March 24, 2010 at 1:35 pm · Filed under Homilies
This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Wednesday, March 24, 2010. Midweek services from Ash Wednesday through Maundy Thursday will explore the theme, “Living as Christians.”
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Readings
2 Samuel 6:1–5
Psalm 98
Ephesians 5:18–20
Mark 14:22–26
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Prayer
You call us to return to you, Lord God, and to leave behind all things that keep us from giving ourselves fully to serve you. Speak to us through your Word, so that we may turn to face you and to give you glory; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Message
Last week, we turned our attention
to the conversation God has made us
to carry on with him: our life of prayer.
The Psalms, we heard, have served as the book of prayer
of the people of God, both Israel and the Church,
for thousands of years.
But at the same time, the Psalms themselves
have become the hymnal of the people of God.
We sing the Psalms as hymns.
And sometimes, the psalms lie hidden behind the words of our music,
serving as inspiration.
There’s a kind of wonderful energy
that flows among us and between us and God
when we combine words and melodies and rhythms and harmonies.
That’s what is going on among God’s people
in the passages of Scripture we have heard this evening.
Listen again to a few key verses:
From 2 Samuel:
David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the LORD
with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps
and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. (2 Samuel 6:5, NRSV)
And from Psalm 98:
O sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done marvelous things. …
Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD. (Psalm 98:1,5–6, NRSV)
And from Ephesians:
… be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs among yourselves,
singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts,
giving thanks to God the Father at all times
and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:18c–20, NRSV)
And finally, from Mark,
where we hear how Jesus shared his Last Supper with the disciples,
they end the meal in song:
When they had sung the hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives. (Mark 14:26, NRSV)
This is just a brief sampling of the myriad of passages in the Scriptures
that tell us how prayer and song join together
to give voice to the love and praise the people offer up to God.
And, in fact, not just people.
In Psalm 98, we read:
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who live in it.
Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the LORD … . (Psalm 98:7-9a, NRSV)
These verses inspired one of our most beloved hymns.
From the mind and heart of St. Francis,
we have received these lines
from his soaring hymn, “All Creatures of Our God and King”:
All creatures of our God and King,
Lift up your voice with us and sing …
O rushing wind and breezes soft,
O clouds that ride the winds aloft;
Oh, praise him! (“All Creature of Our God and King,” LBW 527, sts. 1–2)
It’s hard, when we hear a great song,
one that moves and inspires and energizes us,
to sit still, and not to reflect our immersion in the music
with some kind of movement,
even if it’s only to tap our toes quietly inside our shoes.
That is to say that music and movement go together.
Our comfort with this partnership depends a little upon our upbringing
and partly upon the social conventions we observe.
If we went to worship in an African Methodist Episcopal Church,
we would expect people to worship in song with their whole bodies.
But if we went to a Lutheran Church of Norwegian background, for example,
the movements would be subtle, at most.
For us, our movements consist mostly of standing when we sing,
of adopting that ancient posture of praise.
Little children are more adventuresome,
swaying and clapping as they sing their Sunday School songs.
But if you go back and reread the passages we heard tonight,
or look up other verses that tell us about God’s people in worship,
pay attention to the descriptions of the movements:
+ dancing
+ processing
+ clapping
+ playing instruments of all sorts.
It’s a clear pattern and message
that when prayer and song combine in worship,
they enact our praise and thanksgiving to God.
And just as Jesus Christ embodies himself in the Sacraments
—in Water and Bread and Wine—
becoming for us present, tangible, visible,
we embody our prayers in song and movement,
offering up our whole being to the God who made us.
That’s why, when Christians gather for Communion,
standing and moving and singing are all parts of the liturgy.
We might not think of what we do as dance,
but it is—a binding together of body and voice and spirit.
This is what we do.
And so we sing and dance, mixing music and movement,
here and now as our prayer and offering of praise to God.
And we do this as our practice—our rehearsal—for our eternity in heaven,
as John reminds us in his Revelation:
After this I looked, and there as a great multitude that no one could count,
from every nation … standing before the throne and before the Lamb,
robed in white, with palm branches in their hands … .
… and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing:
Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor and power and might
be to our God forever and ever. Amen!” (Revelation 7:11–12, NRSV)
November 8, 2009 at 7:02 am · Filed under Homilies
Introduction
This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 7-8, 2009, the weekend of the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost.
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Readings
1 Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146 (8)
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44
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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
The God we worship is unique among the many gods
that people have chosen to worship over the centuries.
Alone among all these gods,
he is the God who lives in history
and he is the God who makes himself known
by the story of his history with his chosen people.
We are blessed, with Israel, those chosen people,
to worship her God.
And so, when we do, people may ask which God that is,
whether it’s the one who offers escape from time and suffering,
or the one who dwells in nature and brings fertility,
or the one who is worshipped by the pursuit of possessions.
And we can say,
“Well, he is the God who made all things from nothing,
and who revealed himself to our ancestors.
He is the one who freed Israel from bondage in Egypt,
and raised up judges and prophets and priests and kings to serve him.
