Not too long ago there were many questions about what direction this church, Saint Peters, should go in the future. Should there be a part-time pastor or a shared ministry with another church or denomination? What kind of leader did you all want or need? Was there enough people coming to church here to make this a viable ministry? Should you follow the advice and suggestions of your synod leadership or follow a different path? Many of you wrestled with these options and decisions a lot during those long twenty months.
God had some amazing plans for both Saint Peters Lutheran Church and you, the people who worship here. Instead of losing your identity, God gave you a new sense of your hope even as you dealt with various kinds of suffering, fear and anxiety. It appears that God gave you all some strong convictions, the council, the call committee, and the congregation. A very specific sense of hope. But what was this hope and how did you get it?
We often think that hope comes through positive thinking or something like this. Or maybe by coming up with fancy new vision statements that talk about how glorious we would like our church, our community or ourselves to look. We hope in ourselves and our abilities to make things happen. But, despite many popular beliefs, hope isn’t kindled by getting excited enough to start a fire in your soul. Hope comes out of suffering, out of despair and even out of death. As Samuel points out, “The Lord kills and then he makes alive. He brings down to the grave and then he raises up.”
What was your hope and how did you get it? Hope, for Saint Peters, came out of twenty months with no full-time pastor, lots of soul searching and many hard decisions. What was your hope? I’m not sure how you would put it in words, but this is what I have been hearing. God’s Word was needed here. There was ministry to be done here. Here at Saint Peters Evangelical Lutheran, a little church out in the country, in Cornwall Village.
What was your hope? There was hope that God’s Word was needed not only for the people of Saint Peters, the adults, the children, the high school youth, the families, but also for the community. There was hope that God’s Word could be shared with people who lived in and around Cornwall who had never heard or believed in Jesus Christ. There was hope that God’s Word could be shared with the surrounding communities: Kent, Sharon, Falls Village, Canaan, Lakeville, Salisbury, Torrington, Warren, New Preston, Bantam, Litchfield and Goshen.
You called out as a congregation to God and lived through a difficult twenty month journey full of both hope and suffering. During that time, from what I have heard, you often had to do what your namesake, the original Saint Peter, talks about in the second reading today, you had to “make your defense before others to account for the hope that was in you.” It would probably have been easy to just let someone else make decisions for you, but God gave you a different kind of hope. Sometimes you had to defend your hope in front of others who disagreed with you. And if this hope had been created in some committee meeting, as a way to make yourselves look better, you wouldn’t have had much to stand on, but this hope was forged in the fires of suffering. This was more than a hope for survival but a hope to serve.
God gave you hope once in the midst of suffering. A hope that there was ministry here to do in Cornwall and all of Northwest Connecticut. What are God’s hopes now for Saint Peters?
How can we know, you might say? Maybe this all sounds very wishy washy to you and you want something more concrete. How can you know? Well, I’m glad you asked. God doesn’t want you to speculate about what he thinks, or make something up that sounds good—God has revealed his promises for you, his hopes and dreams. But in order for you to listen, you need to know how God speaks. Where can you find God’s Word? How can you know what he has revealed?
First of all, God’s Word is present in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus points out your sin, since he was crucified for your sake, and he points out your final hope, the resurrection of you when you die one day. Our hopes and dreams usually look quite wonderful and flashy—something glorious. God’s hopes and dreams often look different. They are hidden in suffering. God sent Jesus to die for you to give you faith. Jesus was glorified in crucifixion. Faith. Crucifixion. Not fancy for hopes and dreams. Jesus makes it clear that it’s not up to you, or Saint Peters church, or any church to save anyone. We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. God does the faith making. God gets the glory, not us. You don’t have to hope in yourselves or your own ideas and abilities. You may hope in God.
God also speaks to you in another way. Through the Bible. You can listen to God by reading the Bible or having it read to you. You can hear God’s hopes and dreams, his promises revealed, throughout the pages of the Bible. For instance, he said to Abraham, “You shall be the Father of many nations.” He said to Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Reading the Bible, God’s Word, helps you to be able to understand how God speaks. Knowing the stories of the Bible makes it easier to discern God’s hopes and dreams and differentiate them from your own. God may or may not do what we dream, but he has bound himself to keep the promises he has made and revealed. However, not every promise and demand is for you, so you must learn to distinguish when you are being spoken to.
