan people may appear to be among the least, they are some of the most hospitable people I have ever met. Their smiles light up their faces and they live in a very communal nature. It was a privilege to be welcomed into their town, church, and daily lives. We learned more from them than we could ever have given. And though we came from two very different worlds, we were united by the One True God. As we worshipped together one Sunday morning, the reality sunk in that we truly were united in and through Christ. Though we worshipped in different languages and lived very different lives, we were members of the same family, joined together by the One who shed his blood for us all.

Through our experiences in Guatemala, we were reminded of what is most important in life, and we realized more fully all that God has given us. Similarly, in this text, more than reminding us that it is important how we treat one another, Jesus is telling us that what is most important is to whom we belong. And he is reminding us that the gift of salvation God gives to us is for all people. God has gathered all the nations before him. His love and salvation sees and knows no boundaries. We are all a part of his family, and in it there are no distinctions between race, gender, or class.

Just a little bit later in Matthew’s Gospel, we hear this again. In the Great Commission, Jesus sends his disciples into the world with the authority given to him by his father. He tells them “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” This also reminds us that the message of God’s love in word and deed is meant to be shared with others regardless of who they are or where they live.

For we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But we believe that our righteousness is based on Christ’s own righteousness. When God looks at us, rather than seeing us as the sinners that we are, he sees Christ. And when he sees Christ, he sees his Son, whom he dearly loves, and with whom he is well-pleased. God sent his Son into the world to set us free from sin, death, and the power of the devil so that in him we may truly live. He did this entirely out of love, and offers this gift of grace to all of us freely and without condition. As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”

Jesus is not telling us to do more, serve more, give more, or volunteer more. While these things are important, they are not the basis of our salvation and they do not determine our worth. We are saved by faith, not works, and faith comes in and through Jesus Christ, by his Holy Spirit.

At first glance, in this text, it seems that we do meet a God of judgment, who separates the sheep from the goats. But in fact, through this gift of grace in Christ Jesus, the Judge is also the Reconciler. It is this God who sent his Son, Jesus Christ into the world. And it is this God who welcomes us all into his family, free of condition, and who has done everything necessary to secure our salvation. Indeed, the final judgment has come and the verdict is in. Those who are in Christ are among the righteous. And on this basis we can be sure: we are in. Amen.

Sermon Title: "Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?"

2006-08-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

Nicholas R. Hopman
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
First Place, August 2006 Round

“Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?” Luther said that however you believe God to be so you have him. So, “is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?” Answer, “no” and you have a wrathful God; answer, “yes” and you have a merciful God. Jesus Christ is always stalking and hunting down faith. He cuts away and burns all disbelief and exalts all faith. So of course he cuts right to the heart of the matter and asks the only question worth asking, “is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?”

If we were merely observers tallying the posited bits of data that the history of Jewish religion up to Christ’s time has left for us to observe, I could give a nuanced explanation of the various answers to the question. I could conclude that it’s been a disputed question and then wax poetic about the beauty of truly noble questions, or the academic glory of an unresolved answer. I could claim that the world is a more interesting place with various answers to this question. We could even delve into scripture itself and say the question is undecided, as many scriptures seem to argue that necessity knows no law and would tend toward allowing healing. However, God almighty, the creator of heaven and earth himself, rested on the Sabbath. And if you’re going to take someone as an example, God is a good place to start.

And anyway, what’s the rush? Jesus could observe the Sabbath in an absolute manner and then heal the man with dropsy on Saturday night or Tuesday afternoon. Why does Jesus always cause so much trouble? If he had just used a little diplomacy he could have avoided controversy about the Sabbath and healed the man. As Christians we’re supposed to somehow feel bad about Jesus getting crucified, but we can at least see why it happened. He had it coming. If we imagined that he had messed around with the basic laws and customs of our society we might even be able to look at the cross and say “good riddance.” Why would he mess around with something as harmless as the Sabbath? Jesus shouldn’t have played so fast and loose with the law. You know that liberal understandings of the law can only cause trouble in the world. On day a woman is found not guilty by reason of insanity of systematically drowning her children and the next day some kook-shrink might allow her back on the street. After all, the world needs a little law and order. One day rockets are hitting Haifa, the next they might be hitting Chicago without the law’s crushing retaliation for lawlessness.

But we are not observers observing this interesting question or casting judgment on Jesus Christ. There’s no voting or democracy here. Western civilization and all the King’s tanks can’t help us out with this question. You and I are the one’s with dropsy. We are deathly and eternally ill with sin. You’re eternal fate and mine are bound up with the answer to this question. And Jesus Christ is no interesting character or troublemaker to be observed and later to become the provocative subject of unusually interesting conversation. He is the Lord. He is the living word of God who created the heavens and the earth on the first six days before there ever was a Sabbath. He created you. Before you were, he was. He was a guest at the Pharisee’s house when he asked the question about healing on the Sabbath, but he was running the show. He had the authority to ask the question with power. He rained this question down on his host. And so even when he comes to us today in his living word and living sacraments, it is he who is there to judge us. Christ came from heaven above to save us and whenever he speaks he speaks from above. So enough contemplating the question and judging Jesus Christ. Now it’s time for him to judge.

“Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?” You and I will be eternally dead or alive depending on the answer to this question. But if you think you can turn the tables on Christ one last time and answer the question, then you merely prove yourself to be a sinner and you are sorely mistaken. Jesus asks the question. Hearing the Pharisee’s unfaith and our unfaith through their silence, he does what a Lord and Savior does: he answers the question; he decides the case himself. Enough disputing about legalities, Jesus Christ does the deed. It’s not enough that God is love; Christ makes love for his beloved sick creature. When you read this story you can almost see the fiery anger at law-lovers and sickness and death in his eyes and the fiery love in his eyes as he grabs the man with dropsy, heals him, and throws him back into the creation to live the life God has freely given him. Christ hate’s sin and chastises us. He points out that we will gladly ignore the law to help our own child or our own interests. But at the same time he ignores the law to heal one of us, one of his betrayers and enemies. That’s your Christ. That’s your God. God is merciful. “Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath?” Yes. God might have rested on the Sabbath when he made the old creation, but now the Son is making a new creation and there is no time for him to rest. He is God’s final word to us. Where Jesus Christ is the end has already come, “Everything old has passed away, behold, everything has become new. (2 Cor. 5)” There’s no time to wait for the day after the Sabbath for healing or believing. Jesus and his words make faith and faith possesses a merciful God.

You can make fun of us Lutherans all you want. You can say we’re weak on good works, or we don’t have fire for the Lord, but praise be to God for Lutherans, because everything in scripture and on this earth is a matter of law and gospel. And the great master who taught the distinction of law and gospel to Martin Luther, was not Augustine or even Paul the apostle, it was Jesus Christ. Here Christ as always is distinguishing law and gospel.

Our English Bible obscures this fact because it has Jesus asking, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” Jesus never spoke English until he ascended into heaven and sent preachers to the Anglo-Saxons. Jesus spoke Aramaic. The oldest New Testament texts we have are in Greek. The Greek word in the quote from Jesus which our bible translates as “lawful” is “eksestin” from the preposition “eks” “out of” or “from” and “estin” meaning “it is.” This word literally means, “out of what is.” In other words is it possible to heal on the Sabbath? The connotation of the word can be “permitted” or “lawful.” However, it can also be “proper.” “Is it proper to heal on the Sabbath?” “Is it possible?” Jesus is not playing the lawyers’ and Pharisee’s games. He is not parsing the limits of the law. We know that when lawyers start playing games with the law the result is pain and destruction. Jesus Christ has not come to cause death and destruction. He has come give life and heal. He is not playing games with the law; he is distinguishing law and gospel.

Finally, no study of Greek words can determine what Christ is aiming at, as he did not speak Greek. Finally, we have to look at his story as a whole and see what he’s doing. He has not come to idolize the law like the lawyers and Pharisees. He has come to end the condemnation of the law and give the gospel, the good news of life. So is it possible to heal on the Sabbath? Is it proper to heal on the Sabbath? Is God merciful? Yes, where Jesus Christ and his words are, God is merciful. Is it possible for God to act and speak from beyond the law? Yes, Christ came to fulfill and suffer the law and create the gospel. The gospel says Christ has suffered the condemnation of the law. No doubt healing on the Sabbath in front of lawyers and Pharisee’s was one act on they way towards the cross. Lawyers cannot tolerate actions that disregard the law. We cannot tolerate a troublemaker who refuses to obey our rules. So we crucified him. But his Father acted beyond the law and the death it always brings and he raised Christ from the dead. So now law and gospel have been distinguished eternally, once and for all. Now the resurrected Christ heals us and gives us his promises from beyond the reality of law and death. There is a new creation, a new reality where there is only healing and no need for lawyers, except to the extent that they themselves are healed.

We see Jesus Christ preaching strange doctrines and creating a strange relationship with the law when he later says, Luke 14:12-14 "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Moses said, “Honor your Father and your Mother.” Christ says, “don’t invite you Mother or Father when you have a party or get married, instead invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.”

We of course know the reality only of the law and we try to interpret Jesus’ statements according to the law. So we wonder about how Jesus is debating Moses. We consider his statement like a new precedent setting decision of the Supreme Court. Perhaps Moses is the conservative old Zionist who believes in family values, while Christ is the new liberal who believes in “social justice.” But this analysis comes up short of reality. Some of you Republicans might not believe this, but Democrats and liberals alike know that the primary social insurance system is the family. Debates about how big social welfare programs should be are debates about what our society should do when families fail to care for their members, and perhaps some of you Republicans would remind me that they are also debates about whether or not such programs can inadvertently damage families. But everyone, liberal and conservative alike, knows that primary family relationships have the greatest effect on a child’s health and prosperity from birth to old age. I know not a single liberal Democrat who hopes that his daughter does not invite him to her wedding banquet or believes that the values he has instilled in her will cause her to neglect him. Conversely it might shock some of you Democrats to know that there are Republicans who believe in caring for the sick and the poor. Some of them even give money and do many other things to help the poor, crippled, lame and blind. Perhaps there has even been a Republican who has invited a member of one of these groups to a banquet.

So when Christ preached mercy to the poor he is not taking up one view of the law in favor of a certain political agenda. Perhaps we could look at this scripture and claim that Jesus was a liberal and that once and for all we have proof that we in mainstream Protestantism are correct and the evil conservative Evangelicals have Jesus all wrong. We could claim that if Christ had only said, “invite the poor and the lame.” It would have been a good and true teaching had Christ only said, “invite the poor and lame.” The Psalms exalt those who feed the poor. Psalm 112:9 “9 They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor; their righteousness endures forever; their horn is exalted in honor.” Not only is it good for the poor when you give to them, but it is good for the rich: Proverbs 25:16 “16 If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, or else, having too much, you will vomit it.” Gluttony and too many riches are bad for you. Give them to the poor. You should give to the poor and free yourself from excess. Even if we were not talking about harmless poor and lame people, even if we were talking about our enemies, we should give to them: Proverbs 25:21 “21 If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink.”

But Jesus did not stop at saying invite the poor or even invite your enemies; instead he also said, “don’t invite your friends and relatives.” With those words he condemns us. Liberal, conservative, he condemns us all. This is a strange kind of ethics that Christ is preaching. No doubt the world would be a better place if more of us invited the poor and lame to our parties. But the world would fall apart if we neglected our relatives and friends. The fourth commandment, “Honor your Father and your Mother,” is the only command with a promise. It promises that our life will be long in the land if we keep this commandment. Our societies in these old lands are held together by family and friendly relationships. So when Christ commands us not to invite our families and friends he is not giving advice that would make the world a better place.

But that’s the whole point. Christ is not Moses. He is not aiming at a better society in this old age. He does not say “don’t invite your mother, invite a beggar, and things will be better on earth.” Christ is in the old creation, but he’s speaking right past it. He’s speaking right past the law and ethics and aiming at heaven, a new creation. So he says not to invite your mother. Why? Because she might reward you for being a good daughter and invite you back. And when you get rewarded on earth you loose your reward in heaven. He says invite the beggar. Why? Because the beggar does not take part in evil corporate society and is therefore more noble than the rich? No. Because the poor lead especially upright lives in accordance with the highest morality, family values, and doing like Jesus would do, and in doing so are unable to become rich? No. Invite the poor because they are unable to repay you and you will be rewarded on the day of the resurrection.