“And he is the one who as the Son of the Father
was born of Mary and the Spirit.
He is the one who as the Father,
raised that Son from death by the power of their Spirit.
And he is the one who as the Spirit
creates the Church to be the bride of the Son
and will gather it around the throne of the Father.
“And now in these last days, he also is the one
who has chosen you and me and washed us in our Baptism.
He is the one who blesses the Church with the office of the keys,
so that she may forgive and retain sins in his triune name.
He is the one who feeds us with his Word and his Holy Meal,
giving us strength to live our days in faith.
“And he is the one who guides the fingers
of the hands of the women who make the blankets
for Lutheran World Relief, witnessing to poor people of his love.
And he is the one who strengthens the arms and legs of those of us
who clean the litter from the roads as a sign of care for his creation.
And he is the one who inhabits the embraces we offer one another
in consolation upon the death of our loved ones.
“And he is the one who gives us voices
to sing his praises and to speak his prayers.
And he is the one who listens and comforts us
when we come to him on bended knee,
trembling with our fears and worries.
“And he is also the one who leaps with us in praise
when we shout for joy over a young child’s first wobbly steps
or an old parent’s first tentative steps in rehabilitation
after injury and illness.”
That’s the God who has chosen us to share in his history.
And as his chosen people, his children by adoption,
we share that history, not only with him,
but with all whom he has chosen before us
and all whom he will choose after us.
God’s choosing us is the ultimate gift of grace,
the surprising and unsurpassable turn of events
that changes us now and forever.
Once he makes us part of his life
and gathers us together and places us within his story,
then everything is different.
Our priorities are turned around,
our paths head in new directions,
our purposes are his and not our own.
Then we see the world with God’s eyes
and not with our own blurred vision.
We judge the rightness of our actions by God’s law
and not by our own biases.
We discover that he calls us to serve him selflessly
and not to follow our own selfish desires.
Today’s Gospel paints a vivid portrait for us
of these two ways of living,
one to serve our own human ends,
and the other to live by God’s grace
and to submit in obedience to his will.
The way to tell the difference
is to look at what attracts our attention, our focus.
When people adopt the way of the scribes in their own lives,
then they turn their efforts to increasing their own comfort
and to bolstering their own respect in the eyes of others.
It would be easy to dismiss this way,
to pass it off as the pious and proud attitude
of a class of religious leaders distant from us in space and time.
But we do the same thing.
We often act in ways we know are designed by us
to improve our own lot in life,
to make things just a little better, a little more comfortable, close to home.
In this, we are brothers and sisters to the scribes.
The other way is the one we would not see on our own,
the one hidden right in the middle of our blind spot.
But as a blessing to us, to heal us of our blindness,
Jesus turns our attention to the passing crowd.
And there, almost without notice,
amid the parade of the well-off making a show of their donations,
passes a single widow.
She drops two small copper coins–worth a penny–
into the donation box, the offering plate.
This is the smallest of all givable gifts.
And yet, she gives the greatest of all gifts a person can give.
As Jesus says to his disciples and to us,
43“Truly I tell you,
this poor widow has put in more
than all those who are contributing to the treasury.
44For all of them have contributed out of their abundance;
but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had,
all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:43-44, NRSV)
Out of poverty,
she gave everything—
the coins in the box
and by her selfless action, the heart of another chapter in God’s story.
And so, across the millennia
her wordless witness speaks to us and tells us,
by her selfless giving,
that everything we have is really God’s and not our own.
Our lives do not belong to us;
they are a gift, a moment-to-moment blessing from God.
The food we eat, the clothing we wear,
the homes we inhabit, the skills we use,
the money we earn, the time we spend–
all of these things are the daily gifts of God,
our daily bread as Luther explains in the Catechism.
This means that as we pray to God
and ask him to guide us in our giving,
he calls us to step into line,
taking our place behind the widow,
and to make our way to the altar of God.
When we reach that place
and take our hands from our pockets and purses
and stretch them out over the offering plate,
we can, by God’s grace, out of poverty, out of our brokenness,
open our hands and let go,
putting in everything we have, all that we have to live on.
And as we do, we can pray
in the words of a famous hymn,
“We give Thee but Thine own,
Whate’er the gift may be;
All that we have is Thine alone,
A trust, O Lord, from Thee.
“May we Thy bounties thus
As stewards true receive,
And gladly, as Thou blessest us,
To Thee our firstfruits give.” (William W. How, 1864, Lutheran Book of Worship 410) Amen.
October 18, 2009 at 5:00 am · Filed under Daily Words
“The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45, LH)
October 17, 2009 at 9:13 pm · Filed under Homilies
Introduction
This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009, the Saturday of the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost.
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Readings
Isaiah 53:4-12
Psalm 91:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45
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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
Sometimes we can be a little jealous–
or at least wistful–
when we hear stories about Jesus’ disciples.
Can you imagine what it must have been like
to actually spend time walking and talking with Jesus,
to hear him preach and teach,
to watch him heal people and perform miracles?
It must have been dazzling and maybe a little bewildering.