This is why God also speaks through the spoken word. As Paul says in the book of Romans, “Faith comes through hearing.” God has called me to be your pastor and speaks to you using me, even with all my faults and sins. It is my call to study God’s Word proclaimed in the past, and speak it again for you today. Reading that Jesus forgave sinners in Galilee is one thing, but I am now applying that promise to you. Today, you can be assured that you have been made right with God on account of Jesus. God’s promises aren’t stuck in the past, they are present tense. And when you hear me speak those words of promise, you can trust that those words are God’s words and not my own.
Listening to the sermon, and the children’s sermon, are ways to hear God’s hopes and dreams for you. Listening to the hymns sung and the liturgy is another way to hear God’s promises. I pray that you will come to worship as often as you can to hear God speak to you. So that you can hear God’s hopes for you and this church’s ministry.
Another way God speaks is through people other than preachers and pastors. Martin Luther called this, the care and consolation of the saints. “For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, “Jesus says, “I am there with them.” When you are gathered together in your homes or at the park or at a council meeting, take a moment to pray for Saint Peters and to discuss where God may be leading your church’s ministry. What are God’s hopes and dreams for Saint Peters? What has he revealed in his Word?
This does not mean that just because you have a very religious dream one night that everyone needs to jump on board your one particular idea. We are listening for God’s hopes and dreams, not our own. We are listening for God’s promises. Then we will hold him to those promises! God may indeed be pulling you in a particular direction, but if that is the case. Pray continually about it. Ask others to pray about it. It might take some time. Test your ideas with the Bible in front of you during a daily devotion. Test your ideas when you listen to a sermon or a sing a hymn.
Here at Saint Peters, there are opportunities for you to get comfortable hearing God’s Word. Tuesday nights, starting in May, you can come and learn God’s Word in the Bible. Sunday mornings you can come and hear God’s Word sung and preached. After church you can come and have fellowship with others. Between services, at Lutheran 101, you can come and learn to hear the difference between what God does for you and what he demands from you. Thursday afternoons you can come and pray to God for hope during a group prayer time. These programs are available to strengthen your faith and knowledge of what God’s hopes and dreams are for you and your ministry here at Saint Peters. God does not expect you to have hope, he gives you hope.
God has blessed this congregation with hope before and he will do it again. But we aren’t hoping for our own glory. We aren’t hoping for our church’s glory. You don’t need to hope in yourselves, you may hope in God. And since he was glorified by dying on a cross, we shouldn’t expect to get too far into the future without a great deal of suffering as well.
Martin Luther said that suffering was one of the marks of the church. But, as Paul says in Romans. “We even boast in our sufferings knowing the suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” This is how God works. Always finds a way to create life out of death.
The Israelites constantly reminded each other about how God had brought them out of Egypt and carried them through the forty years in the Wilderness. I want to constantly remind you that God has indeed seen you through these last twenty months and is still working. God says in the book of Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” God does not expect you to have hope already or to know exactly where this ministry should go from here, he has revealed his promises to give you hope. You don’t need to hope in yourselves, you may hope in God.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth says the Lord; it shall not return empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Sermon for April 20th
Is God angry with you? Yes. So what are you going to do about it? You are probably going to do the same thing that every human being has done throughout the centuries when they believed that God was angry with them . . . you will try to make God happy with you. But how do you do this? How does one make God happy? How can you satisfy an angry God?
It seems like a rather difficult proposition. How do you make God happy if he is angry? Well, if you don’t know, then perhaps you could try to find someone who does know. Perhaps the local religious person. Every culture has a medicine man or a priest-like figure. These people are supposed to have a gift, or training, or some kind of special powers that enable them to satisfy the demands of an angry God or spirit.
In some African Traditional Religions, there is a priest that is called a medicine man. This person is called upon to sacrifice to the gods on behalf of the people. He or she tells you what you need to do or what you need to sacrifice to stay on your god’s good side on a day to day basis. For instance, in some places, it is important to pour out a libation to the gods or to your ancestors before you eat or drink. What does this mean? It means that, before you down your glass of wine, you dump some of it out onto the ground with the understanding that this is the gods’ portion so that they don’t get angry with you. Sacrifices are always made with the understanding that a god or some kind of spirit is unhappy with you and needs a sacrifice to satisfy their anger.