This is a strange type of ethics that Christ is teaching. It sounds selfish. The goal of doing what Christ commands is that it will benefit you, rather than the poor or society. He certainly is not teaching ethics as we understand ethics. He’s not just teaching a new selfish kind of ethics; he’s not just teaching one more system of values. He’s not teaching the superiority of the eternal or heaven and the inferiority of a temporal reward. No doubt we can only hear his teaching this way, as if he were merely teaching a new law and heaven was merely an extension of this world’s values. When Christ asks “is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” we can only think about parsing the law and making a sober legal judgment. But we think this way because we are his betrayers. We are the ones who crucified him for acting beyond the law, for healing on the Sabbath and for forgiving sin.

When Jesus Christ talks about being rewarded in heaven he is describing a whole new creation that has nothing to do with our always-sinful ways of thinking about ethics and economics. He is teaching a whole new way of being and doing. Christ is teaching about the way things work in heaven. Heaven has already broken into the old creation where Christ is. The resurrection has already occurred in faith and hope alone where there is faith in Christ. Faith already has everything, so it glories in giving away gifts that cannot be repaid. Faith glories in love. Faith does not work according to the world’s understanding. It does not believe in quid pro quo. Faith believes in Jesus Christ himself. So faith and its fruits will only be repaid on the day of the resurrection. But this will be a strange kind of repayment. Faith knows that works do not merit heaven, only Christ does. Faith is in Christ alone. It is made by the Holy Spirit through the word. So faith has no merit of its own. It is rejecting one’s own merit for Christ alone. The fruit of faith is simply helping others without any thought of reward. So faith and its fruits will be rewarded and repaid on the day of the resurrection, but this is a new and strange type of repayment.

This is how ethics work in heaven; this is how Christ deals with us, how he makes faith. He takes all the merit we have to offer him, namely sin and death and repays us by giving us his own righteousness and life. In this heavenly ethic the poor don’t mind that their benefit is not the teleological purpose for helping them. What matters is being given a gift or not being given a gift. What matters is being invited to dinner or being uninvited. In this heavenly system, the poor get invited. Here Christ is describing heaven itself. In heaven Christ invites poor sinners to live with him eternally. Somehow this is what Christ wants and he is somehow rewarded in raising the dead. But if this is the reward that Christ is after, if I get to live with him in an eternal Sabbath, then I can say “Amen.” Then I can applaud this divine selfishness and jealousy. I can applaud Jesus Christ wanting all of me all to himself forever. I can even say “Amen,” when I see him jealously stripping away all that keeps me away from him. I can even say “Amen” when he puts me in the grave, because I trust and hope that he is doing it to raise me from the dead and give me a brand new body that will never get sick or die again. This is the justice Christ wants for you and me.

This strange heavenly ethic is also what Christ is aiming at when he commands us to take the lowest seat at wedding banquet. He’s not just repeating Proverbs 25, which already told us to take the lowest seat. We know that in this world humility and bragging can both be self-serving. We all have seen false humility, namely in ourselves. But Christ is talking about the true humility of faith. He is always aiming at faith and the day of the resurrection and doing just that when he says “those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Christ is always preaching about the last day. Where he is the kingdom of heaven has already arrived. So there’s no time to wait until after the Sabbath to heal. Christ already has begun the eternal Sabbath, when God gives all gifts for free and we do nothing.

When Christ speaks he fulfills his words. He took the lowest seat. The Son of God became the lowest of men. He came as a humble servant and served even to the point of death on a cross. He was not sacrificed in the Holy of Holies, but outside the city (Heb. 13: 12).

But we also see that his humility has a limit. When it comes to having mercy, Christ has no humility. For mercy Christ stands up and fights. And so right in front of the lawyers and the Pharisees, the defenders of the Sabbath, he heals the man with dropsy. When it comes to healing and forgiving sin, Christ wants center stage so that he can reveal God’s mercy and so everyone can hear him do it. Christ did not even humbly obey the rules of death. Instead he sprang back to life in order that his words of mercy might go forth to many more.

And so now, having destroyed death and sin, having crushed the dropsy that oppresses us all, Christ comes to fulfill his teaching about inviting only those who cannot pay back the invitation. The wicked are upset that God gives away eternal life for free to the poor (Psalm112:9). Psalm 112:10 10 The wicked see it and are angry; they gnash their teeth and melt away; the desire of the wicked comes to nothing. But Christ came specifically to do this, 1 Timothy 1:15 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-- Matthew 9:12 "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

So Christ does not invite those who have their own righteousness according to the law, but only sinners who have no righteousness to pay him back with. You are sinners. Christ forgives you all your sin. Where there is the forgiveness of sin there is life. On the last day you shall rise and live. You will rise into an eternal Sabbath. It will be a healing even more spectacular than that Sabbath day when he healed the man with dropsy.

Sermon Title: “You Are Dead . . . How Humiliating.”

2006-08-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Steven Broers
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Second Place, August 2006 Round

“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

I’ve got some bad news for you. You cannot humble yourself any longer. You are dead. You had your chance and now you’re dead. You cannot humble yourself . . . I know, how humiliating, right? Your dreams of glory are over. Sorry. But, humility is not a prize to be won. It’s not a trophy to show off in front of others less pious than you. It’s awful! It’s death. And yes, you are dead, humbled to your very core!

Prayers for patience usually end with a prayer to God that he would just hurry up with it! Prayers for humility are done with great pride. “Oh dear God, please grant me a little humility so that I might be exalted, glamorized, and glorified in your eyes!” “Tough luck old man. You get to stay right where you are—in your grave until I come,” Christ says. You are dead. And now that you have heard it you are finally humbled.

This is how God works. He work is hidden. Disguised. Concealed. Hidden from your eyes. Disguised within humility. Concealed by the law to be revealed in Jesus Christ. “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The Lord kills and makes alive. He brings down to the grave and he raises up again. He hides and he finds. He humbles and he exalts. He conceals and he reveals. But take note of your role in all of this. Pay attention to what you need to do: Nothing. God is the actor and you are not. He hides himself from your eyes and he finds you in deepest darkness. You are dead. You are humbled. God is at work and you are not.

But that’s how God likes you—smiling in your sepulcher. It’s embarrassing, yes, for you don’t even know you’re dead for goodness sake! Another humiliation. Another death. And yet, this God, who loves you, has developed a funny taste for sinners like you. He invites the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind and feeds them with his very own body and blood. Giving all of himself, withholding nothing, so that he might be all in all for you. Even when you are all too ingloriously dead.

I want that poor girl, he says with glee, with the Lexus and the penthouse mansion! I have stockpiled treasure for her and she will want for nothing more. I want that crippled one with the great health and such pride! He’ll walk with me so he can finally rest. Where are the lame? Let me carry them in my arms. That way they can’t run away from me again. Where is that blind man with the two good eyes? He can’t see his wife; he’s always looking at himself. You shall be my houseguest. You shall live with me. You shall be my people. You will feast on me. You are my chosen one. You are blind and lame. You are deaf and crippled and don’t even know my name. “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

You’ve heard the bad news, now hear the good news! Humility is not your job. It is not your work and it is not your act. It’s the humility that you didn’t want to have happen in the first place. You tried to do your best and found out that you had killed God’s only Son. How humbling! How humiliating! It doesn’t feel good at all. But the good news is that even though you are dead, look again! You are alive! Your life is hidden with Christ in God.

I know that you have come today to sit with the sinners. To humble yourself before the almighty. To deny yourself a few more hours of blissful sleep. To hear about the law. To be motivated. To hear of tolerance and godliness. To find out what you can do. To die another day. But, today, this is God’s word for you: “Come up here dear sinner! Sit in my heavenly places! Sit with my saints for I have chosen you! I have made you humble and I will exalt you.”

Does that sound like good news to you? Isn’t there anything left for you to do? God’s word says that you are to humble yourself, right? That’s the law, clear and simple. Are you still waiting for the next shoe to drop? Are you still looking for a loophole? What about that verse from Psalm 112, “Happy are those who fear the Lord, who greatly delight in his commandments.”? Are you weighing the possibilities that maybe you could still learn to like the law?

In other words, are you supposed to like being humble? Feel bad and like it or pretend that humility feels exultingly good? Do you want to delight in your sufferings? Is that it? Be a big Christian and don’t cry? Well, before you accept this as your lot in life, listen to that great theologian Mac Davis and a very insightful song he wrote. In this song, I think you can begin to hear God’s word another way . . . and maybe even hear some hope for your freedom.

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way.
I can't wait to look in the mirror,
Cuz I get better lookin each day.

To know me is to love me.
I must be a hell of a man!
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble,
But I'm doin' the best that I can!

Yes Mac, I think you’ve got the human condition down to a tee! It’s true! We do delight in God’s commandments believe it or not. It gives us a sense of accomplishment, I guess, to “be doin the best that we can”. Keeping the law makes us feel alive and living by it nourishes our egos while God always seems to try to destroy our sense of self worth with his constant choosing and calling. He who delights in the law is like a tree planted by streams of water, as Psalm 1 puts it so succinctly, and who doesn’t want to be a luscious tree in the garden of God? God’s Word, calling us to lives of humility, begins to look like a big, delicious carrot you can chase after in your race toward perfection. “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Maybe being humble doesn’t trip your trigger, but some commandments really do just sound darn right delightful, you’ve got to admit. For example, “Let mutual love continue”. Ahhh. Now, there is a delightful law if I ever did see one! I agree, let mutual love continue! I will love you and you will love me. I will scratch your back and you scratch mine. “Those who humble themselves will be exalted?” Well, sure! I can do that! I will be humble Lord if you exalt me, alright? This law is oh so delightful, dear Lord, because by loving you I get loved back. If I’m perfectly humble, aren’t I doing God a favor? Then he wouldn’t have had to die for me after all . . . or you, for that matter!

But the problem with this law as with any rule, law, or commandment is that it just won’t stay where it belongs. It quickly finds its way into your mind and into your worries. Then the law becomes your big salvation plan. Then the law becomes anything but delightful. It becomes addictive. You see, you can’t just keep one, you’ve got to keep them all. “I can’t wait to look in the mirror, cuz I get better lookin each day,” Mac says. That’s the idea at least. But the day soon comes when lookin in the mirror is the last thing you want to do. “For all fall short of the glory of God. When you break your favorite law, what will God think of you? In your failure to be humble, you find humility. “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The apostle Paul once said in his letter to the Romans, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” In other words, you can love the law all you want, but you treat it like a wicked little thing. Paul goes on to say, “For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am!” Can you hear it? Paul, the great apostle is calling himself a wretch! You too can delight in the law all you want, but the truth still stands: the more delightful the law becomes the more you either begin to either hate it or hate yourself. Why? Because the law is humiliating for you because it asks you to be humble. This is why Mac Davis’ song is so wonderfully ironic. The more you sing the praises of your humility the more your humility becomes pride . . . a very humbling thought, indeed.

The truth is that even God’s request for your humility ends up with all the other laws he gives you: you fall short and God saves you from your own efforts. God humbles you through the law because the law asks you to serve someone besides yourself through humility to your neighbor. You start spending more time looking at others than looking at yourself in the mirror. You forget about humbling yourself and start thinking of others as more important than yourself—you start acting out of humility without even thinking about it.

“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” So, what hope is there? What can you do in the face of this law? Wait. Just wait. Wait for God’s salvation. Wait for Jesus Christ. You are dead, remember? And Jesus has defeated death for you. You will be humbled—you can be sure of it! In your greatest accomplishments. . . in your longest sufferings. And then, when you least expect it, you will find your life hidden . . . and exalted . . . in humility . . . in Christ . . . in God. Amen.

Sermon Title: “Coming to the Feast”

2006-08-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

Jack Turner
Columbia International University
Third Place, August 2006 Round

For those of you who may not be familiar with them, the core values of the US Navy and Marine Corps are “honor, courage, commitment.” My cousin learned them well as his Recruit Training Platoon shouted it, along with “Kill, kill, kill, Marine Corps,” each time they went for meals or performed exercises or sat down for mail call. I endured a similar experience as a young midshipman, often reflecting on theses core values whenever I was invited to perform physical training for punishment when I did something the upperclassmen disliked. Judging by how quickly I got in shape, I must have had ample opportunity to contemplate the meaning of honor. Honor is not something we talk much about in our society anymore. For many of us, there is probably no specific definition of honor that we have in mind, and so it simply becomes a word we toss about, if we use it at all, a word that is utterly devoid of tangible meaning. For those who are interested, the Navy’s definition of honor is uncompromising personal integrity.