And so, it comes as no surprise to us
that James and John–
the two sons of Zebedee with the nicknames, “Sons of Thunder”–
could have found themselves swept up
in the marvels of Jesus’ ministry.
That helps us to understand
how they could come to the point of saying to Jesus,
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” (Mark 10:35b, NRSV)
Jesus wonders what they have in mind.
And they tell him they want seats of honor
on his right and left hands
when he takes the throne as the king of Israel.
You and I might not think to ask Jesus
for junior thrones in a Middle Eastern royal court,
but if we look at ourselves with honest eyes,
we probably have some other requests
we’d like to make of him, given the chance.
Jesus, help bring other people around
to seeing things my way
on the great debates we face.
Some of us believe we know the best path
to dealing with health care and insurance reform.
Others among us are pretty sure
we have the financial markets and debt figured out.
Still others have a good plan
for keeping secure borders
and alleviating the problems raised by illegal aliens.
Or maybe we don’t need
to go through such a drawn-out process
to search for a new pastor;
we have a good idea about
what we ought to do.
I have a plan for increasing membership,
raising more donations, and bolstering worship attendance.
All I need is for people to cooperate.
And in our personal lives,
our plans abound as well.
Here’s a list of minor flaws in my spouse;
if he or she would just take care of these,
our marriage would be much happier.
If children would be more obedient–
the way we were when I was young–
then many of our social ills would go away.
And for that matter,
let me run the newspapers and TV networks
for a few months.
I’d get better stories,
provide more entertaining programs,
and promote more wholesome values.
We can each make our own lists
of ways that we’d like Jesus
to tip the balances,
bend the course of events,
and generally just make life a little bit better.
In this, we are all sisters and brothers
of the Sons of Zebedee.
Just as they had it right
that staying close to Jesus was good,
we have it right
that there’s no part of life
beyond his care.
But where we go awry
is, again, the same place
that James and John went wrong.
Jesus ends up telling them
that his power is not at all
what they think it is:
“…whoever wishes to become great among you
must be your servant, and whoever wishes
to be first among you must be slave of all.
For the Son of Man came not to be served
but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43b-45, NRSV)
Jesus’ power is not about thrones and ruling over others.
It’s about submitting to God and becoming a slave, a servant.
That’s why Paul’s great hymn in Philippians says,
“Christ Jesus, who though we was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death–
even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5b-8, NRSV)
This truth also lies behind the saying of Christ
that Paul passes on to us in 2 Corinthians:
“My grace is sufficient for you,
for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9, NRSV)
This is a hard truth for us to hear,
because we naturally, humanly, sinfully
want to cling to power that is strong.
We want to hold onto servanthood that leads to advancement,
not to our deaths in imitation of Christ’s death on the cross.
There’s no quick and happy ending
to James’ and John’s story in today’s Gospel.
They’d misunderstood Jesus and his ministry
at the roots, at its most basic,
and they angered their companions
with their request for power.
But after Jesus himself followed the path
of serving and suffering and dying the worst imaginable death,
the Spirit of the Father who raised him from death
also came and rested upon the disciples.
They became tireless, compassionate, and articulate witnesses
to the Good News about Jesus Christ.
And we’re here today
only because the Sons of Thunder
and their companions
told others about Jesus.
This is our heritage, our inheritance.
We have received the message from others.
And then, in turn, we have the chance
to pass it on to our children,
to the children around us,
to our relatives and to the people
we meet in our daily lives.
Sometimes the most compelling witness
we can give is to live in ways
that embody our obedience to God,
that show others how we are servants of the Lord
who gladly become slaves of all for Jesus’ sake.
And then other times,
we may face the moments
when we know we are called to say,
“I am a servant of Jesus Christ.
Let me tell you how he has changed my life.
Once I wanted to arrange things
so that my plans and ideas
would control others.
But then God reminded me
that I am his servant.
And all I am called to do
is to follow Jesus Christ.
He is the Son of Man,
who came not be served but to serve,
and to give his life a ransom for many.” Amen.
October 15, 2009 at 5:38 am · Filed under Ephemera
Introduction
One of the opportunities I have as the interim pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., is to prepare a short column for a feature called “The Pastor’s Pen,” appearing in the Beatrice Daily Sun on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009.
Scripture
“For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45, NRSV)
Meditiation
Jesus shares these words with his disciples to quell an argument among them over who should receive the trappings of glory in the kingdom of God. He clarifies their confusion between Jesus’ calling to serve others and their own desire to wear crowns of status. The path of obedience to Jesus does not take the disciples, or us, to the high places of power. Instead, we follow him into the low places of poverty.
When the Church has lived its finest moments, it gets this right. It sees God’s people in need and responds. It acts, not because it brings recognition and accolades to the Church or its members, but simply because the people who need help are God’s children and he calls the Church to serve.
Beatrice bears the marks of the Church’s faithful response to God’s call. The ministry of Mosaic, growing from its roots in Sterling and the founding of Martin Luther Homes in 1925, touches the lives of people with developmental disabilities. In similar ways, institutions like Beatrice Community Hospital and Parkview Center trace their roots to charitable work by Lutherans and Mennonites to create institutions for healing. The ecumenical work of Warren’s Community Table, hosted by Christ Church Episcopal, provides food to hungry people every Tuesday. No doubt each congregation, each parish, responds to God’s call by reaching out to people in need.