In the Old Testament, when you made a mistake or sinned against someone or against God, you went to the priest to find out what you had to do to make it right. For instance, if you just made a little boo boo, maybe you gave the priest some grain to burn up. If you killed somebody by mistake, perhaps you had to sacrifice a lamb to make up for it. Of course, if you killed somebody on purpose, the priest might have to sacrifice you in order for God not to be mad at the entire community. When a sin was committed, a payment was demanded. You went to a priest to find out what you had to do in order to make God happy. Only the priest knew how to satisfy God the correct way. Only a priest had the authority to proclaim the mysteries of God.
Nowadays, we find this kind of thinking really uncivilized. Why should lambs and cattle and bread be burned up to satisfy God? At best it seems silly and at worst it looks like a legal case for the humane society.
The thing is, many of us still wonder if God is angry with us. Perhaps you have considered your sins and are sure that God should be angry with you. And unlike your uncivilized predecessors, you don’t have a clue as to what you could do to satisfy God. So, you might end up in the same place they did, trying to find yourself some kind of priest and start looking for something to sacrifice.
I believe that this is exactly what we do today. Sacrifice doesn’t always involve dead lambs and burning things up. It can take many forms and disguises. For instance, many people who couldn’t imagine seeing a priest have their own personal guru. This guru helps them to get past their cravings, or learn to be at peace, or to be more wholly attuned into nature. If you’ve ever had a guru, you may have never thought about whether God was angry with you or not. But you were angry and needed to be satisfied. You were angry at all the meaninglessness in your life and you wanted to find a way to satisfy your need for happiness and fulfillment. So you gave up meat, or your need for noise, or you sacrificed your play time in order to serve others in the community. Why? Because that’s what your guru told you to do. To satisfy an angry god . . . to satisfy you.
Is God angry with you? Yes. What are you going to do about it? Try to sacrifice something to make Him happy again. But that not what God wants from you. That’s not going to work. That’s not going to satisfy an angry God. God doesn’t want a little dead lamb. He wants you and nothing else will suffice. He wants your full and complete repentance. He wants you to have a new heart. He wants you have a new spirit. He wants you to love him. He wants you to love your neighbor. He wants justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream! Is God angry with you? Yes. What can you do about it? Absolutely nothing.
Thankfully, since you are unwilling and unable to satisfy God, God has done something about it. God has sent Jesus Christ to earth to tell you: Your sins are forgiven. God is not angry with you anymore. Jesus Christ has satisfied his wrath. How? By finding you. By forgiving you. By giving you faith so that you might love truly, from the heart. God is only satisfied when you believe in him and start loving your neighbor. So Jesus satisfies God’s anger by giving you a new heart and a new spirit so that you can actually do it. He gives you faith to believe in God and out of this living faith comes love, just like fruit blossoming off of a fruit tree. You can’t help it, it just happens.
Jesus has satisfied God’s wrath. He has put all the priests and gurus and medicine men of the world out of a job. But God has also done something else wonderful. He has made you a priest in their place.
He has made you a priest. But the job description has been completely rewritten. Your job, as a priest, is not to make sacrifices to make God happy. When the three women went to the tomb of Jesus to prepare his corpse, to keep it from stinking too badly, they were fulfilling the laws and customs of their time. They were sacrificing their time to fulfill their duty before God and the community. But when they found out that Jesus was alive they ran to tell their friends. They became priests. Right then and there. Priests used to say what needed to happen in order for you to satisfy an angry God. Now priests say what Jesus has done to satisfy God for you.
Why did these women tell their friends? Was it because the angel had made them feel guilty. Did they have to tell the disciples? Would they get in trouble if they didn’t? No. Jesus was alive! They didn’t have to be scared anymore of an angry God. The whole sacrificial system was over for them at that instant. Now, they could let everyone else know.
In today’s reading from 1st Peter, you can hear your function as a Christian priest. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” You now know God as a loving God, as long as you keep your eyes on Jesus Christ. The sacrificial system is over for you. As God’s priest you now have the right and the authority to let everyone else know about it.
It seems like a rather difficult proposition. How do you make God happy if he is angry? Well, if you don’t know, then perhaps you could try to find someone who does know. Perhaps the local religious person. Every culture has a medicine man or a priest-like figure. These people are supposed to have a gift, or training, or some kind of special powers that enable them to satisfy the demands of an angry God or spirit.