In the ancient world, to say people were highly concerned with honor might be a bit of an understatement; obsessed is probably more accurate. However, the type of honor they were concerned with was not personal integrity, but with their own rights of birth or precedence. In short, one’s honor consisted of one’s fame, reputation, power, or precedence. While everyone was born with a certain level of dignity based on the rank of their parents and their gender, honor could be accrued in any number of ways, whether by winning a battle or war, sponsoring a civic event, or becoming successful in business and politics. Honor would be paid to an individual in a variety of ways, including allowing them right of way, granting them positions of authority, or awarding choice seats at banquets.

There is an old saying which I think is particularly relevant to the current text: “eat what is set before you.” As a little bit of historical background, from ancient times up until the last century, when one sat down for a meal, one had several dishes set down at different places at the table. At the head of the table one would find the meats and choice beverages whereas at the foot one would find less desirable vegetables and cheep drinks. Unlike the modern era where we pass dishes to one another so that each of us might receive a portion of everything on the table, in previous times one would eat only that which was in reach. Thus, one really did have to be content with what was set before them because there would be no opportunity to get anything better.

What Jesus is telling his audience in the parable about the banquet is to reduce their own self-perceived importance so that their real importance may be shown to all when they are taken to a better seat. More subtly, Jesus is also telling us that the one who can be content with less than what he deserves will nevertheless receive exactly what is coming to them and will be honored among his associates when he gets it. Thus, on the surface, Jesus is giving a lesson in good manners. To make it applicable to our situation, he might better have said, “When going to a congregational fellowship dinner, don’t bolt out of the church following the dismissal to make sure you can get a huge portion of macaroni and cheese.”

The first piece of advice would have struck a chord with his audience, and in all likelihood there would have been a few heads nodding in agreement since it is essentially a restatement of the advice given in the first lesson from Proverbs. However, Jesus’ second point about whom to invite to a dinner party would likely have turned everyone on their heads. It would have done so because it goes against the nature of what we think ought to be right. After all, who has a dinner party and doesn’t invite his or her friends and close associates? It’s a strange piece of advice, but it fits right in with Jesus’ concern for the poor and those neglected by society and his teachings about loving and serving those around us, especially those we consider to be of lesser status than we are.

At this point, we could stop the sermon and move on since a very important point about contentedness and humility has been made. However, I think there is a deeper meaning to both pieces of Jesus advice that will permit us some important insight into what salvation is all about, so perhaps you will indulge me a moment as I try to take us deeper into the text. In the parable, specifically concerning the wedding feast, we see the guests scrambling to acquire something; in this case, it is a better seat at the table and consequently a better selection of foods. In the parable, there are two people: the first one makes a mad dash to the head of the table to sit and eat the choice food, and another who sits at the end of the table where the least desirable dishes would have been served. In giving this example, I think Jesus is making a point not about good manners, a good a point about manners as it might be, but rather he is making point about the Kingdom itself.

The person who runs ahead could be accounted as the person who attempts to earn their place in heaven or to earn a better reward by their own efforts; the effort in this case is attempting to be quicker than others. But the host of the banquet quite literally puts this person back in his place, even though it causes him much embarrassment and shame. Herein, we see a subtle truth: one attends the banquet only because the host, who represents God in the story, has invited them. Nothing about either person, whether it be their great acts or place in society, has earned them a seat at the table, and certainly nothing of their own account, including speed, determined where they sat. Rather, it was the choice of the host to come to all the guests and extend the invitation to the banquet. The Greek word used here, keklemenoi, is better translated as “the elect” rather than our translation “guest” and only emphasizes the fact that those present were chosen to receive an invitation rather than thinking they could show up on their own.

Earlier, I mentioned that Jesus’ advice about inviting the lame and the sick would have struck his audience as illogical, and I said it was because it is counter-intuitive to invite someone to dinner who isn’t eventually going to invite you back or whom you do not owe an invitation to. But there is a deeper issue: in ancient Judean society, those whom Jesus mentions as being fitting guests in the house of a Pharisee, the poor, the lame, and the blind, were considered to be afflicted by G-d because they were sinners and thus were undesirable company for a supposedly righteous person; the Qumran community, the group that copied the Dead Sea Scrolls, believed that such people would be excluded from paradise. But this is not the way G-d thinks or how Jesus tells us to structure our interaction with people; far from it. Jesus is telling us to welcome the afflicted and the outcast and to have no fear of the social stigma attached to them. Our psalm reminds us that G-d gives his gifts specifically too the poor while the unrighteous, which might be read as the stingy rich, will waste away and come to nothing. It’s a pretty radical idea. This, of course, wasn’t the first time Jesus had gotten in trouble for associating himself with those whom society considered as being sinful, but it also goes along with what I was speaking of earlier about G-d’s prerogative in salvation. None of us have done anything deserving of being saved; in fact, all that the law required of us, we failed at miserably and on more than one occasion. The truth of the matter is that we are really no better off the Pharisees perceived the lame and the poor to be; only our supposed miserable status is one of perception rather than strict fact.

So what does any of this have to do with honor? Simply put, our honor is that of G-d rather than of ourselves. In his grace, he has chosen to honor humanity with his incarnation in Jesus Christ and the indwelling of his Spirit. The point Jesus is making in the second advice is really the support for understanding the first piece. As I said, we can do nothing on our own to earn our salvation: it is the free gift of Jesus Christ. On our own we were dishonorable, but through his mercy, G-d has chosen to give us a choice seat at his table, and not because we have or could do anything to deserve it, but because he simply chose to grant it to us. The disgrace that Jesus bore in Heb. 13.12 is actually our disgrace and our shame. All of our lessons in one way or another encourage us to honor those whom society ignores precisely because God could have ignored our sinfulness but instead chose to extend his mercy. I don’t think Jesus advice about inviting in the poor and the lame to a dinner party was meant to be taken allegorically, though there is certainly an allegorical element to it. I think he meant it quite literally, that we are to be willing to take in those whom society disregards and confront them with the incredible love and mercy of Jesus Christ.

While this parable is a warning against thinking we can or should earn our salvation, it nevertheless should not be used as an excuse to not help the poor. The author of Hebrews reminds us that doing good and sharing with others is a sacrifice that pleases G-d. Let us therefore cease doing good to earn our salvation, which will only end in our shame and disgrace, and let us seek to do good…for goodness’ sake.

Sermon Title: “Taking The Humble Seat”

2006-08-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

Zachary R. Labagh
M.Sc.The. Student, The Lutheran THeological Seminary at Gettysburg
Fourth Place August 2006 Round

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O’ Lord our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

I was reading an article entitled “Stewards of God’s Mysteries: Stewarding as a model of Congregational Ministry”^¹ the other day, and it was discussing how we view our role within the church. Many of us believe that this is “my church”; many of my colleagues have talked to me more than once about “their church”; however we forget that it is God’s church. This article discussed what it means to be stewards of God’s church. Christ has called us to the banquet, to serve others, and in doing so to serve the Church; however we forget, we forget that the church is not ours, and more importantly we forget to look for what God desires us to do rather than what we want to do. We need to look at the church through the lens of it being God’s church and realize that we need to take the humble seat in the church. That is what Jesus is calling to, to take the humble seat and serve.

We are called to serve. That is the bottom line. Jesus is telling us in this parable to be willing to go where no one else will go, to seek out those who need help, and not to push our religion on them, but rather to eat with them, and share what we have with them. We are to see ourselves as servants, servants to our Brothers and Sisters in Christ, and servants to those who have yet to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. This calling is not just for me, or the elected leaders of this church, but rather for all of us. We are called, by name, to serve. We have been invited to the banquet, and now it is our choice to choose what place we are going to take, at this moment. But as Jesus reminds us there may be someone else who the host is saving a seat for, therefore we should choose the lowest seat, the seat farthest from the host. It seems Lutherans get this during the church service, for we all like to sit as far back as possible. However this is not humorous to Jesus. We need to be willing to take the lowest place. To go out and find those who need help and welcome them in. To Serve God’s creation.

The Parable which Jesus speaks in Luke 14 reflects the passage of Proverbs 25:6 and 7. We are to recognize our status as servants. Yet we continually forget. We look at the church we attend as “Our Church, with my seat, and my place in it”. I remember an email I received when I was in college. It read a man drove into a church and parked his car. When he got out, someone came in behind him and yelled to him “that’s my spot I always park there.” Though the man was discouraged he walked into the church and sat down. Someone else came up to him and said “That’s my seat that where I always sit.” The man moved without saying a word, though even more discouraged. The service began and during the Confession and forgiveness, the man rose, and all saw him transform before their eyes. His clothes became ragged, his hands became bloodied, and he hobbled to the front of the church, stretching his hands out in front of the cross. He turned and looked at the people in the church, and said to them, “I took your place.”

Rather than seeing God’s church and God’s place for us in it. We struggle to find our place, because we are so concerned with keeping up with everyone else. We want the status, the wealth, the gifts, and goodies that everyone else has, and we can’t have them if we take the lowest seat. We can’t get the new car and house, if we give to those in need, and share what we have. Why would we dare to think of such things? We want the house with 5 bedrooms, even though we only use 1 and with a 4 car garage, because if we have it then we can fill them. How much do we actually need?

The scene of this parable is set at a banquet. A place where food is overflowing and there will surely be enough for all to eat. But no one is looking at the food, no one is looking at the tables bending with the weight of the food, but rather we are looking at everyone else, and where they are sitting. Today we have name cards to tell us where to sit. We go for a banquet and most places tell you where you can sit, yes you might be able to pick which seat at the table, but where is the table located in regards to the head table? In this we struggle. We struggle because we want to be as close as possible. If we desire this because we want to be close to God and have a close relationship with God, there is nothing wrong with that. However if we want to sit close to the head table so we can look down at those who are farther away, that is where the problem lies. We live in a society with wealth classifications, job classifications, religious classifications; we need to classify our lives. How do you classify your place at the table?

I’ve heard people say, “I deserve this seat, because I’ve given to the poor, and helped at the soup kitchens, and organized fund raisers to help others…This seat should be mine.” And there is the problem. Yes that person, did all these wonderful things, but why did they do them? In this statement, it is clear, they did these generous acts, not to benefit others, but so others could see them and benefit from it.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we were all to take this advise and seek out those in need and invited them to eat? How many people would not go hungry at night if this happened? How many people would not commit suicide because they think no one cares?

In Luke’s message we see Christ telling those who are surrounding him about a banquet, teaching how we should live. When one has a banquet we should not invite friends and family, expecting an invitation to another in return, but rather invite those who need to be fed. What an amazing way to discuss Holy Communion! We are invited, by Christ, to be fed. To be nourished, and filled not with that which perishes, but with the Bread of Life. We are the crippled, the lame, the needy. We are those who need to be fed, and we are the ones who cannot repay Jesus for this action. Christ gave himself over for us.

Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews also states our undeniable call to go forth and serve. We are to go out from the church, from those we know, and serve those we do not. We are called to go to where they are; instead of waiting for them to come to us, for if we choose the latter, we may be waiting for a long time, but if we go to them we bring Jesus to them in the moment. One of our biggest calls is to pray. I admire the Upstate New York Synod’s mission statement which reads “A Resurrection People, who Pray First, Walk Together, and Change Lives.” Prayer is the first step we should all take, asking what God desires us to do, and to be. When we pray and we ask for aid for those in need, we are doing God’s will. We are working for others. Not for ourselves. See the difference? That is a humbling experience when we realize that what we are doing is being done not for our benefit but for someone else. We have no right to sit at the banquet feast with Jesus, not even at the lowest seat. But we have been invited, and welcomed. And our call is to do the same for others. To welcome others, into the banquet of our lives. To share what we have with others, in order that we may give grace to them, and Glorify God. We are called to fulfill good, and share what we have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. This calling is not only for the leaders but for all. This is why at the beginning of our Gospel Jesus is questioning the leaders. To see their response. He knew the law. And he changed the law. The law governs us, but grace frees us. We are called as Christians to be doers of the Word, and live our lives according to Christ. Christ did not say that the laws are unimportant, or that we do not need to listen to them, but he interpreted these laws to make them inclusive. Welcoming the unclean, talking to the outcast, and children, eating with sinners, touching lepers and unclean women. Jesus humbled himself, He humbled himself when He came to earth, not as a king ripping open the clouds and descending, but as a child, a carpenters son. He then humbled Himself in His ministry, to eat, and share, and allow Himself to be seen with the lowest of the low. And then He humbled himself even more by dying on a cross, the lowest of all deaths, not because of what He did but because of what we did and continue to do.