These are just a few examples of the work of the Church to follow its Lord in service. The work is good and worthy. But in the end, is the Church’s service any different from the support offered by other community groups? A hot meal is just a hot meal. The real difference arises when someone asks, “Why bother? Why do you offer this act of service?” Then Christians can say, “We do this because our Lord calls us to serve. And we can serve without fear. There are no limits to what we can give, how we can sacrifice. We might even sacrifice our lives in serving. If it comes to that, then our final act of service is a witness to our Lord’s sacrifice. He has given his life for you and for all people. By this gift, we all may come to eternal life in him.”
In this way, each outstretched hand, each caring touch, each hot meal on a cold day, each of the uncountable acts of service becomes a little sermon, telling how Jesus Christ “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom” for you and for me.
October 11, 2009 at 6:13 am · Filed under Homilies
Introduction
This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 10-11, 2009, the weekend of the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
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Readings
Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Psalm 90:12-17
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31
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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
If you saw Jesus and his disciples
heading towards you on the sidewalk,
and you ran up to him
and dropped to your knees,
what one question would you ask?
Maybe, like the disciples,
you might ask what Jesus means
by that one parable about the seeds and the soil.
Or perhaps you might ask
if he is really serious
about cross-bearing as a mark of discipleship.
More contemporary questions
might seem reasonable too.
What’s the right direction for our church to take?
What does this passage of Scripture mean?
What’s the moral response to abortion?
What is our responsibility to care for poor people?
Should we look to government funding for social programs?
Is capital punishment ever warranted?
And then, again, the same question
might come to mind
that falls from the lips
of the rich young man in today’s Gospel:
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
That might cross our minds,
but it’s a little odd,
in our time, to ask this question.
For the most part,
we make our way through our days,
watching them blend into weeks
and blur into years,
as if this life is all we have,
like the here and now is all there is.
Just think about how we spend our time,
where we focus our energies,
on what possessions we gather around us.
We work to earn money
to keep a roof over our heads,
but we also go into debt
to fill the space under those roofs
with so many things
that storage becomes an issue.
Why we do this is a complicated question.
But if we look at ourselves
in the mirror of God’s law
and ask what really motivates us
to accumulate, to acquire, to amass so much stuff,
so much more than we can use,
more even than we can remember that we have,
I have a hunch we might
finally admit to God and to one another
that we are motivated by fear.
We use possessions to hide from that fear,
to help us create and maintain an illusion.
We want to believe we control our lives,
but in truth,
what we fear is death.
We end up using our things
and the little momentary twinge of pleasure
we get when we grab onto the next new item
as a kind of drug,
a blockade, a mask,
to hide us, to protect us from the reality
that there is no escape from death.
Whether it comes soon,
or not for a long time,
in the end, each of us
will reach the moment
when we take the last breath of air,
feel the last touch of a loved one’s hand,
gaze for the last time upon another’s face.
This is the reality of our lives.
The story that we each live
will reach its conclusion, its end,
with a simple sentence.
He died. She died.
We cannot avoid or hide or evade this end.
It is our lot in life.
The story of my life and yours as well
will be punctuated, in the end,
by a period, a full stop.
And yet, as Christians,
we believe, we trust,
that there is more to be said,
more to add to the story
after that last sentence.
And so, maybe, we would fall on our knees before Jesus
and ask, along with the rich young man,
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
We know the commandments,
God’s desires for our lives,
for us to live according to his will,
and not to murder, commit adultery,
steal, bear false witness, and defraud.
We know that he desires for us
to honor father and mother,
to keep his name holy,
and to rest on the Sabbath.
These are his commands.
They tell us what we ought to do and ought not to do.
When God speaks this way,
we hear his Word as the law.
But his commands also tell us how it shall be.
When we live fully under God’s will,
then it shall be that we will,
fully and gladly and obediently
do and don’t do exactly what the commands say.
This is God’s Word, his command as gospel.
Perhaps we could join the rich young man in saying,
“Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.”
Or maybe, we would need to say,
“Teacher, I have kept these commands most of the time.”
Or perhaps, “Teacher, sometimes I have tried to keep these commands.”
But no matter how we reply to Jesus,
his reaction to us
is just the same as his response to the rich young man.
He looks at us and he loves us.
This we need not doubt.
This is the gospel, the good news,
in one short sentence.
He loves us.
He loves you and he loves me.
Despite our sins and our shortcomings,
even though we hide behind our piles of possessions,
even though we quail in the face of our fears,
despite our doubts and our lack of faith,
Jesus looks at us and loves us.
But he also says to us
just what he says to the rich young man.
“You lack one thing;
go, sell what you own,
and give the money to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven;
then come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21, NRSV)
But, “I’m not rich,” we might say.
I really don’t have a lot of stuff,
barely enough to make sure
we can keep that roof secure,
put healthy food on the table,
clothe ourselves for each season’s weather.
