October 31, 2009 at 6:29 am · Filed under Ephemera
Introduction
This article is the November 2009 installment of my monthly message in the parish newsletter for Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb.
With Joy and Thanksgiving
The grace of God pours down upon us like rain falling from the clouds. We cannot, with our wills or desires, squeeze the water from those clouds. We can only turn our faces to the heavens, close our eyes, and be washed by the gentle touch of the showers. Then the waters may cleanse and refresh us like God’s grace.
We cannot command the clouds to bring forth rain, but we can catch the rain in barrels and ponds and use the water to help grow flowers and vegetables. We can take this gift from God and make something more, something beautiful, something that blesses others, something that enriches God’s creation to his glory.
It’s the same with God’s grace as it touches each moment of our lives. He gives us life–at our births–by his grace. He rinses us clean–in Baptism–with his grace. He washes away our confessed sins–in Penance–with his grace. He inspires us–in Preaching–with his grace. He strengthens us–in the Eucharist–with his grace. He sustains us–through our lifetimes–by his grace. He gathers us–when we die–by his grace.
We cannot command God to pour out his grace upon us, we can only see these simple gifts as clouds, full of his grace, and then stand beneath them, humbly and expectantly, with faces upturned and arms outstretched.
And so, that is why we pray these words in worship when we bring our gifts to God’s altar:
Merciful Father, we offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us–our selves, our time, and our possessions–signs of your gracious love. Receive them for the sake of him who offered himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 87)
The words are so familiar to us, it’s easy for us to glide right through them. But look again, with a freshly washed face, at what we pray.
Signs of Your Gracious Love
Our merciful Father pours out his gifts upon us–first! He creates us, he gives us a lifetime, and he provides for us. He fills the ponds and rain barrels of our lives. And then he invites us to make something from these gifts, something that blesses others and gives him glory.
It’s no coincidence that we use the word “stewardship” both when we talk about soil and water conservation and when we speak of caring for and using God’s blessings in our lives. In each case, we gaze at our reflections in the rain barrels and ponds of our lives, dip our hands into their waters, and then take action to make something of what God has given us.
We Offer and God Receives
This month as we turn our parish’s attention to stewardship and as we gather our families around the table at Thanksgiving, we are reminded of God’s showers of grace. Our merciful Father has given us his gifts and invites us to respond with “joy and thanksgiving,” to care for the many “signs of his gracious love,” and to offer them, in the Spirit, for the sake of Jesus Christ.
When you pray for God to guide you in making faithful decisions about your stewardship, consider beginning your prayers with the words, “Merciful Father….” By his grace, may you discover refreshment and cleansing in our offertory’s call to joy and thanksgiving for those signs of gracious love that remind us of the Father’s greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Blessings,
+ Pastor David Frye
October 25, 2009 at 3:16 pm · Filed under Homilies
Introduction
This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 24-25, 2009, the weekend of the Festival of the Reformation in the churches of the Augsburg Confession.
+ + +
Readings
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 46
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36
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Prayer
Long ago, O God, you spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets. Now in these last days, make us listen as you speak to us by your Son. Amen. (based on Hebrews 1:1-2, NRSV)
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Message
Do you remember taking car trips
when you were a kid?
My brothers and I sat three across
in the back seat.
Each of us jealously guarded his personal space.
I used the ridges in the vinyl seat
to mark off where my space began
and their space ended.
And the worst of all
was to be the one sitting in the middle,
straddling the big driveshaft hump
that ran down the center
of our Rambler station wagon,
with no flat floor for your feet.
In the midst of all of that comfort and joy,
we naturally called out every few miles,
“Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
Mom and Dad were pretty patient,
but eventually Dad would use the rearview mirror
that gave him the superhero ability
to look each of us in the eye,
no matter where we were sitting.
By the power of his glance,
he inspired us to silent contemplation
of the scenery passing by in the car windows.
Eventually, we did get there–
wherever there was.
We’d get out of the car,
stretch our legs,
and elbow-jab one another,
just because we were brothers.
There are times when our life now
as God’s people in his Church
feels a lot like riding in the backseat
of a white 1966 Rambler station wagon
with brown vinyl seats, no air conditioning,
and an AM radio with knobs and buttons.
We are all together on the road,
heading somewhere.
It must be important for us to get there,
because Father is driving.
“Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
And he looks at us in the rearview mirror.
For a few minutes we are quiet
and then I feel your elbow
straying into the airspace
defined by those vinyl ridges,
preparing to encroach into my territory,
space I’ve claimed after intense negotiations.
And so I sit a little broader
and make sure to hold my legs
straight with my space’s borders
so that I can fill my fair share of the seat.
We each do the same.
But then, even though we try so hard
to ignore it, we cannot.
So we look up and we see our Father’s eyes
gazing at us in the rearview mirror.
He never blinks.
And we stand down along our borders.
It’s not peace, but at least it’s a ceasefire along our DMZ.
That’s the way we ride together in the Church.
“Are we there yet?”
God’s people have been asking that question
almost from the beginning.
How long did Israel wander in the wilderness
on her trek to the promised land,
before the people called out to Moses,
“Are we there yet?”
How long did the disciples walk behind Jesus,
trailing him in the dust kicked up by his sandals,
making their way between Galilean towns,
listening to him teach and preach,
watching him heal and work miracles,
before they asked their would-be king,
“Are we there yet?”