It is Jesus’ life, His deeds, and actions, His compassion which we are to follow. We are also called to be humble servants of God’s will here and now. To not walk by those in need, but to help as we are able. We are called by Christ to do the same. To take the humble seat, to give to those in need. God calls the Israelites to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God” in Micah 6:8. Christ is calling us to go out and welcome all into the banquet table. Where in the Old Testament only those worthy are invited, Jesus is changing this law, and saying those who need to be fed are welcomed. Christ challenges us to look for ways to help others and in doing so others can see Christ in us.

As we go out from this place, I would encourage you to look for just one opportunity this week to take the humble seat. To help out someone in need, that you would normally walk by. To encourage a co-worker who looks down. To spend some time with someone who is lonely. To Pray. To pray for those in need. Those who do not know Jesus, for those in difficult situations, for those in war areas, famine areas, poverty, for family and loved ones, for enemies and those we just don’t like. Pray. Take the humble seat. And see how your life will be affected by it. I don’t need to hear what you did next Sunday, or after you did it. God will know. And more importantly that person who you helped will know. Christ came for all of us. He took the humble seat, and now asks us to the banquet, and to invite guests. To share what we have with others, and to live with Christ in our lives, not only as a part of our lives, but thoroughly in our lives. Dear Lord, thank you for taking the humble seat, the seat we do not want to take, encourage us to live our lives as your servants, as stewards of your church. Grant us the courage to live as you lived, helping those in need. And Be with us when we need strength and aid. For you are the host of the great feast, you are the bread of life, which sustains and nourishes us always. Amen.

1
Jacobson, Rolf A. “Stewards of God’s Mysteries: Stewarding as a Model for
Congregational Ministry” Word and World Theology for Christian
Ministry Volume 26 Number 3 Summer 2006

Sermon Title: Earthly Words

2005-12-20T12:08:00.000-08:00

Nicolas Hopman
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
First Place December 2005 Round

Beloved Congregation, the Lord says, Deuteronomy 30:11-14

¹¹ Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. ¹² It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?" ¹³ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?" ¹⁴ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.

You know exactly what God wants you to do. He has given you his law. So love the Lord with all your heart. Love your neighbors as yourself. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Gladly learn and hear God’s word. So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and do these things. God is not very patient when it comes to obedience to his law. He gives the law “today” and wants it obeyed today.”

We like to pretend that God’s word is up in heaven. So we invent false religion and try to figure out how to lift ourselves into heaven that we might have true communion with God. We go on pilgrimages in one way or another to “find ourselves,” because we think truth is beyond the sea. We have new-age spirituality to draw us away from the supposed distractions of the world and into higher truth. We think that it requires great wisdom to know what God wants from us and to know his will. But instead God has gone right past the wise and the hyper-spiritual and given his law to the masses. God has put his law right into our hearts and consciences. It is clearly revealed in scripture and in the natural law that surrounds us.

Amazingly, this law does not require that we find God. It merely requires that we love him for the free gifts he gives us without our searching or merit. It exposes our flight from creation into spirituality as betrayal. God wants us to be created creatures. He meets us in creation, not in heaven above. And he wants us to care for and love our fellow creatures. He wants us to love our neighbors instead of fleeing to a monastery like the young Martin Luther.

One of the most important aspects of the Reformation was its attack on monasticism. The Reformation was concerned with the word of God. And God’s word does not direct us to try to climb Jacob’s ladder to heaven, but instead gives us heaven for free. Luther realized that this meant the entire medieval system for achieving holiness in a monastery was mistaken. We do not make it to heaven by isolating ourselves from the sinful world, but instead right in the heart of sin Christ comes to bring us the gospel. He comes to save us and bring heaven down to us.

God also gives us his word of law. This directs us not to improve our own spirituality or standing before God, but instead to improve life for our neighbors. This meant that monasticism did not only destroy the gospel, but that it also was a blasphemy against God’s law. Instead of turning the faithful toward their neighbors, medieval piety explicitly turned them away from their neighbors. But how rarely do we believe either God’s word of gospel or his word of law? How rarely do we leave salvation to Christ alone and love our neighbors with all our works? These days we are very involved in the world and its business but this is usually for our own benefit. We are still monks at heart.

So Lord, we cry out like the Psalmist in the sixty-ninth Psalm and ask you to save us from our enemies. Lord, save us from ourselves. We reject your law. God said in today’s reading Deuteronomy 30:15-19

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. ¹⁶ If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. ¹⁷ But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, ¹⁸ I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you arecrossing the Jordan to enter and possess. ¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.

But Lord we choose eath. We choose ourselves and our flight from creation and the love our neighbors need. The Psalmist knows that God hears from the needy. Lord we are needy. Save us. Add guilt to guilt for our old sinful Adam’s and Eve’s. Give them no acquittal (Psalm 69:27). Take them away in death that we may not disobey you any longer. Create us anew in Jesus Christ. Daily through our baptism put our old beings to death and raise up the new being to live with you in righteousness.

Dearly beloved, there is good news. God does not have one word. He has done more than give us the law. He became your neighbor; he became flesh and died for you. God has not only given you his law, but also his gospel. His gospel is Jesus Christ. In Christ Colossians 1:15 “is the image of the invisible God” Colossians 1:19-20

in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law on your behalf. He suffered its curse and its death on the cross for you.

This same Christ is the one who told the parable of the Good Samaritan. A lawyer asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Christ reminds him that he does not have to search or inquire about how one receives life instead of death, but that he already has been given the law and knows it. So when Christ affirms the law and tells the lawyer to follow it, the lawyer does what we always do. He tries to escape the law and make it seem unclear rather than clear. The lawyer knows that he must love his neighbor, but he asks, “who is my neighbor?”

But Christ refuses to let our sin gain the upper hand on him. The law does not allow us to ask, “who is my neighbor?” but instead says, “be a good neighbor.” So Christ refuses to answer the lawyer’s question, and instead applies the law to him. He tells the story of a man lying half dead on the side of the road and the Jewish priest and Levite leaving him to die. The Samaritan, the one who would have had a better excuse than any to look at the dying Jew and wonder “is he my neighbor?” this Samaritan instead only hears in his heart “love your neighbor as yourself.” And so he obeys and chooses life over death, not for himself, but for his dying neighbor.

And in the telling of this story Christ applies the law to the lawyer. He is forced to abandon his question “who is my neighbor,” and to confess what it truly means to be a neighbor. But what does this mean for you? Are you finally like the lawyer and left to confess that the Samaritan is just but that you and your attempt to ignore the law are condemned?

No, Christ did not merely leave the lawyer to ponder his own sin. Christ came to take the sin upon himself. He came not just to preach the law, but to fulfill it. He came so that the law might reach its goal and its end.

Christ fills the scriptures and fulfills all scripture. He is not only the preacher of this story, but the one who fulfilled it. On the cross he became the one beaten and left to die. No good Samaritan came to rescue him that day. So if we think that this story is merely driving us to improve our ethics, so that we might one day be acceptable to God and worthy of the praise that Christ gives the Samaritan, it is too late. Christ is your neighbor. He was abandoned on the cross and you did not save him. It was in fact our sin that put him there.

But Christ did not stop at dying on the cross. The Father raised him from the dead. He will never die again. He is now free from death. He is an unstoppable good Samaritan. Of course, Christ is not a Samaritan. He is a Jew. But the Jews and Samaritans were enemies. The Samaritan saved his enemy. And so it is with Christ. On the night in which he was betrayed he gave his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, to whom? To his enemies, to his betrayers. He gave himself to Judas the betrayer and Peter the denier. He gave himself to the other ten who abandoned him the next day to the cross. We are Christ’s enemies, and he comes in his word to save us. Finally, we must confess that we are not the lawyer in this story, who can sit back and listen to Christ tell the story and attempt to learn from it. We are the dying man. We are left dying on the side of the road, beaten by our sin, incapacitated by our choice of death over life. But like the Samaritan, Christ has chosen life on your behalf.

God does not have one word. He has a new word. Here it is: Jesus Christ died for you and is risen from the dead. For being bad Samaritans, your sin is forgiven. When Christ forgives
you your sin, you have eternal life.

This new word is the very word that Paul was preaching when he quoted Deuteronomy 30 and turned it on its head in tenth chapter of Romans. Paul says not to wonder if you will be saved or not, but believe that Christ is risen and you will be saved. He says not to worry about whether your neighbors will be saved or condemned, but instead to tell them the good news of Christ. This good news creates faith and saves them. We do not have to search for the law, but instead receive it as a clear word, as a gift from God. We receive the gospel the same way. God gives it to us for free as a word. You have no merit to earn this word, but God gives it away for free to you.

But there is one great difference between the law and the gospel. The law says, “choose life and live.” The gospel says, “here is life for free.” We hear the law and choose death, but Christ chooses life. He is the only chosen one of God, the only one God has raised from death never to die again. His choice will stand for all eternity but our choice of death will end soon. On the cross alone and in your faith alone, the law has already reached its goal and ended. Christ is coming in glory to reveal to the entire world that the law is done with and the gospel will last forever.

Now the law still remains, as Luther said, in the body. So believe the gospel and trust it. In the meantime love your neighbors as yourselves. Use your bodies to help them. We hope and confess that when Christ makes faith that good fruit flows from it. You will actually, though often in a hidden way that the world will not see, you will begin to be good Samaritans. Your faith will spill over to your neighbors benefit. But Christ has not forgiven your sin as a means to his true goal of good works. He desires good works so we should do them. When he gives us eternal life for free, it naturally spills over to our neighbors. We help them in all their needs and become instruments of eternal life when we tell them the good news of Christ. Just as the old Eve or Adam is bound to sin and cannot free itself, so the new Christian does good works. Indeed, she is bound to do them.

But ultimately, Christ final goal when he forgives you all your sin is that you have eternal life. Eternal life is after all the subject of Deuteronomy 30 and Romans 10. It is the reason for the parable of the Good Samaritan. The lawyer wants to know how to inherent eternal life and he has come to the right person. Christ explains the law to him, but he did not stop with the explanation we read today. He went to the cross and died for the lawyer and he died for you. Eternal life comes from Christ alone and faith apart from works of the law. On the cross Christ chose death. He stole your choice of death from you and took it upon himself. Your sins are forgiven. They do not belong to you anymore, but belong to Christ. He is risen from the dead. You shall not perish, but have eternal life. The Father chose life over death for you and raised your Christ from the dead as the first fruits of the coming resurrection.

Amen.

Sermon Title: "Real Expertise"

2005-12-20T01:20:00.000-08:00

Natalie L. Gessert
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Second Place December 2005 Round

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

The writer of Luke knew how important the expert of the law was, and others probably knew of this expert’s importance as well. He was important enough to simply be called by his title: Expert. Like being called simply ‘Doctor’ or ‘Reverend.’ The name alone tells others “this guy has what it takes.”

He woke up early every morning and after a jog, he shaved, and put on a sharp looking suit. As soon as he entered the office his secretaries followed him around trying to keep him up-to-date. Mostly he just liked knowing that he was important enough to be followed around – the info was already in his Outlook folder anyway. His days included poring over books and ledgers, skimming legal journals and drafting appointment papers. Being important was tough work. He had to know the right people, dine them with finesse, and bring in major contributors. This was the real Apprentice. He needed important people, and important people needed him.

So it wasn’t surprising that the expert in the law would like to talk to Jesus, given the chance. Jesus was important. Sure, Jesus was no Caesar, and not even an official; however, there was buzz around him and so of course the expert would like a little face time. What if Jesus became bigger and better? The expert knew how important networking was; better to build bridges early, than not have any bridge at all. For experts, networking is a key talent to develop leads and keep business running. Networking keeps you ahead in the dog-eat-dog world, because you never know when you might need to call in a favor.

Like anyone seasoned at networking, the expert wanted to build some common ground. Jesus certainly had a corner on the market of social curiosity - he had been drawing crowds since he was twelve years old (Lk 2:41-51). Luke tells us many times about Jesus teaching his disciples and responding to public questions of the law – questions of fasting, forgiveness, and Sabbath practices. To grab Jesus’ attention he asked a question: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” This was not just the average Pharisee’s question. He was asking Jesus on the professional plane, man to man, expert to expert. The expert needed to know what Jesus was made of.

Jesus knew exactly what was going on. Jesus asked right back, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” The expert in the law of course knew the right answer. What was this? A multiple choice taken from Law 101? Was Jesus questioning his know-how? The expert played along: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” But the expert in the law did not like Jesus’ response. Jesus only said, “you’re right… good job… do this and you will live.”

The expert in the law was aware that his authority was being played with. Obviously Jesus did not realize what an important man he was, how much expertise and respect he touted. Life was not about multiple choice tests with one right answer. It was about gritting your teeth, having a plan B and C, and knowing how to manage the little people. The expert in the law wanted to justify himself. Jesus was important and so Jesus ought to be clear on who the expert was. So in an effort to woo Jesus a second time, he took care to ask a more open-ended question: And who is my neighbor?