In some African Traditional Religions, there is a priest that is called a medicine man. This person is called upon to sacrifice to the gods on behalf of the people. He or she tells you what you need to do or what you need to sacrifice to stay on your god’s good side on a day to day basis. For instance, in some places, it is important to pour out a libation to the gods or to your ancestors before you eat or drink. What does this mean? It means that, before you down your glass of wine, you dump some of it out onto the ground with the understanding that this is the gods’ portion so that they don’t get angry with you. Sacrifices are always made with the understanding that a god or some kind of spirit is unhappy with you and needs a sacrifice to satisfy their anger.
In the Old Testament, when you made a mistake or sinned against someone or against God, you went to the priest to find out what you had to do to make it right. For instance, if you just made a little boo boo, maybe you gave the priest some grain to burn up. If you killed somebody by mistake, perhaps you had to sacrifice a lamb to make up for it. Of course, if you killed somebody on purpose, the priest might have to sacrifice you in order for God not to be mad at the entire community. When a sin was committed, a payment was demanded. You went to a priest to find out what you had to do in order to make God happy. Only the priest knew how to satisfy God the correct way. Only a priest had the authority to proclaim the mysteries of God.
Nowadays, we find this kind of thinking really uncivilized. Why should lambs and cattle and bread be burned up to satisfy God? At best it seems silly and at worst it looks like a legal case for the humane society.
The thing is, many of us still wonder if God is angry with us. Perhaps you have considered your sins and are sure that God should be angry with you. And unlike your uncivilized predecessors, you don’t have a clue as to what you could do to satisfy God. So, you might end up in the same place they did, trying to find yourself some kind of priest and start looking for something to sacrifice.
I believe that this is exactly what we do today. Sacrifice doesn’t always involve dead lambs and burning things up. It can take many forms and disguises. For instance, many people who couldn’t imagine seeing a priest have their own personal guru. This guru helps them to get past their cravings, or learn to be at peace, or to be more wholly attuned into nature. If you’ve ever had a guru, you may have never thought about whether God was angry with you or not. But you were angry and needed to be satisfied. You were angry at all the meaninglessness in your life and you wanted to find a way to satisfy your need for happiness and fulfillment. So you gave up meat, or your need for noise, or you sacrificed your play time in order to serve others in the community. Why? Because that’s what your guru told you to do. To satisfy an angry god . . . to satisfy you.
Is God angry with you? Yes. What are you going to do about it? Try to sacrifice something to make Him happy again. But that not what God wants from you. That’s not going to work. That’s not going to satisfy an angry God. God doesn’t want a little dead lamb. He wants you and nothing else will suffice. He wants your full and complete repentance. He wants you to have a new heart. He wants you have a new spirit. He wants you to love him. He wants you to love your neighbor. He wants justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream! Is God angry with you? Yes. What can you do about it? Absolutely nothing.
Thankfully, since you are unwilling and unable to satisfy God, God has done something about it. God has sent Jesus Christ to earth to tell you: Your sins are forgiven. God is not angry with you anymore. Jesus Christ has satisfied his wrath. How? By finding you. By forgiving you. By giving you faith so that you might love truly, from the heart. God is only satisfied when you believe in him and start loving your neighbor. So Jesus satisfies God’s anger by giving you a new heart and a new spirit so that you can actually do it. He gives you faith to believe in God and out of this living faith comes love, just like fruit blossoming off of a fruit tree. You can’t help it, it just happens.
Jesus has satisfied God’s wrath. He has put all the priests and gurus and medicine men of the world out of a job. But God has also done something else wonderful. He has made you a priest in their place.
He has made you a priest. But the job description has been completely rewritten. Your job, as a priest, is not to make sacrifices to make God happy. When the three women went to the tomb of Jesus to prepare his corpse, to keep it from stinking too badly, they were fulfilling the laws and customs of their time. They were sacrificing their time to fulfill their duty before God and the community. But when they found out that Jesus was alive they ran to tell their friends. They became priests. Right then and there. Priests used to say what needed to happen in order for you to satisfy an angry God. Now priests say what Jesus has done to satisfy God for you.
Why did these women tell their friends? Was it because the angel had made them feel guilty. Did they have to tell the disciples? Would they get in trouble if they didn’t? No. Jesus was alive! They didn’t have to be scared anymore of an angry God. The whole sacrificial system was over for them at that instant. Now, they could let everyone else know.