What went on in the struggles
between Martin Luther and Pope Leo X?
On one side of a line sat the Augustinian monk,
plagued by his Anfechtungen, his bouts of doubt,
and spurred by them to seek a gracious God.
And on the other side sat the Pope and the Church,
caught in complicated geopolitics and economics.
They defended the practice of selling indulgences
that reduced the punishment for forgiven sins.
Why could they not work out their differences
and finish the trip side-by-side in the back seat?
Were the differences really irreconcilable,
or was it all politics and stubbornness?
“Are we there yet?”
And how many times
have we in the Church grown impatient
with the path of service and sacrifice
laid out for us by our crucified and reigning Lord?
How often have we wanted
to get beyond the waiting and watching,
to move past the penitence and preparation,
and say, “Here we are. This is good, good enough.
Let’s be done with it, call it a success”?
And so we cry out to God,
“Are we there yet?”
This is what we ask,
this is what we say as we join our voices with the throngs
who have gone before us in the faith,
our brothers and sisters
both in belief and in doubt,
in obedience and in rebellion.
And like the patient Father that he is,
our heavenly Father says,
“No, we are not there yet.
We are on the way.
But while we are on the way,
let me sit with you in the back seat.
I’ll take the middle, I don’t mind.”
And so we scoot over a little to each side,
and open a space over the hump,
and our brother, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father,
sits with us in the back seat
of the old station wagon of the Church.
No, we are not there yet,
but, as Jeremiah tells us, God promises,
“The days are surely coming….” (Jeremiah 31:31a, NRSV)
And when those days come,
God will make a new covenant with us.
He will forgive our iniquity
and forget our sins.
And he will be our God
and we–all of us together–will be his people. (see Jeremiah 31:33-34, NRSV)
“The days are surely coming” (Jeremiah 31:31a, NRSV)
when we won’t need rules
about whose space begins at this little mark on the seat.
We will have all the space we need, because we–
with the law written in our hearts by God’s hand–
will make room for one another gladly and gratefully.
“The days are surely coming” (Jeremiah 31:31a, NRSV)
when we will no longer
spend time studying the catechism
and questioning our beliefs
and wondering about our vocations.
These are the tasks we shoulder here and now
as we travel in faith,
carrying out the interim ministry
of our Christian life in this world.
But on that Day, we will have arrived,
and we will live not by faith
but by seeing clearly the God who gathers us around him,
as Jeremiah says for the Lord,
“…for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.” (Jeremiah 31:34b, NRSV)
“The days are surely coming” (Jeremiah 31:31a, NRSV)
when we won’t wonder
whether we are there yet,
because we will look all around us
and know by the scenery of heaven laid out before us,
that our journey is over and we have arrived
at our final and blessed destination
in the kingdom of God.
“Are we there yet?”
“No, but we are on the way.
And don’t worry, ‘The days are surely coming,’ (Jeremiah 31:31a, NRSV)
the days when we “will know the truth,
and the truth will make [us] free,” (John 8:32, NRSV)
the days when we will join our voices
with God’s servants of every time and every place (see “Eucharistic Prayer,” LBW pp.90-91)
and sing together, ‘The Lord of hosts is with us,
the God of Jacob is our refuge.’” (Psalm 46:7, 11, NRSV)
“Are we there yet?”
No, but God is here with you and me.
The Father is driving,
the Son is sitting with us in the middle of the back seat,
and the Spirit is reading the map and giving trustworthy directions.
Our trip together is in God’s gracious hands. Amen.
October 24, 2009 at 7:54 am · Filed under Reflections
This past Tuesday at the Nebraska Synod’s annual Theological Conference,, when Bishop David deFreese shared a clip from A League of Their Own and mentioned that God makes some Christians “weepers,” I wrote myself a note to figure out why that sounded so familiar to me.
After a little digging, I discovered that I had just read a passage about the gift of tears the morning before. As part of my life as an Oblate, I pray several of the offices in the Liturgy of the Hours, the four-volume breviary used by priests and religious across the Catholic Church and by many Oblates regardless of their tradition. It would be tempting to call this a coincidence, but I’ve come to trust more in the guidance of the Spirit than the twists of fate. The second reading from the “Office of Readings” for Monday, Oct. 19, included this passage:
To spend much time in prayer is to knock with a persistent and holy fervor at the door of the one whom we beseech. This task is generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech. He places our tears in his sight, and our sighs are not hidden from him, for he has established all things through his Word and does not seek human words. (From a letter to Proba by Saint Augustine, Bishop. Liturgy of the Hours IV, p. 413.)
There have been occasions in my devotions when God moves me to tears. It always feels like a gift, like I am somehow, as a gift of grace, brought into intimate contact with our Father, in companionship with his Son, as moved by their Spirit. My academic advisor in seminary, Robert W. Jenson, speaks of how the destiny of humanity is to be invited into the Divine Conversation that is the eternal life of the Trinity. It feels to me like these moments are glimpses of that coming reality. I don’t how we could be moved to anything other than tears, other than, perhaps, to be laughing while we cry!
Thanks to Bishop deFreese for his presentation and for bringing about this occasion for me to reflect a little bit on my emerging life of prayer.