Jesus seemed to take the bait. The expert in the law sat back, pleased with himself. He was finally receiving the face time and the answer that he deserved:

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³²So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to
an inn and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. “Look after him,” he said, “and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.”

(Lk 10:30-35)

Jesus ended with a question: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

“Oh good, a real conversation starter,” thought the expert. Maybe this will lead to a business lunch? After a carefully orchestrated two minute pause, the expert in the law responded: “The one who had mercy on him.” Of course that was the objective answer. It seemed to be a little unexpected because a Samaritan – an undesirable – had been involved. But no matter. You couldn’t accuse him of doing something wrong for helping out. The expert waited for Jesus to come back with something interesting; something about the Law or the real responsibilities of the Levite or the priest. They were the only important characters really, in the networking scheme of things. But this was a legal discussion with all the twists and turns of a good legal case, and so the expert waited.

Jesus replied: “Go and do likewise.”

A personal hit. A blow below the belt. Who did this Jesus think that he was? First a teacher of the law himself and now bursting into somebody’s personal life like a therapist? When did this conversation leave legal methods? When did it become personal?

What the expert in the law was concerned about was what Jesus didn’t say. Jesus didn’t engage him. He didn’t invite him out for cocktails to discuss it more. But what was even more troubling for the expert, was Jesus’ legal judgment:

Jesus didn’t respond with: “Well, this was obviously a legal question of morality. Moral questions are always difficult to work with and one ought to look to previous litigations to decide on a case-by-base basis.”

He also didn’t say: “Mercy is one thing, but the law is the law. The Levite and priest were doing what was required and the Samaritan was too, given each one’s social situation under Mosaic Law.”

The expert in the law was put in a legal bind. He couldn’t make a decision based on the status of that man laying there in the road. He believed that social niceness and decisions about who to help and who not to comes from social rules and upward mobility. He was thinking in the same way as the priest and the Levite: surely there is some way to justify not helping out! The Levite could not touch a man potentially dead. He could lose his job and status if he did. The Priest could not be late for his Jerusalem meeting at the temple before the afternoon session. The expert in the law had no legal recourse and was thrown into a battery of ‘what if’ scenarios. What if I had an appointment to make… what if I had my best clothes on… what if someone saw me…?

But this man lying in the road did not even have a name. There is no comment written about which direction he was going; No identifying marks to be found. And that is the point.

The expert in the law skews what he had most likely read from Scripture out of the Deuteronomy text:

⁸ You will again obey the LORD and follow all his commands I am giving you today. ⁹ Then the LORD your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, ¹⁰ if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. (Dt 30:8-10)

The expert in the law knew that he had been taught in the great legal tradition of his father and generations past. The expert had made it his career to know the law and follow after it with vigor. He knew creative ways to interpret the texts and their applications. If anyone had any question about the ways and means of living, he was the man to ask. The expert in the law would have known not only the actual words of the law, but also the tradition in which the law was practiced, past legal circumstances, and outcomes. He had read the Deuteronomy text which had promised prosperity:

IF you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of Law… ¹⁵ See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. ¹⁶ For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

(Dt 30:10, 15-16)

He was the product of a strict upbringing with a liberal arts education. The expert in the law knew how to use his knowledge and prowess to win friends and influence people. He was important and had the promises of prosperity behind him.

And who else do you know that lived according to this same lifestyle? Who else followed the law with zeal, knew how to influence, network, and was called on to make life-and-death decisions? Saul who became Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God (Col 1:1). Paul boldly told his story to the church at Galatia, explaining:

¹³For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. ¹⁴I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

(Gal 1:13-14)

Paul knew what was going on in the legal world and like a true peddler of his trade, made himself widely known. He had his degree, networked efficiently and had climbed the ladder all the way up to having authority over matters of life and death, such as giving approval in the stoning of Stephen and mobilizing a task force against Christianity (Acts 8).

But despite his beginnings, there was something more for Paul and his future. God had something else in mind. If we skip everything between Paul’s run-in with Stephen
and land at his letter to the Colossians, we hear Paul speaking differently to his community.

³We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints… ⁹For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

(Col 1:3-4, 9)

What happened to Paul, that he had willingly given up his promising career path? What happened to Paul, that he was giving thanks for the Colossians not out of some networking strategy or social nicety, but out of genuine love and concern? Paul’s new title earned him no points. Being an ‘apostle’ in the name of Christianity is more of a social point-reducer, considering that Christianity had been “out” from the start. But instead something in Paul had died. It died on his way to Damascus when the risen Jesus came roaring into Paul’s life as more than an irritating social problem. Jesus came calling Paul from his old life into a new one. As the scales fell from Paul’s eyes (Acts 9:17-19), Paul received something far different than titles such as “Return to the Simple Things,” or “Practice Random Acts of Kindness.”

Paul received faith. Paul received faith that directed him into a new life, where kindness and acts of beauty and praying and giving himself was done through him by God Himself – and God is not random in His will. Paul’s right hand indeed did not know what his left hand was doing, but God certainly did. Paul’s previous legal career had been re-chartered by God, making way for something new.

You see the expert in the law, Paul, and you and I, without Christ, naturally skew what is heard from the Deuteronomy text. You read that God will make us prosper if you perform, act, think, and feel the “right way.” Life in that legal form turns into a self-help project. Or worse yet, a treasure hunt with God’s favor as the prize. So you seek out those things that might make you more desirable to God and life becomes a tragic play of fear and loathing. You are afraid that a business deal might not close, that you didn’t have a good enough conversation with the company president and the big promotion is looking dim. You are afraid that your clothes don’t have the right labels, and your resume doesn’t have enough stars, or your grades were not high enough. And the fear whispers:

I don’t know enough about fine wines – what if I order the wrong one at the business lunch?

Oh no! Everyone else wore black and I wore grey! Maybe I didn’t get the memo!

I hope no one knows about the anti-depressants I take – I would just die if anyone knew.

Fears dictate how humans interpret the law. The law can be twisted and questioned and provoked to get the outcome that makes you feel better. But the law, when given the authority to dictate how you define and react to your neighbor gives you nothing long lasting or satisfying. It kills, in an agonizing and slow death involving stress, distrust, depression, fear, backstabbing, and manipulation. These are the rags of beggars who are poor in spirit, begging for importance and wealth. The law breaks your back while you suffer yourself to climb the heights of prestige, knowing that the rules tell you that certain people are better than others, upward mobility is important, think harder, do better, work harder… and on, and on.

And there is more. When these questions haunt you, you begin to seek out ways to either justify your mistakes or pay vengeance to those who exposed you. The Psalmist knows about revenge too:

²² May the table set before them become a snare;
may it become retribution and ^[^a^] a trap.

²³ May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see,
and their backs be bent forever.

²⁴ Pour out your wrath on them;
let your fierce anger overtake them.

²⁵ May their place be deserted;
let there be no one to dwell in their tents.

²⁷ Charge them with crime upon crime;
do not let them share in your salvation.

²⁸ May they be blotted out of the book of life
and not be listed with the righteous.

When you listen closely to the entire text (Psalm 69:14-37), you will hear not only statements of revenge, but a sad story of how the Psalmist was scorned, disgraced, and shamed; terribly hurt by those around him, physically and emotionally. The Psalmist felt out of control and so he appealed to the only One who could possibly put the control back into his hands. His list of retribution shows his frustration and hurt, ending in his own power play with God. He ticks off another list, trying to remind God that He had promised to hear him and to do something about it. The Psalmist even tells God that he will “praise God’s name in song and glorify him with Thanksgiving” – that is, if God will grant him his wish of payback.

But Jesus came to put a stop to that for you. Jesus has come to tell you that this fear and trembling has gone on long enough. Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan to hand out a triple Gospel message; a message that brings you into the story of each character.

Jesus told the expert in the law “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ …do this and you will live.” The message of life is found in faith in Jesus Christ alone. Looking to the Samaritan, Jesus told the expert in the law, “Go and do likewise.” This is a message of grace to a strict-law abider like the expert – and like you. Jesus is not commanding another thing to add to your to-do list. “Go and do likewise” may sound like just another commandment, one to manipulate and seek out hidden meanings therein. But Jesus doesn’t play games with your heart. He is not trying to win you over to close a deal or test your ability to work under pressure. Instead Jesus guides your eyes to the nameless, classless man on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. You are given the same freedom that the Good Samaritan acted on when helping the bruised and bloodied man on the side of the road. Unlike the Levite or the priest who were worried about what God or others thought about touching such a man, like the Samaritan you are given the freedom to know that your help does not come from networking or bullying, buying and selling your way into God’s heart. Jesus Christ has freed you from viewing others or God as an object to be won. Jesus Christ has given you unconditional mercy.

God also has come in Jesus Christ to tell you that even while you were the one beaten and bloodied, cast off to the side and forgotten, He has sent someone to bandage your wounds and care for your well-being. God knows that in this world you are trespassed against even as you have trespassed against others. God is well aware that you failed many times and felt the crushing judgment of others upon you. And after all of that, there is good news for you. God cares. God has sent His only Son Jesus Christ to carry you through your pain and hurt. He has sent friends and family to you, sometimes even strangers as the Samaritan, to bandage and care. Even in the times that you did not know how to ask for help, or could not ask, God cares enough to do something about it. It might not be the expected way, it might not be conventional, but God comes and will continue coming to you as your days continue. You are His child and through Jesus Christ, God has given you unconditional love.

Jesus gives you a charter of freedom. He took on your fear and trembling and anxiety and failed attempts onto Himself on the cross, where He Himself was bruised and bloodied and cast on the side of the road. You no longer have to suffer the consequences of God’s judgment for your failure. Jesus says to come to Him because in Him there is rest. He has already networked out your place in the world. He has given you favor in the eyes of God so that you will certainly have eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven with Him forever. You are free to work, play, and love right alongside your companions on this earth. God’s judgment has passed over you and you are free.

This makes you a new kind of expert: an expert in the Gospel. You have all you need in abundance – so much that it overflows out of you. Go and give this Word of abundance to your neighbor. Take joy in your freedom by giving this same gift you have received to others! Bandage the wounds of your friends, love your family with zeal, and feed the poor! The Word of God is real expertise in the business of freedom and loving and living. You are now an expert in the Gospel. Go in peace, serve the Lord. Real peace.

Amen.

Sermon Title: Living in Dichotomy - The Rich Man and Lazarus

2005-02-05T23:58:00.000-08:00

Linda E. Webster
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
First Place Feburary 2005 Round

The scriptures read today could appear to be a trap for many of us in various ways. We live within the society of the United States, which is affluent for many people – but not for all. This is difficult because those who are affluent do not want to see themselves in the position of the rich man that was read about today in Luke 16.

Honestly – if you are honest with yourself – you almost cannot help but see yourself as being part of the affluent. The rich man spent a lot of money on himself. He wore purple-colored cloth, a sign of wealth, and fine linen.

Please – just take a moment to look at what you are wearing today. You are probably dressed fairly nicely – even – by some of the world’s standards – richly. Out of curiosity, think about how much the outfit you are wearing cost.

The rich man ate sumptuously. What was your breakfast like this morning? Think about what you ate before you came here. You most likely had wonderful, filling, and fairly nutritious food – while many in the world live with hunger on a daily basis and would gladly take a small part of what you had for their entire, daily intake.

Though the verses in gospel according to Luke do not say exactly what it was that Lazarus was wearing for clothes, it is unlikely he was wearing the latest in fashion, even for the “street people” of the time. From the description, we can tell he was not completely covered as his sores were visible and the dogs could lick them. Luke’s story seems to imply that Lazarus would have loved to have been satisfied by the crumbs from the rich man’s table, but he could not be. Was the rich man so tight with even his leftovers that Lazarus constantly went away hungry? This story makes you wonder.

The readings from Luke’s gospel and the first letter to Timothy convict you and make you want to do something – anything – to alleviate your conscience. Write a check. Give food to the local food bank. Go through your closet and get rid of all those clothes you are not wearing anyway. Work in at a soup kitchen giving out breakfast, lunch, or dinner to the needy. Give money to Lutheran World Relief.

You want to DO something! You feel the need to do ANYTHING! You want to give your conscience some relief from the guilt it is feeling! That is our response to the law. It is the natural response – the normal human response. We hear the story of this rich man and we understand our own failure to live up to what it is we think God is asking of us. We are convicted of our sin before God.