In today’s reading from 1st Peter, you can hear your function as a Christian priest. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” You now know God as a loving God, as long as you keep your eyes on Jesus Christ. The sacrificial system is over for you. As God’s priest you now have the right and the authority to let everyone else know about it.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Sermon for April 13th
Did you know that there is a group of people who have decided what readings we are going to read each week? We don’t have to take their suggestions of course, but I normally do. Anyway, they plan out these readings and call it a lectionary, a group of lessons from the Old and New Testament. Most of the time, I think they do an alright job, but sometimes I don’t. This sermon is going to be about the second reading today from the book of 1st Peter. The problem is that the people who picked this reading left out the verse that starts the passage and, I think you’ll figure out why. The thing is, I don’t want to pretend this verse doesn’t exist because, if we do that, I think it puts us in very real spiritual danger.
The reading today, printed in your Celebrate insert, starts with verse 19, but I’m going to start with verse 18. Are you ready, well then, here we go, starting with the verse that was left out, “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; for by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”
Now, I wonder why they left out that verse? Probably because this verse was one of the huge reasons many Lutherans didn’t speak out against slavery. And it wasn’t just Lutherans, of course. In fact, many, if not most, slave owners in America were devoted Christians. Some of the greatest leaders in our nation’s history had plantations with slaves on them. And, have no doubt, this reading today from the book of 1st Peter was read countless times by slaves, slave owners and pastors who believed that they were acting justly and righteously all in the name of God.
The tragedy does not just end there, of course. Because I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist, or for that matter a very sophisticated sinner, to change a couple of words in our minds and see the possibilities. For instance, though this is not written, what about this? “Wives, accept the authority of your husbands with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.”
Or, of course, there is another possibility, “Children, accept the authority of your parents with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.” It is quite upsetting, but true, that these verses have been used countless times as justification for staying in abusive relationships, keeping people quiet as well as continuing racial inequalities in America.
And yet, still, we read it in church! Many people would argue that we shouldn’t. But I am thankful that we do, even if the first verse was left out intentionally. Why is this such an important passage from the Bible? Why do we dare to read it when we recognize the abhorrent ways it can be and has been utilized against innocent men, women and children? Because it is still a true word from God that can strengthen our faith in the face of sin and suffering. We are correct to harshly judge abusers and slave owners; however, we too easily forget the courage people had who escaped slavery or abuse and had to get dirty. Who had to choose to sin one way or the other. This passage can equip us to deal with the very real spiritual danger we face in our lives of believing we can make a perfect choice and stay clean in all situations. Sometimes there is no righteous choice.
The problem is that we can’t keep clean. No matter how hard we try. We want to, sometimes we really do want to! We want to stay clean and sinless in God’s eyes so that he will find us attractive and worth saving. But the problem is that at every turn, there is sin upon sin upon sin. And as long as we look at what we can do, as long as we try and follow the rules of God and of society, we cannot help but get dirty and fail in our attempts at righteousness. For this is also the truth, written in the book of Romans, “There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one.”
You can’t stay clean keeping the law. Is it best to divorce your beloved husband who is abusing you or better to suffer the abuse in silence as a testimony for your children who are watching? Is it better to work yourself to death fifty or sixty hours a week to support your church, your retirement fund and the family that you never see, or better to spend that time with your husband and children while you receive welfare and food stamps? Is it best to let people in other countries suffer from oppressive dictators who are murdering and torturing them by the thousands or to remove those dictators from power while killing soldiers and innocent civilians by the thousands. You have to make choices, there may be better choices than other, but you just can’t keep clean keeping the law.
A pastor I know from the Midwest told me about a family he met once as a chaplain in an emergency room. There was a mother, father, four or five kids (I can’t remember which) and the mother was pregnant with another child. She had gone into labor much too early and her life was in very real danger. The doctors treating the mother and child believed that either the mother would die or the baby. The parents were defiantly against an abortion or anything option that would not attempt to save the baby’s life at all costs. They sought support from the pastor who told me this story.
He did not know the family. He was just as defiantly against abortion as they were and perhaps more so. However, as their pastor, he could not give his stamp of approval on their choice to save the baby at the mother’s expense. Why not? Because they could not keep clean from the accusations of the Law. Allowing the mother to die, leaving her husband alone, with five or six kids now, was not a righteous choice made without sin. She was called to be a wife and mother, not only a mother to this one child in her womb, but to the other ones already born. This pastor could not approve of either decision, they were both bad. He could only call a sin a sin and offer God’s forgiveness for these sins—each and every one. He could support and counsel the family in their difficult decision recognizing the sins covering each and every choice. With many prayers and tears, and much suffering, the family drove away a week later after a death. Not clean, but sinners. Forgiven sinners.