It’s possible that Jesus’ saying
only applies to the rich.
But would we want to say
that he means for his command
to apply only to the young,
or perhaps just to men?
Maybe. But it seems to me
that because Jesus raises
the commandments in the conversation,
he means to bring to mind
the great and first commandment:
Because God is the Lord and our God,
we shall have no other gods ahead of him.
And so, whatever we cling to,
whatever we grasp and hold close to ourselves
that is other than him,
this is what makes us rich in our own eyes.
This is what stands between us
and faithful obedience to his commands
to go and to be freed of those things
so that we can embrace
the treasure of heaven
and then follow Jesus.
But it’s hard, too hard, we say.
We need to keep something, just in case,
don’t we?
I ask myself that question.
And the answer is that my hands are not empty.
This is what makes the plight of the rich young man
so poignant, so personal.
This is why we can feel
crushing disappointment
drape across our shoulders
as we arise from before Jesus’ feet
and feel tempted, as that young man was,
to give in to “shock[] and [to go] away grieving,
for [we] ha[ve] many possessions.” (Mark 10:22, NRSV)
But this is why Jesus also says to his disciples and to us,
“For mortals, it is impossible,
but not for God;
for God all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27, NRSV)
We cannot earn eternal life.
Instead we inherit it as a gift.
We cannot make our own way to heaven.
Rather we follow our Lord who leads the way.
This is the only way we will inherit eternal life,
the only way we shall know freedom from things,
the only way for us to celebrate the joy of living
according to God’s commands,
the only way we may trust in the hope of heaven.
In the midst of our plenty,
we may be lacking that one thing,
but we can trust that Jesus loves us,
in spite of our many possessions.
For us, this is impossible.
But for God, all of this and more is possible.
And so we can go, sell, and give,
and then have, come, and follow. Amen.
October 3, 2009 at 3:15 pm · Filed under Homilies
Introduction
This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 3-4, 2009, the weekend of the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
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Readings
Genesis 2:18-24
Psalm 8
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16
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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
Across and beyond the confines of the ELCA
in the weeks since the Churchwide Assembly met in Minneapolis,
people have raised their voices,
seeking understanding,
crying for help,
shouting for joy,
and praying for guidance and wisdom.
We now have an approved social statement,
“Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust.”
And our church has adopted implementing resolutions
that point to changes in ELCA practices
regarding the recognition of relationships
between people of the same gender
and the approval for public ministry
of people in those relationships.
So, while it might be tempting
to look at today’s readings from Genesis and Mark
and say, “Hmmm! Now that’s a coincidence,”
I believe instead that God has blessed us
with these readings—here and now—as a gift.
It’s like the opening lines
from a famous hymn by William Cowper,
“God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform….” (LBW 483).
Of course, in these last days,
God’s most mysterious way of all
is to speak—in our midst—
the Word made flesh in his Son Jesus Christ.
But even so, his timing
in bringing us with our questions
about how to follow Christ in faith
together with his Will revealed to us
by this inspired Word in Scripture
is an amazing, an awesome thing.
Our calling, then, is to hold God’s Word
before our faces like a mirror,
and to look at what he shows us
about ourselves and our lives,
both as individuals and as the ELCA.
And then we are called to follow his lead
along the path he points out to us to take.
When we look and listen to what’s going on,
it’s pretty clear that we and others
are giving the greatest attention
to the most novel, freshly minted thoughts
in the social statement and the related resolutions.
And so the debates about recognition and rostering
dominate the discussions in voice and print.
But, today’s texts of Scripture call us back,
they return us to the beginning,
to the roots, to the foundations.
We find both of these readings from Genesis and Mark
laying hidden, but breathing God’s Spirit
into an address we use at every marriage celebration.
This is what we say in our liturgy:
“The Lord God in his goodness created us male and female, and by the gift of marriage founded human community in a joy that begins now and is brought to perfection in the life to come.
Because of sin, our age-old rebellion, the gladness of marriage can be overcast and the gift of the family can become a burden.
But because God, who established marriage, continues still to bless it with his abundant and ever-present support, we can be sustained in our weariness and have our joy restored.” (LBW, p. 203)
So, whether we look at Genesis or at this liturgy,
we hear how God made us male and female.
Genesis also tells us that God made us in his image,
that he made us to live in conversation with him,
to speak with him as praying creatures.
And just as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
enjoy and celebrate a divine community,
we have been made and called
to live in a human community with one another,
a community we share with God himself in Jesus Christ.
Marriage is the foundation of our human community.
And to illustrate this,
the liturgy paints a subtle, yet wonderful picture.
Here and now, whether we are single or married,
we can know joy in our community,
a community based upon marriage.
But we live in hope that God will perfect our community
in the life to come, in heaven.
This is our liturgy’s allusion to the other text about marriage
that comes, like a second bookend, at the end of the Bible.
St. John writes in his Revelation,
“Let us rejoice and exult and give [God] the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready….
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
and the sea was no more.