The rich man in this story still does not appear to be completely aware of the problem. There is no repentance for his past actions. He does not acknowledge that he lived his life unconscious of his neighbor’s need. He does not seem aware that he lived his life in his own self-sufficiency.

The rich man does not acknowledge that he lived his life without awareness of God or his neighbor until he was long dead and in torment in Hades. Even at that point, he acts out of self-preservation. He wants help! But, that help is not forthcoming. When that plea fails, he asks that special messengers be sent to his relatives to “save” them. But, he is told there is a gulf between himself and God and there is a gulf between his relatives and Christ’s saving work.

There is no fear of God, only fear for self. There is no acknowledgement of sin as there is no repentance or asking for forgiveness. Pray that at the Last Day you do not find yourself in the same position this rich man was in.

This story of the rich man and Lazarus is a good illustration of the following words spoken by Jesus earlier in chapter 6 of the gospel of Luke in the “Sermon on the Plain.”

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. …

Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now for you will mourn and weep. (NRSV)

Are you receiving all the consolation that is yours now in this life? Or, will you receive consolation in the next life?
(Pause)

If we read a little further in chapter 6 of the book of 1 Timothy we come to understand what the Christian attitude towards riches should be. Please read with me again, starting at verse 6 and reading through verse 10.

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into this world – it is certain that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. (NRSV)

I would like to tell you a story of a very small town located in northwestern Nebraska named White Clay. It is an unincorporated town of about 20 people. It has the highest per capita number of millionaires of any town in the entire United States. White Clay is located two miles south of the largest town on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which is also named Pine Ridge. The major business in White Clay is selling alcohol. It has been estimated the 11,000 cans of beer are sold there everyday. Who buys this alcohol? It is the Native Americans who drive, walk, and hitchhike those two miles everyday who are the clientele of these establishments.
(Pause)

Those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. (NRSV)

Sadly, this is not a made-up story, but a true story. It is a story of people who in their desire to be rich have brought about the destruction of many others. When faced with an eternity such as that of the “rich man” in Luke 16, is the desire to be rich and the blatant ignoring of your neighbors and their well-being worth the pain of eternity without God’s presence – or as the rich man experienced – being separated from God by a wide, uncrossable chasm?

Is giving up all of our possessions the correct and proper response either? From 1 Corinthians 13 it says –

If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (NRSV)

Each of us is in a predicament! If you have many things, you could be in serious trouble. BUT, if you give away everything you could still be in big trouble. How are we as Christians suppose to handle this daily tug-of-war, this daily push-pull dichotomy in our lives of faith?

Continuing to read from chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians –

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (NRSV)

And from Galatians 3 –

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. (NRSV)

And, from Galatians 2 –

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (NRSV)

We have been crucified with Christ. This is where each of us must come and hide – hide in the shadow of the cross – abide in the work that has already been done on the cross for you and for me.

Psalm 91 says –

You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.” (NRSV)

You cannot find deliverance from yourself in yourself. Your deliverance is only found in God and the work already accomplished for you on the cross of Calvary by the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. Your salvation is not dependent on what you do to deliver yourself or how you may change yourself. God has already done all the work. You are only asked to come and live in what God has already accomplished for you. From living in God’s presence, through the Word and in the fellowship of the Church, you will be changed.
(Pause)

Love and generosity are fruits of the Spirit. Fruit is something that grows from being in the proper environment. Fruit grows when a branch of the vine is getting the right food and enough water. Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life. I am the Living Water. I am the Vine – you are the branches.” Jesus is the Word of Life.
Fruit grows without any knowledge of the branch and it will continue to grow as long as the branch stays connected to the vine and receives all the nourishment it needs. Just as the fruit is unaware of the branch, the branch is unaware of the fruit. Listen to how this is illustrated so well in the 25th chapter of the gospel according to Matthew.

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (NRSV)

God’s work of salvation was completed on the cross. We can do nothing to make that work more complete. The only thing we need to do is hold onto the promises that God has made.

In Psalm 91 God has promised to deliver those who love God, to protect those who know God’s name, to answer when God’s name is called, to be with those in trouble and rescue and honor them. There is the promise of satisfaction with long life and salvation.

The Christian life is one that is described as being a life of stewardship and generosity. Does that come from within us – from our humanity? No. It can only come from “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” as Colossians 1:27 says.

If we depend on ourselves we will only fail. If we depend on Christ we cannot help but live a “fruit-ful” life, no matter what it seems to look like on the outside. Did Lazarus look successful? Not by the world’s standards. But, he certainly was by God’s standards. Did the rich man look successful? Yes, by the world’s standards he did. But, by God’s he failed miserably.

Today, no matter where you think you are, trust in God’s work in and through you. The work of salvation is complete. The fruits of the Spirit are growing in you. Stay nourished – a branch connected to the Vine – watered and fed – through the washing of water by the word, as Ephesians 5:26 says, and through the renewing of your mind, as Romans 12:2 says – and you will grow in grace unto life eternal.
Amen.

Sermon Title: This is My Body

2005-02-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

Steven Broers
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Second Place Feburary 2005 Round

You swallow the bread and the wine. I swallow you. This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you. Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
You feel quite insignificant now that you have the crucified and risen flesh and bone Jesus Christ riding down your esophagus. You cannot prepare for Jesus making a home in your digestive juices. You consume Jesus Christ, all of him, true God and true man. He consumes you. He is a consuming fire killing everything in you, all of you, and molding you in his own image-brand spanking new! Your new home is in the refuge and fortress of Jesus Christ himself.

You gulp down that hunk of bread and you are finished. Jesus Christ says, "This is my body, given for you." This is Christ's promise for you handed over in a hunk of bread. You have no part to play. You receive the living God. Your pious desires make no difference. Your theology makes no difference. Jesus is not looking for a few good men. Jesus dies only for the unworthy, the confused, the condemned, the distraught; Jesus hands himself over for you. He wants you and swallows you whole. You take Jesus in the way he chooses to give himself. In a crusty, dried up loaf of bread. In a pasty white wafer. Jesus reveals himself, "This is my body given for you."

You take Jesus in the way he chooses to give himself. He gives himself for creatures, for you, who do not know him. He gives himself for creatures, for you, who want to kill him on a cross. Jesus Christ gives himself for you, the creature, the one he made, and pronounces you dead in yourself and alive only in him. You are indeed only a dead creature but alive as Christ's chosen one, a Christian. Claimed with the name of Christ. He gives himself to make you free-not so that you might make better choices-but so that he can be all in all. By placing all your faith on Jesus Christ alone you will know the freedom of being bound to Christ. Your sins hang heavily around your waist, but Christ grabs hold of your belt and leads you where you do not want to go. He kills you with your sins in order to bring you to eternal life.

You are two people now and he has two words for you. The first word is that of the law, what Jesus expects from you as a creature. He has made you a creature in order to love and serve your neighbor. He provides you with daily bread and twelve extra baskets full. You hold the daily bread for those in need. But, you do not and will not heed his holy word, for you are bound to listen to your own voice-to your own judgment. You received the good things in life and now you are in agony. Everything in your life does not come from you but from God. God provides the necessities of life to all people, rich or poor, through the hands of others. You heard the laws of Moses and you did not follow the law. You heard the call to repentance and did not listen. You are not convinced to follow the law even by Jesus Christ himself being raised from the dead. You have no excuse.

You are two people now and he has two words for you. The second word is that of a promise given to those he claims by his name. "This is my body given for you." You are not convinced by God's laws. You are not convinced by God's Son. So God kills you and makes you alive by his word alone. God's word hammers you back into the dust you came from and opens the grave with his final word, his word of promise for you. Indeed, this is my body and it is given for you. You are dust and to dust you shall return, but, I am the Lord of the living and not of the dead. I will raise you up on eagle's wings, make you to shine like the sun and hold you in the palm of my hand. You are mine forever. You will live forever because of me.

You swallow the bread and the wine. I swallow you. All of you. All of your most pious desires. The ones that make you feel so evolved and godly. Jesus Christ burns away all your good works until you have nothing to show for yourself before God and nothing to be proud of. Why? So that there is nothing to separate you from him. Nothing will separate you from Jesus and his love-he defeats you. He even defeats death itself. He's not doing it for your glory. He is doing it for his glory.

Waiting quietly in your pew for your upcoming death at the Lord's Supper may comfort you. Reflecting on God's promises may give you some peace. But when the words are pronounced, "The body of Christ given for you." "The blood of Christ shed for you". These words kill you and your preparations come to an end. You, the person you know and love above anything else, dies. This death is not some spiritual death done by some spiritual Savior. The crucified and risen Jesus Christ says, "This is my body" and you swallow him whole. You are dead. Jesus Christ lives in you and you in him.

Of course you don't agree. You don't want a crucified God. You don't want God in bread. Eating the flesh and blood of Jesus just seems so icky. Seems so illogical. Seems like you would've done it a different way. You don't want an icky God. You want to be made right with a purely spiritual God on your own terms. Jesus has this to say, "Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you." This teaching is difficult. Thank God! For Jesus Christ is not risen to convince you but to kill you. You have faith in his words because you have nowhere else to go. Only Jesus has the words of eternal life. "This is my body. This is my blood."

You want to be justified in yourself and by yourself. You want to be loved by God because of who you are and what you do. Instead, God justifies you because of nothing you do but because everything you do in despicable to God. Inside your head all you hear is your unworthiness and your final judgment. God's word comes from outside of you and says, "You are mine. I love you." God makes you right in his eyes not because of anything in you but because of his Son, the flesh and bone, Jesus Christ alone. You swallow the bread and the wine. I swallow you.

Satan harasses you questions "Did God say, 'This is my body?'" And what shall you say? Yes, he did. These are the clear words of my savior Jesus Christ. "How can this be possible? Isn't that just kind of disgusting? Did Jesus really mean 'This is my body'?" And what shall you say? Yes, he did. These are the clear words of my savior Jesus Christ. For a God who does not share my flesh and bone is no God at all.

In the city of Marburg, in the year 1529, Martin Luther met with another reformer named Zwingli. They met to discuss the Lord's Supper. Sitting at a table together, Luther lifted the table cloth and scratched into the wood the words "This is my body" and the discussion began. Zwingli asked, "Don't the words 'this is my body' really mean 'This symbolizes my body'" Luther lifted up the table cloth and said, "But Christ said 'this is my body.'" But Zwingli argued, 'You don't really mean we eat Jesus' flesh like cannibals! In the Bible it is written the flesh profits nothing." Luther lifted up the tablecloth, "But Christ said 'This is my body.'" Zwingli said, "But it is written that Christ sits at the right hand of God. How can he be in a loaf of bread in every church partaking of the Lord's Supper?" Luther lifted up the cloth, "Christ said 'This is my body.'"

You put your faith not in arguments of logic, not in personal experience, not in your own understanding, but in Jesus Christ alone. "This is my body. This is my blood." Any other words stand apart from Christ and his promise for you. Is this fundamentalism? Biblicism? No. This is Jesus Christ. Jesus isn't preaching law at the last supper but pure unadulterated gospel to bound sinners. Luther preached Jesus Christ and his words alone. Jesus Christ, the author of life, does the work.

Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . is conceited, understands nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words.

Jesus Christ says, "This is my body." You are absolutely condemned. So, because God's name and God's words are blasphemed and despised he sends a preacher so that his people will know his name and hear his words. He sends a preacher for you. He announces his last judgment. You have absolutely no life in you. You are condemned. He announces your salvation. You are whiter than snow. You are mine and no one will snatch you out of my hand.

You want to save your life and you will lose it. For Jesus comes not to bring peace but comes with a sword. His words cut you down and they kill you. Like a tree that bears no fruit, you are toppled over. Jesus kills you and raises you up. He destroys you completely so that he can raise you to eternal life forever. Your only hope lies in Jesus Christ alone. Jesus is in the bread and wine not as a sign, but for you. Jesus is in the bread and wine, not for a celebration of church unity, but for you. Jesus is in the bread and the wine, not because of what you do, but for you.

You are given the freedom that comes from knowing that eternal life is wrapped up in Jesus Christ. You are given the freedom to live your life out of the shadow of punishment from doing things right or wrong. And still, you continue to carry around the burden of being a sinner, a creature. Not a spirit eating a spiritual God but a creature eating Jesus Christ, true God AND true man. You cannot and will not love God or others more than yourself. But because of Christ, you now are free and can live with others on Earth in the shadow of the Almighty God.