You don’t usually choose what suffering is going to come your way. You find yourself in the suffering, trying to figure out how to live through it. Like African American slaves who had to decide whether to obey the law and the authority of their masters, or break the law, leave behind children, mothers, or husbands in search for freedom on the underground railroad. You find yourself called into suffering with sin facing you on either side. Like an abused wife and mother who risks her marriage, her security, her life and the life of her children by trying to escape to a woman’s shelter in the middle of the night. There is just no way to keep clean.
There is no way to keep clean by following the law. You need to be equipped with how to handle the suffering in your life. That’s why we read this passage at church. The suffering will come, it always does, but what do you do when it comes? You run. You run to the cross and nail your sins into Jesus. Rub them into his flesh so that they will die up there with him. He already promised that he has done it, “He himself bore your sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness.” So run to the cross and demand that he keep his promise to you. Take your sins and stuff it in his side so that they can’t come and threaten you anymore.
Run from the Devil who threatens to destroy you. Run from God who demands that you keep the law or else! Run from the voices in your head telling you to keep clean or else! Run to Jesus Christ and slap your sins on his skin so that they die with him once and for all. You are free to lay your sins on Jesus and trust that even while you live a life of sin on this earth, God has promised that your sin will die, but you will with Jesus in heaven with God. Not because you kept clean, but because Jesus has washed you clean from your sins. Amen.
The reading today, printed in your Celebrate insert, starts with verse 19, but I’m going to start with verse 18. Are you ready, well then, here we go, starting with the verse that was left out, “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; for by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”
Now, I wonder why they left out that verse? Probably because this verse was one of the huge reasons many Lutherans didn’t speak out against slavery. And it wasn’t just Lutherans, of course. In fact, many, if not most, slave owners in America were devoted Christians. Some of the greatest leaders in our nation’s history had plantations with slaves on them. And, have no doubt, this reading today from the book of 1st Peter was read countless times by slaves, slave owners and pastors who believed that they were acting justly and righteously all in the name of God.
The tragedy does not just end there, of course. Because I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist, or for that matter a very sophisticated sinner, to change a couple of words in our minds and see the possibilities. For instance, though this is not written, what about this? “Wives, accept the authority of your husbands with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.”
Or, of course, there is another possibility, “Children, accept the authority of your parents with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.” It is quite upsetting, but true, that these verses have been used countless times as justification for staying in abusive relationships, keeping people quiet as well as continuing racial inequalities in America.
And yet, still, we read it in church! Many people would argue that we shouldn’t. But I am thankful that we do, even if the first verse was left out intentionally. Why is this such an important passage from the Bible? Why do we dare to read it when we recognize the abhorrent ways it can be and has been utilized against innocent men, women and children? Because it is still a true word from God that can strengthen our faith in the face of sin and suffering. We are correct to harshly judge abusers and slave owners; however, we too easily forget the courage people had who escaped slavery or abuse and had to get dirty. Who had to choose to sin one way or the other. This passage can equip us to deal with the very real spiritual danger we face in our lives of believing we can make a perfect choice and stay clean in all situations. Sometimes there is no righteous choice.
The problem is that we can’t keep clean. No matter how hard we try. We want to, sometimes we really do want to! We want to stay clean and sinless in God’s eyes so that he will find us attractive and worth saving. But the problem is that at every turn, there is sin upon sin upon sin. And as long as we look at what we can do, as long as we try and follow the rules of God and of society, we cannot help but get dirty and fail in our attempts at righteousness. For this is also the truth, written in the book of Romans, “There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one.”
You can’t stay clean keeping the law. Is it best to divorce your beloved husband who is abusing you or better to suffer the abuse in silence as a testimony for your children who are watching? Is it better to work yourself to death fifty or sixty hours a week to support your church, your retirement fund and the family that you never see, or better to spend that time with your husband and children while you receive welfare and food stamps? Is it best to let people in other countries suffer from oppressive dictators who are murdering and torturing them by the thousands or to remove those dictators from power while killing soldiers and innocent civilians by the thousands. You have to make choices, there may be better choices than other, but you just can’t keep clean keeping the law.