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride for her husband.” (Revelation 19:7, 21:1-2, NRSV)
Together, Scripture and the tradition in our liturgy
tell us that marriage is God’s gift
making human community possible now,
but even more amazingly,
providing us and the world a hint,
a glimpse, a foretaste of the feast to come.
This means that God has made us male and female,
not simply so we can reproduce.
He makes us this way and invites, by his grace,
to become one flesh
in the community that grows between a husband and a wife.
The life of this union,
lived out in our community with one another,
is an act of proclamation of God’s Word,
a lifelong sermon on the joys that await God’s people
when he will join them together in heaven
to become the bride of Christ.
Sometimes the preaching of our marriages
gets distracted, goes off-topic,
and runs into the danger of getting drowned out
by the noise and the bedlam of daily life.
That’s what the liturgy means by saying:
“…the gladness of marriage can be overcast
and the gift of the family can become a burden.”
But just as God forgives us
when we come to him with penitence in our hearts,
he will refresh and reinvigorate
a marriage when the woman and the man
come together before God
in mutual recognition of their sin,
their age-old rebellion.
This renews the voice of the marriage,
and makes it once again a witness
to the promise of God to make all things new.
And so, in all things,
the ultimate purpose of marriage
is to prepare us,
by experience and by expression,
for the destiny that awaits us in heaven.
This helps to make clear
why God made men and women to be partners in marriage,
why he founds human community upon marriage,
and why our liturgy echoes what Jesus Christ proclaims,
“Therefore what God has joined together,
let no one separate.” (Mark 10:9, NRSV)
This joining empowers us to proclaim God’s Word,
while separating silences the proclamation.
The joining of a man and a woman
offers us a glimpse, a foretaste, of the joining of Christ and his bride.
That makes the separation of divorce
a veil that hides the new heaven from our eyes,
a noise that drowns out the music of the wedding feast.
And so, we are called, as a people,
to make the proclamation God intends.
But because of our nature,
we seem inevitably to be drawn
to ask questions like the ones on the lips of the Pharisees.
Is divorce lawful?
Or we could add the many questions raised by the social statement.
Can we set aside portions of the Scriptures
that make people feel excluded?
Can we devise a public recognition
of the relationships between people of the same gender?
Can people in such relationships
be admitted to the ranks of the clergy?
But no matter what questions we ask,
no matter what may puzzle or perplex us,
no matter what direction our culture might suggest we go,
we have been blessed with the Word in the Scriptures,
we have received the traditions of the Church,
we are called to make a witness of our faith
both through our speech and our action.
This witness, when it is faithful,
clearly proclaims God’s will and prepares us to await
the Bridegroom’s “coming in power
to share with us the great and promised feast.” Amen.
September 27, 2009 at 6:13 am · Filed under Homilies
Introduction
This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 26-27, 2009, the weekend of the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost. The special occasion for the weekend was the dedication on new pulpit and lectern Bibles and the blessing of worshipers Bibles.
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Readings
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Psalm 19:7-14 (Antiphon: v.8)
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50
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Prayer
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation[s] of [our] heart[s]
be acceptable to you,
O LORD, [our] rock and [our] redeemer.” Amen. (Psalm 19:14, NRSV)
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Message
We call it by a number of names:
The Holy Bible, the Good Book,
the Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments.
But whatever name we use,
we are pointing to a whole collection of writings
with a long and complex past
entwined together with God’s history among his people.
Protestants’ sixty-six or Catholics’ seventy-three books
in the Scriptures
are filled with stories and poems,
histories and letters,
wisdom and prophecies,
gospels and end-time literature.
They were shared by oral tradition
and originally written in a variety of languages:
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
Then the books were handed down
between the generations,
copied a letter at a time onto scrolls
and later onto folios of pages.
Within Judaism,
historians believe that the list of books
in the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament,
settled into its final format
by the end of the second century A.D.
And within Christianity,
the New Testament reached its current form
sometime in the middle of the third century.
Archeologists have found fragments
of these ancient heirlooms
stored in pots in caves in Israel
and in other sites across the middle East.
Scholars have dated and compared these pieces
and have sought to assemble
the best possible collection
of the most reliable manuscripts.
Then translators work
to understand the languages
and the words the texts use.
This is a complicated task
as there are no direct connections
linking a Hebrew or Greek word
with the words in modern languages.
The challenge is to offer
the best fit, the most apt translation.
Then there’s the whole question we face
of selecting which version to read.
It helps to explore the introduction in a Bible,
because there you can often find out details
about the approach taken by the team of translators.
Some attempt to create a literal,
word-for-word translation;
others try to translate the sense of whole sentences.
But regardless of which translation we use
and how the translations are created,
we trust that God is at work
in the text and through the faithful service
of those who brought the text into being
and who have touched it across time.
We trust God to use all of this
to make known to us his will.
Our congregation’s constitution includes
a Confession of Faith that summarizes our view of the Scriptures.
It states:
This congregation confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.
- Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation.
- The proclamation of God’s message to us as both Law and Gospel is the Word of God, revealing judgment and mercy through word and deed, beginning with the Word in creation, continuing in the history of Israel, and centering in all its fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
- The canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the written Word of God. Inspired by God’s Spirit speaking through their authors, they record and announce God’s revelation centering in Jesus Christ. Through them God’s Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world.