So, issues in the church today and in the news today are no longer about what should be right or should be wrong for you do not live according to the law but according to Jesus Christ and his words. His word of law telling you that you are only a creature who lives in a sinful society that needs protection and ordering from the law. You stay out of the clouds of spirituality and live on Earth as a creature. Your daily life is not about freedom to do whatever you choose but is a life filled with death and repentance. But God does not just have one word but two, the word of law and the word of promise. Though death and sin infect every part of this world, God's last word is his promise. Jesus Christ has come to give life and to give it abundantly for you. Jesus Christ will create a new heaven and a new earth. You do not preach compassion or your own standard of truth. You preach Jesus Christ himself and let him do the work. You put your trust in his word of truth.

Jesus pronounces your most pious desires for freedom, equality and godliness to be full of sin and utterly unable to meet the demands of the law. "There is no one who is right in God's eyes, no not even one." You find your hope in the freedom from that law that only comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Your faith finds refuge under his wings and in his words. You hear the gospel in the words of the Lord's Supper. There are no conditions to this gift of salvation, just the words, "This is my body, given for you." You swallow the bread and the wine. I swallow you.

Sermon Title: When they call out to me

2005-02-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

Robert Godsall-Myers
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Fourth Place, Feburary 2005 Round

"You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day, or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you."

These encouraging words offer a promise of protection. The Psalmist continues with more bold promises of God, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways, concluding with perhaps the most hopeful words of all, With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.

The Psalmist reveals to us more than just the extent of Gods promises. He explains who these benefits are for: Those who love me and who live in the shelter of the Most High. He also explains why these benefits are given, because you have made the LORD your refuge. Lastly, the Psalmist also declares when these benefits will be given: When they call to me. Thus, as we reflect on the Psalmists words, we can see that Gods gifts of protection and health are conferred on those who have faith - who love God, who take refuge in him, and who call on his name.

While such promises may be reassuring, they also leave a very important question unanswered: What do we do when things around us are not going well? If the grounds for our belief is what God will give us, what happens when present blessings seem to dry up? How would, how could such a Psalm be read to the Tsunami ridden areas? Surely there were many believers on whom such pestilence fell, many who cried out to God whose prayers went unanswered.

This Psalm is still a beautiful and meaningful Psalm, however, like all texts in the Bible, it, by itself, is incomplete. There are many blessings of faith and this Psalm well describes them. However, it does not address how we can love the Lord our God, how we can have faith, especially in times of trial, when the blessings seem to have dried up.

Turning from such comforting words, were are greeted with quite harsh words in Pauls letter to Timothy: Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed. Ouch. This first sentence from Timothy strikes us modern readers as anachronistic, if not offensive. This condoning of slavery, furthermore, seems inconsistent with the story of Exodus and the Christian message of Freedom in Christ.

Consider though the next sentence, rather they must serve them all the more, since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved. Paul at one point proclaimed to the early Church that in Christ, there was neither slave nor free. Here it seems though, that in the early Church, there was both slave and free. There is no evidence that distinctions at the communion table were ever tolerated in the early Church. Indeed, Acts points out examples where such distinctions were condemned. Thus, Paul's letter would be read aloud to a group that contained slaves and masters along side one another, in and among one another.

How then could such slaves do it? How could slaves go to work in the morning, sweating and toiling for someone else's profit and then go and praise God with such a person? Here can we even see our neighbors as similar to ourselves, much less love them as ourselves when they are our masters who profit from our labor?

While Pauls letter may challenge, even upset us with its message, the Gospel lesson today does more than upset us, it indicts us. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. Such an acute description of poverty makes empathy nearly impossible. In spite of our daily difficulties, it would be a stretch for any of us to identify with Lazarus, covered in sores that dogs lick, looking on at a neighbor who feasts every day. Sadly, as we read this story, we more likely see ourselves as the rich man, dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

I recently took a trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The poverty on the reservation is staggering. The unemployment in the county has been above 80 percent for decades. Alcohol abuse and addiction is so rampant that it not only cripples lives, but families and even generations. At one point during an elementary school Pow Wow, an 11 year-old leaned over to his brother to indicate why he was there: Uncle is drunk. The words alone were painful enough, but his tone struck me. He mentioned this fact so causally. This was not some unusual big event. This was a routine occurrence.

I viewed the children on the reservation as modern-day versions of Lazarus. No reason for Lazarus' condition is given; it is merely portrayed as inhumane. This is indeed what the conditions of the children here. As one child told me, his house had two windows without glass. I would not have believed him, but for my own daily runs through the surrounding area where I saw shack after shack with open windows, surely making for a cold night on the Dakota prairie.

I have rarely been more painfully aware of my wealth. Artisans always came to the retreat center hoping to pedal their work. Soon our purchases became less for the sake of friends back home and more for the sake of those from whom we bought, many of whom came with sob stories of why they needed money. I had no idea whom to believe and on whom I should bestow my humble petty cash. Would it go for alcohol? Would it be better to give to the community college? I felt like the rich man in hell, aware of the brokenness and unable to do anything about it. Where was God? How could I love my neighbor?

Jesus concludes his parable with the despairing words, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. After such a parable, these words might seem like the final straw, the final nail that killed hope. Jesus seems to predict his own failure here: Even after his resurrection people will still not get it. These words, although seemingly depressing, are ultimately empowering. Jesus tells us here that his resurrection is not some miraculous display of power which will be used to convince us to obey the law. Jesus knows we will never be able to obey the law. Jesus tells us here that his resurrection is a miracle which has a power which the law does not, namely, to forgive us and make us right before God.

Jesus resurrection is what allows us to have this faith the Psalmist praises. Even if things in the here and now are difficult, the resurrection of Jesus lets us know that we have a heavenly home. The resurrection grants us full security, knowing that we may get sick or suffer setback, but the true pestilence, that of death, will never be ours. Jesus death and resurrection is what proclaims to us the words of Psalmist-- we will have salvation and long, indeed, eternal life.

Furthermore, before the cross, we all know that we are humble sinners, unable to achieve this salvation on our own. Thus, we can look at our boss, our modern master or our lying colleague and realize that before Christ, we are just as unworthy as he or she is. I may have a lower economic position; I may have taken the high road; but this does not impress the cross. Before the cross, we are in the same position: unworthy. Before the cross, the person next to me is no longer my master, but my brother. He deserves my best and I deserve his best.

The parable of Lazarus surely points to Jesus concern for the poor. Indeed, the reign of God does not consist of justifying current social relationships. However, the last line of the parable points us toward what enables us to care for people who are poor: the love of the resurrected Jesus working in our hearts. Working in impoverished conditions, hope can seem small. At these times, we can feel the terror of the night surrounding us and the words of the Psalm seem vague and distant. It is precisely at these moments though that we need to though, as the Psalm says, call on God. We need to invite Christ to bear our earthly sufferings. We need to look to the empty tomb and see our heavenly home.

However, if we look to heaven for help before we see the depth of Lazarus despair, we are like the rich man. We cannot ignore social problems, dismissing them as temporal cares. For when we look at the difficulties of Lazarus we realize the need of a God to work on our side. Our faith in God allows us to fight for the poor; fighting for the poor shows us how much we need God. And the Good News is that when we are fighting for the poor, and we are forced to our knees in awe of situation, and we call on Gods name, he will answer.

Sermon Title: Social Justice

2005-02-05T19:00:00.000-08:00

David Castner
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Honorable Mention, Feburary 2005 Round

I grew up next to the San Carlos Apache Reservation. I have seen a good many reservations in my life and I would have to consider the San Carlos Reservation to be one of the poorest. I had a good friend who lived there. He did not have a father that I knew about but he had a very loving mother and a sister. One weekend he invited me out to visit. His house wasn't much more than a shack with two bedrooms. There was a central heater that heated the entire house which meant that Augie had no heat in his room.

It came time to sleep so I was to sleep in his sisters bed which was in the living room next to the heater. Augie went so far as to take many of the blankets off his bed and piled them on mine so that I could be warm. I still remember how thickly piled my blankets were and how hot I was under them. The next morning I realized just what sacrifice Augie had made for me when I could feel the cold draft coming out of his room and realized how few blankets he had. I never forgot his friendship or kindness; much less his selfless act so that I might be warm.

I think often about Augie and the other people in my life who have so selflessly given of themselves. I am also reminded of the story of a group of chaplains in WWII who gave away their life jackets and perished when their ship was struck by a torpedo.

What is it that these people believe? I get so disgusted with myself and others who complain about so little in our lives while others have such grave needs. The guilt can be horrible and weigh so heavily on my shoulders that I can feel guilty for any good fortune and blessings.

The law of God is written in scripture such as Luke 16. Scripture also tells us that it is written on our hearts. This is the moral side of the law. The law is wonderful in that it tells us what is expected of us by God and gives us something to measure ourselves against. The unfortunate part is that it is either black or white. There is no gray in the law. You keep the law or you break the law.

Luther taught that we are human and as such we are prone to sin. In his explanation of the third article of the Apostles Creed says,

I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord

In this he acknowledges my frailty and shortcomings. He teaches that not only can we not keep the law by our own strength, but we cannot even have faith in God without the Holy Spirit to strengthen us.

It is in Jesus that we are finally given forgiveness. It is Jesus who makes up for our inadequacies so that we can finally be righteous in Gods eyes. In our baptism liturgy we read, Let your light so shine before others that they will see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. These good works are the deeds of Christians that are committed in this world. These works though are not in order to earn your way in heaven, because that is already freely given through Jesus; these works are done out of joy in knowing you are forgiven freely. Basically, the energy that one would have expended in trying to earn your way in to heaven can now be freely devoted to help people out of the joy and love in your heart for your God because he is your refuge from not only death, but from your own darkness.

1 Timothy and Psalm 91 tell us many things. We learn that God protects us under his wings and punishes the wicked. But what about if you are a slave? Paul tells Timothy that Christian slaves are still to be very respectful to their Christian masters out of love. We realize from these texts that sometimes we are put in situations we dislike. Sometimes we are slaves or poor, diseased or disabled. Christians can find themselves in as many situations as any non-Christian but we have a staff to lean on. God promises to take care of us in this life and eternally in the next life. This is where our strength comes from.

People, maybe you also, ask how God is taking care of his people today. What about that person lying on the street; how is God taking care of him. God is taking care of him through you. The Old Testament shows us a God who was very active in the world but he still chose to work through people. Today is no different; God works through us now. God speaks to you through the Holy Spirit so that you might do the work he needs done in this world. That is why you have those urges to help people for no reason or do unexplainable things. I can't give you any secret formulas other than to listen to your heart. Your Lord is still speaking to you but not from the fiery bush or the voice from above. He often speaks in the most benign ways.

Social justice is an important part of Christianity. We are blessed in so many ways by God. We may not all have money, but we all have Gods saving grace. Our other blessings are all different but that is the way it should be. The person blessed with money but lacks faith can help the person who lacks money but has abundant faith. Do you see? We are to help each other and share our blessings. Its not rocket science! What the Psalmist, Luke, Paul, and Luther are all trying to tell us is to LOVE EACH OTHER, not just talk about it.

I ask myself what is it that I could have possibly given Augie in return for his generosity that night in his freezing house. I thought hard about it, and the answer came to me finally in 1 Corinthians 13:13; what I gave Augie was love and friendship. He never wanted or needed anything other than that.

Sermon Title: In Groups, Out Groups, and the Grace which Transcends Both

2005-02-05T18:00:00.000-08:00

Kevin Sumner-Eisenbraun
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Honorable Mention, Feburary 2005 Round

The subtitle listed for the 91st Psalm reads Assurance of Gods Protection. To whom does this subtitle refer? We read in the first verse: You who live in the shelter of the Most High who abide in the shadow of the Almighty The person to whom this Psalm refers is depicted in quite a favorable light. The person in the Most High shelter is the only person left standing when the rest of the world falls out of favor with God.

Many times a day I wrestle with the question about how I personally fit into this Psalm. Obviously, we are speaking in metaphors here. Do I live in the shelter of the Most High? Do I abide in the shadow of the Almighty? Or am I awaiting my condemnation? And what does it really mean to live in the shelter of the Most High? This Biblical passage is quite threatening really. How do we know if we are on Gods good side or bad side? Is God really that hard to please?

I believe this Psalm is analogous to our legal system. On one hand, we are thankful for the laws that keep us and other people safe. On the other hand, when we get speeding tickets our anger can be misplaced. We might get mad at the officer and throw a fit. In theory, we are willing to submit to the laws of the land. However, when we are the offenders, our response is quite different.

Luther speaks about Gods anger unleashed upon us. It is not a pleasant thing to think about. Most of us only want to think about the God that loves us and the God who is always warm, always loving, and always caring. But I must ask Would God be a loving God if S/He ultimately let evil take over our souls?