This congregation accepts the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life.
(Model Constitution for Congregations, 2007, C2.02.-C2.03.)
This tells us that the Scriptures and the Word of God
are connected, but are not exactly the same.
First of all, as John’s Gospel tells us,
Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh.
This means that in one sense
the Word of God is God himself, God with us.
The next part of the confession
states that we believe that
the proclamation of God’s message
is the Word of God.
This means that all preaching and teaching
and witness and action
that share God’s message with us and the world
are themselves the Word of God.
We hear and absorb this Word as Law, God’s judgment,
and as Gospel, God’s free gift of grace.
And thirdly, we confess that the Canon of Scripture,
the collection of books contained in our Bibles,
are the written Word of God.
God has inspired individuals of faith,
from the original judges and prophets,
poets and apostles,
to those who first committed the texts to writing,
through those who labor with manuscripts and translations,
to create and maintain and pass on
the written texts of the Scriptures.
We believe that the Good News about Jesus Christ
is hidden deep within and foreshadowed by the Hebrew Scriptures,
just as the promise of the long-awaited Messiah
is revealed and fulfilled in the Christian Scriptures.
And finally,
we confess that we live according to God’s will,
that we trust him to share his inspired Word with us
through the Canon of the Scriptures,
and that we accept the Scriptures as
“the authoritative source and norm
of [our] proclamation, faith, and life.”
This means that we come to God our Father
and ask him for the blessing of faith by the Spirit
that we may follow his Son Jesus Christ in obedience.
Along the way in our journey of faith,
we have been bathed in water with the Word,
we walk in obedience to that Word,
we hear God’s Word proclaimed to us,
we feast upon this Word in bread and wine,
and we read and hear and study this Word,
revealed to us in the Scriptures.
And we do all of this together,
by the grace and mercy of God,
as a community created by Word and Spirit
in God’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Amen.
September 26, 2009 at 7:46 am · Filed under Ephemera
Introduction
This article is the October 2009 installment of my monthly message in the parish newsletter for Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb.
At the Crossroads
Several times in September, we heard in the Gospel readings from Mark how Jesus taught his disciples that he would suffer, be killed, and then be raised from the dead. And then we stood with the crowd he gathered together as he said,
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)
This is a wonderful—and difficult!—saying. Its power comes in the purity of its vision. When we hear Jesus tell us that this is what it means for us to follow him, then we know what is at stake. We can see how his obedience to the will of his Father led directly to his suffering, death, and resurrection.
And we hear him tell us that our lot is the same. When we follow him, we can expect that our path will lead to suffering, and that we may die. This is what faithful obedience to the will of our Father may mean for us.
It’s natural to want to avoid pain and suffering. But discipleship is not a matter of our nature. Remember that we say in our Confession,
“Most merciful God, we confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.” (LBW, p. 77)
Part of our bondage is that we would not choose, on our own, to shoulder our crosses and to follow Christ to our deaths. But because we are forgiven sinners, blessed with faith, we are able to act in faithful obedience to God. This means that we can, with the Spirit’s help, follow Christ along the path our Father points out to us.
With a Mission
Walking with our shouldered crosses is just another way to envision the mission on which God sends us. As we turn the pages of our calendar from September to October, we turn the spotlight of our parish’s life from education to mission.
This month, as you hold your times of devotion, read the Scriptures, say your prayers, gather for worship, serve people in need, and carry out your calling as a Christian, keep in mind that we have a mission to follow Christ and ask, as you live each day, how Christ leads you.
When we celebrate our Mission Festival on Sunday, Oct. 18, we will hear how God’s mission comes to life in several ministries that serve people across Nebraska and around the country. And then, when we gather on Sunday, Oct. 25, we will celebrate the Confirmation, the Affirmation of Baptism, of two members who will stand in our midst to say they are ready, with God’s help, to shoulder a greater responsibility for the mission of God’s people.
In Freedom
It might seem that obedience to God takes away our freedom. If we have shouldered our crosses and follow Christ, then there is so much we will set aside and abandon. But in truth, our great freedom comes in obedience. Because when we follow Christ, we live by the promise that death and its “no”—the final end of all of our plans—will not have the final word about us.
Nothing is more freeing, more liberating, than to know that our future lies with the One who can, with absolute certainty, keep his promises to us and who says “Yes” from beyond the grave.
Blessings,
Pastor David Frye
September 20, 2009 at 5:06 am · Filed under Homilies
Introduction
This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 19-20, 2009, the weekend of the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
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Readings
Jeremiah 11:18-20 or Wisdom 1:16 – 2:1, 12-22
Psalm 54 (4)
James 3:13 – 4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
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Prayer
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation[s] of [our] heart[s]
be acceptable to you,
O LORD, [our] rock and [our] redeemer.” Amen. (Psalm 19:14, NRSV)
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Message
One of my favorite childhood books
was E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.
It’s the touching tale of Wilbur,
a pig destined for the table as breakfast bacon and dinner ham.
He is saved from the autumn’s slaughter
by a spider, Charlotte,
who befriends him and who weaves her web–literally–
to rescue him from his fate.
She spins a variety of words into that web
and helps create a stir
that labels Wilbur as a summertime miracle.
Then when Wilbur goes to the county fair in the fall,
Charlotte stows away in his crate.
At the fair, she prepares one more time
to share a word about Wilbur.
In her search for just the right word,
she asks Templeton the rat to bring her a clipping
torn from the pages of a newspaper.
“I hope you brought a good one,” Charlotte said.
“It is the last word I shall ever write.”
“Here,” said Templeton, unrolling the paper.
“What does it say?” asked Charlotte.
“You’ll have to read it for me.”
“It says ‘Humble,’” replied the rat.
“Humble?” said Charlotte. “‘Humble’ has two meanings.
It means ‘not proud’ and it means ‘near the ground.’
That’s Wilbur all over.
He’s not proud and he’s near the ground.” (Charlotte’s Web, p. 276)
Ever since I read this book,
whenever I run across the word “humble,”
I always picture Charlotte and Templeton,
spider and rat, talking about Wilbur the pig.
And I’ve learned that Charlotte is spot-on with her definition of the word.
In fact, “humble,” “humility,” “humus,” and even “human”
share a common ancestry in the word for “ground.”
I think it’s a word that suits us
as well as it fits Wilbur.
We are human.
God makes us from the ground with his bare hands.
He breathes his spirit of life into us,
making us just a little lower than the angels,
while we remain simply living, breathing humus,
shaped and molded into God’s image.
He makes us to live together in the community of the Spirit
as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.
We are children of God our Father,
worshiping him and serving one another in his name.
When we simply sink down
and rest ourselves in this place,
in the life God gives us as his gift,
we cannot help but find ourselves
close to the ground–humble–
worshiping God and serving others in humility.
How do we know that this is God’s will for our lives?
We listen to Jesus’ words,
and we overhear him tell his disciples
not to argue and compete with one another
for status and honor,
not to strive to escape their humble calling to serve.
He tells them and us,
“Whoever wants to be first
must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35, NRSV)
And what does this look like?
He gently picks up a child,
places that one in the midst of the twelve, and says,
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name
welcomes me,
and whoever welcomes me
welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9:37, NRSV)
The humble life of the servant
is not an endless, pointless clawing to the top,
but a gentle, prayerful journey to the bottom, to the edges,
along the path of submission to the will of God.
And there, among those who have no power, no influence,
no say, no sway,
we find children looking to us for care and protection,
we see people standing alone,
people in pain,
people ignored by the high and the mighty.
And when we look into their faces,
we see not only an amazing variety of expressions,
but reflected in those faces
we behold the many facets of God’s image.
That’s why Jesus promises us
that when we serve others,
when we welcome them
into the arms of God’s community,
we in fact welcome Christ himself.
This is the blessing of humble servanthood.
This is the promise God makes and keeps in our midst
when we call him our God
and then live obediently as his people.
But our leaning is to try to live on our own terms,
to practice obedience only to our own desires.
In the end, this is nothing new.
The traditional word for it is idolatry,
placing our selves, our own self-made gods
at the head of our own lives.
This past Wednesday,
our confirmation class began its study
of the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue,
the Ten Words that God gave his people.
We read in Exodus that God said,
“…you shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol,
whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is on the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I the LORD your God am a jealous God….” (Exodus 20:3-5a, NRSV)
A jealous God.
One who doesn’t like to share.
He has made us and we are his,
so when we start to slide him off to the side
and slip our own little idols into his spot,
he is not pleased.
He will find ways to topple those idols
and to restore himself to his place in the center of our lives.
James alludes to the Commandments passage from Exodus
when he writes,
“Or do you suppose that it is for nothing
that the scripture says,
‘God yearns jealously for the spirit
that he has made to dwell in us?’
But he gives all the more grace;
therefore it says,
‘God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.’” (James 4:5-6, NRSV)
And there it is again!
A promise that God does not glorify the proud,
but instead blesses with his gifts
humans who, like Wilbur, are humble, near to the ground.
And then our reading picks up at the next verse:
“Submit yourselves therefore to God.” (James 4:7, NRSV)
This calls us to place ourselves under God,
to humble ourselves,
to acknowledge that he is our God
and we are his people,
to say that we have no gods before him,
especially not the idol-gods we make in our own image.
And then, just a few verses past our reading,
James proclaims to his readers, to you and to me,
“Humble yourselves before the Lord,
and he will exalt you.” (James 4:10, NRSV)
This is the same promise that Jesus makes to us
in the words he spoke to his disciples:
“Whoever wants to be first
must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35, NRSV)
We can trust God.
He gazes upon us
from the faces of the people we serve.
He gives us grace in our humility.
And like Charlotte, who wrote a saving word for Wilbur in her web,
our Father speaks his saving Word, our Lord Jesus Christ,
entwining him and us together in the web of their Spirit,
so that we may know the humility
of submission and servanthood. Amen.
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