This discussion about who is under the functions of Gods Law is vital for our discussion of the Biblical texts we are investigating. As we make our way through the Biblical passages I encourage you to try to fit yourselves into the texts. The way in which I questioned my own place in todays Psalm is an example of this exercise.

Let us now turn to the Gospel reading for this morning from Luke.
Many believe the book of Luke was written especially for the down-trodden, the oppressed, and the marginalized. In fact, the Gospel of Luke is the book of choice for Latin American Liberation theologians. That is, theologians that believe God has a preferential option for the poor. So, do we believe that? If this is true does God want all of us to be down-trodden and oppressed our entire lives? In order to gain Gods favor and live in the shelter of the Most High, do we need to sell all of our possessions and live a life without luxury and convenience? I certainly do not want to romanticize poverty. In a book I recently read entitled, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, a youth travels to Alaska penniless in order to live out a life free from money which he believed to be oppressive. This impulse which causes us to want to escape the ills of society is popular among many groups. In many circles, people believe that the very structure of the economic system of which we participate is against Gods plan for the world.

Many of these groups in our culture have their own answers. There are the cult leaders who believe that to live in the shelter of the Most High actually requires a radical withdrawal from society, a casting aside of all of the things that get in the way of our relationship with God. When I was in high school I was dumped for Jesus on more than one occasion due to this type of thinking.

Then there are the thinkers associated with the liberalist movements of the 19th century, often called Deists. These thinkers believed in human achievement and progress. It was a time when questioning authority was O.K. The God of the Bible and traditional forms of the Christian faith were not especially appealing. Instead, people began to place their faith in the work of people. Many thinkers associated with Deism believed that God set the world in motion and let things progress from there. As a result, the belief that humans had the tools to bring about positive change and a better life was contagious.

There was only one problem. With human progress also comes human egos and pride. Wars began in part because of this type of thinking. Then there were the World Wars and the optimism was crushed. Rather, then looking over the vast accomplishments of humanity, the ground and the world was a garbage dump. The need for a radically Other being and belief presented itself. Barthian neo-Orthodoxy was the solution. In this way of thinking humans must turn back to God and believe that God is truly the only truly holy one.

Notice the trend here. The liberal theological movements of the 19th relied far too heavily upon humanity, while other groups, believing they are only relying upon God excommunicate themselves from everything worldly.

Now that we have had a brief history lesson I must ask, how then do we cope with the challenges of modernity? How do we make peace with these texts? We never want to over spiritualize the Bible. It does not have to be a mystery. We let our conscience guide us. Luther translated the Bible into German, the language of the people, simply for this reason. He claimed that the Word of God is clear. But is it? The two examples from history we just discussed were stories of people using Biblical practices that looked very different. How do we read the Bible without polarizing it? After all, Lutherans do believe in dividing the Bible into Law and Gospel, right?

Let us turn now to the Gospel message for today and perhaps a coherent message might become clearer to us. If the Hebrew Scriptures were hard to understand, perhaps Jesus may be able to clear things up for us.

The Gospel lesson today is the story of the Rich man and Lazarus. First, I want discuss what it means to be rich. Not in a spiritual sense. Simply, what is it that makes someone wealthy? How much money does someone have to have before they are considered rich? When I was growing up, from my perspective, the rich kids at school were the kids with cable television in their homes, and video games.

It is important to think about what rich means when we consider Walter Bruggemanns notions of scarcity verses abundance in a book entitled Deep Memory Exuberant Hope. Bruggemann tells the story of Pharaoh and his eventual domination of all the food in the region. Pharoah was scared because he heard there was going to be a famine in the land. As a result he collected all the food for himself and created the first monopoly. The rich man that Jesus refers to in this story is probably this kind of rich, monopoly rich.

I asked us to think about how we might place ourselves in the Biblical texts for today? Would you all consider yourselves the rich man or Lazarus? Again, consider what we discussed earlier. Are we romanticizing poverty if we choose Lazarus? Or are we more like the rich man? We shall come back to this question but for now lets continue.

The Epistle lesson today comes from the book of 1Timothy. In this passage it sounds as though it is a ringing endorsement for slavery. How can that be in the Bible? Would we really instruct a slave to remain under the yoke of slavery and actually honor his master? I dont think so.

Concerning the Epistle, do we really believe that those who do not obey their masters are guilty of conceit and a morbid craving for controversy?
Many believe the God of the OT in condemning while the NT God loves. However, this cannot be true when we search the whole story.

Now is when we turn to our theological imagination. The Bible has many different seemingly contradictory messages. But the final verse in the Epistle lesson reads: Of course, there is great is great gain in godliness combined with contentment. This verse, I believe, is the key to our learning this morning.

The Lutheran faith is all about affirming tension, finding a middle ground, thinking things through. Christians receive the gift of grace which is out of our control. Sin is also out of our control. I believe the presence of sin forces us into extremes, but the fact of grace keeps us marching forward.

The way we make church decisions is evidence of this fact. Instead of making hard and fast claims we affirm the bothand nature of the universe. We believe God is both hidden and reveled. God is both gracious and judging. In the same manner we believe humans are both sinners and saints, worldly and righteous. When we come to the communion rail there are four elements: both bread and wine, and the body and blood of Christ. The list goes on and on. All this is to say that there are no easy answers. This should not paralyze us, however.

The Bible has all sorts of polarizing stories. Are you with the Most High? Or are you with the condemned? Are you a rich oppressor? Or are you the marginalized poor? Are you a master? Or are you a slave?

The beauty of our Lutheran theology is that we can say yes to both. We fit into the Biblical narrative in both places. We are righteous when we live according to the traffic laws, but when we receive a speeding ticket we have done wrong. But we are still loved by God.

This is the final message today. We do not have to live out our existence in extremes. You are loved and forgiven just as you are. We do not have to choose between the Creeds and compassion. Our traditions are the result of a redeemed communitys struggle over many centuries to be truthful about life. The truth about life is that we are all absolutely equal before God.

What does this mean for us then? Just as we have learned about Lazarus and the rich man and the Epistle Lessons discussions of the master/slave distinction, we must also begin to imagine ourselves in these stories. However, instead of choosing a role to identify with and play out, we shall instead look at the issue from every angle. This is what our Confessions, Traditions, Creeds have done. The purpose is that these elements of orthodoxy allow us to be more loving, more compassionate and disciples of Jesus. Our orthodoxy gives us a systematic framework in which we can exercise our compassion. Amen.

Sermon Title: I'm Lazarus

2005-02-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

Amy Kirsten Strydom
M.Div. Student, Luther Seminary
Honorable Mention, Feburary 2005 Round

I am fairly well off, though I am sure there are more people better off than me. I am supported by my husband, and with a stipend given to me by the congregation that I work for. We have fancy clothes to wear (because I have to be presentable you know), and a soft bed to sleep on (because if I didnt get my sleep, I would be really difficult to work with), and I think plenty of food and other luxuries. My husband thinks that the pets eat better than we do, but I think hes just exaggerating the fact to get a bit of pity. We eat a well balanced diet, why shouldnt the cat and dog, after all, we made the choice to have them and look after them.

(Lazarus: Karen)
I'm Lazarus.

I am thirteen. I live with my family in Bethlehem. We had to move to my uncles house because the soldiers said we had to leave our house. My uncle says that the Lord is protecting us, but I am still scared. Pastor says that there is a room for me in Gods house and Jesus is coming back to bring me there. I wonder what it looks like.

The congregation that I work for has lots of activities going on: Bible studies, council meetings, choir practices, circle meetings! Almost every day there is a group of people gathering to read Gods Word and pray for each other. Come to think of it, there are also a number of groups dedicated and devoted to doing things for Lutheran World Relief, the Crop Walk, and Habitat for Humanity and Food Pantry. These groups are trying so hard to open the eyes and hearts of others in the congregation so that they can share what they have. Even the Sunday school classes and youth groups are encouraged to do some sort of service for the community.

Some of the folks asked if I wanted to get involved-- but I am so busy with this and that. I mean, they should be grateful that I show up on Sundays and put in my time here... maybe if I just smile and nod, and say a few encouraging words, they won't expect too much from me.

(Lazarus: Glenn)
I'm Lazarus.

I got laid off because the company found somewhere new to put their plant. There is no work for someone like me, so I wait monthly in the unemployment line. I am ashamed that I can't provide for my family and it is wearing on me. I have no desire to keep up my appearance and sleepless nights are eating away my hope. Don't the people in those offices understand how their greed affects others? Where are you God? Where is your providence? My enemies eat great feasts while my family suffers! Where is my vindication?

On another note, there is a lot of greed in the world today. Some companies are discontinuing health benefits for their employees because it cuts into their profits. Some businesses are laying off a large number of people because robot work is cheaper. And this whole concept of out-sourcing I keep hearing about companies who are building factories and offices in other countries. Maybe, it is to help those countries. How can you know? How can you tell what is true charity for others and what is greed and what is just plain survival? Dont get me wrong, I agree that people here have a right to work and get paid a livable wage for their time, but, I have to admit, I do like my Low, low, pricesand, well, lets face it, people in India and China and Japan work for less, and so the savings are passed along, right? What can I do anyway? Isnt that what grace is for?

(Lazarus: Lisa)
I'm Lazarus.

I live in Arusha, Tanzania. I have a disability and have to be in a wheelchair. My family has put me out on the street to beg so that I bring in some money. No one will hire me because of my disability and it is unfair. Why must I beg when my mind is alert and I am able to learn? Dont blame my family; they do what they need to do to survive. I trust that God will provide and Pastor says I will be made whole at the resurrection. Please dont look down on us.

And, it is getting close to the holiday times again... so every time I go to the store, there is someone standing there with a bell or a can asking for change or anything I can give... I say I dont have any change, but something still haunts me. Jingle, jingle... I just want to tell them to go away and stop interrupting my world with their announcements that people need help. I know people need help, but what's that got to do with me? Quit spreading your gloom into my picture perfect world. You make me feel bad.

(Lazarus: Bob)
I'm Lazarus.

I am poor, ill, and hungry. I lay here at this gate, hoping that he will heed the Word of the Lord and give me justice, or at least pity; for pity would be something... pity would give me a coat or a bag of leftovers. But everyday he passes me by, in his gilded carriage; in his fine clothes... I am invisible to him. I am worth less to him than the dogs and rodents that eat the crumbs off the floor. When I die he will neither mourn nor rejoice over my absence for he did not even acknowledge my human existence. O Lord, have mercy on me, a pitiful beggar.

Then, to top it all off, I found that I had to preach on the text about the rich man and Lazarus! Talk about a story that makes you think about your life! How ironic that the rich man who started out with everything, ended up as the beggar! And Lazarus, without so much as a word in the story, ends up on the lap of Abraham! Abraham tells the rich man that Moses and the Prophets tell his brothers exactly how to repent of their sinful living... and they should listen to them; because if they dont change because of their warnings, why would they be convinced to change by someone raised from the dead? What a confusing thing to tell him. I mean really, who even understands what the prophets are saying? Which prophets? Here, here, why cant Lazarus just stand up and say, Here I am? It would be so much easier... besides the only one I know that has been raised from the dead is... hold on... I... I'm the rich man... I have been the one who has ignored Jesus command to feed his sheep... But I thought... sharing the bread of life was just telling them about Jesus. I remember now his words,

"when I was hungry, you gave me food, when I was thirsty, naked, in prison, lonely... you took pity on me... for whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.

Oh Lord, have mercy on me! You have given me great riches and abundant blessings, yet before you, I am a pitiful beggar. Turn me around, give me ears to hear and wisdom to understand... help me to trust that following you will lead me to Lazarus. Lord, who am I that I should stand before your people, yet you give me words to speak of your grace and mercy, so that in the proclamation of your Word, others may hear and repent. Lord Jesus, hear my prayer.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Hear the Word of the Lord! Your salvation does not depend on you finding Lazarus. Lazarus is not a means to an end or someone that can be manipulated and used for your benefit. Lazarus depends on you forgetting about yourself and hearing him, seeing him as a person, a whole person, worthy of the body and blood, death and resurrection of Jesus, worthy of your love and compassion, your actions of justice and social responsibility.

If we don't care for Christ in our midst, who will? In this life, we may be the rich and blessed, but before the cross of Jesus, we are all stunningly clothed, pitiful beggars waiting in hope for the day we, too, are sitting in Abraham's lap. And when we are sent out from here, we become broken bread in the life of Lazarus. Can you hear him calling,

"I'm Lazarus."