A pastor I know from the Midwest told me about a family he met once as a chaplain in an emergency room. There was a mother, father, four or five kids (I can’t remember which) and the mother was pregnant with another child. She had gone into labor much too early and her life was in very real danger. The doctors treating the mother and child believed that either the mother would die or the baby. The parents were defiantly against an abortion or anything option that would not attempt to save the baby’s life at all costs. They sought support from the pastor who told me this story.
He did not know the family. He was just as defiantly against abortion as they were and perhaps more so. However, as their pastor, he could not give his stamp of approval on their choice to save the baby at the mother’s expense. Why not? Because they could not keep clean from the accusations of the Law. Allowing the mother to die, leaving her husband alone, with five or six kids now, was not a righteous choice made without sin. She was called to be a wife and mother, not only a mother to this one child in her womb, but to the other ones already born. This pastor could not approve of either decision, they were both bad. He could only call a sin a sin and offer God’s forgiveness for these sins—each and every one. He could support and counsel the family in their difficult decision recognizing the sins covering each and every choice. With many prayers and tears, and much suffering, the family drove away a week later after a death. Not clean, but sinners. Forgiven sinners.
You don’t usually choose what suffering is going to come your way. You find yourself in the suffering, trying to figure out how to live through it. Like African American slaves who had to decide whether to obey the law and the authority of their masters, or break the law, leave behind children, mothers, or husbands in search for freedom on the underground railroad. You find yourself called into suffering with sin facing you on either side. Like an abused wife and mother who risks her marriage, her security, her life and the life of her children by trying to escape to a woman’s shelter in the middle of the night. There is just no way to keep clean.
There is no way to keep clean by following the law. You need to be equipped with how to handle the suffering in your life. That’s why we read this passage at church. The suffering will come, it always does, but what do you do when it comes? You run. You run to the cross and nail your sins into Jesus. Rub them into his flesh so that they will die up there with him. He already promised that he has done it, “He himself bore your sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness.” So run to the cross and demand that he keep his promise to you. Take your sins and stuff it in his side so that they can’t come and threaten you anymore.
Run from the Devil who threatens to destroy you. Run from God who demands that you keep the law or else! Run from the voices in your head telling you to keep clean or else! Run to Jesus Christ and slap your sins on his skin so that they die with him once and for all. You are free to lay your sins on Jesus and trust that even while you live a life of sin on this earth, God has promised that your sin will die, but you will with Jesus in heaven with God. Not because you kept clean, but because Jesus has washed you clean from your sins. Amen.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Sermon for April 6th
I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me. What does this mean? We are to fear, love and trust God above anything else. Do you break this commandment? Yes, indeed. Every time that you do not fear God and respect his power in your life. Every time that you do not love God with your whole heart. Every time that you do not trust him to provide for you. And by breaking this commandment we break them all. God doesn’t tally up our sins and good deeds and see which column is longer. One sin and we are done for. For whatever does not come from faith is sin, the scriptures tell us. And so, we are all counted among the unbelievers.
We are all unbelievers then. We are the ungodly. We are God’s enemies. But here is the good news. That isn’t the last word for you. Why isn’t it the last word? God demands that you hear more. I made a promise at my ordination. I made it again in the contract that I signed to be your pastor. I promise that I will not only preach God’s law and his commandments to you, but also his gospel. Therefore, this church is a place where you can come and hear not only that you have sinned and fallen very short of the glory of God, but you can also hear that God has chosen you on the basis of what he has done. Jesus Christ died for the ungodly, for you. While we were God’s enemies, Christ died for us. While we were crucifying Jesus, he was forgiving us.
What is the church and why do you come here? Why would you invite anyone else to come here? Is it to grow the church so that it pops out the windows and we have to build another one? Is it to pay for our bills? Is it to justify our existence to get together as a club? To see friends and feel that we are a part of something? This church was built for unbelievers, like you and me. This church was built so that you might come learn God’s laws and hear his promises. Not just the bad news that you hear all week long in the newspaper or on the radio or on the evening news. This is the place where you can hear an unconditional promise from God for you. A promise that is not based on what you do, but on what God has done.
According to our Lutheran Confessions, the church is the place where the gospel is taught in its truth and purity and where the sacraments are administered rightly. The church shows up on the road to Emmaus with two of Jesus’ followers who were unbelievers once again. They wanted to fear, love and trust God above anything else. They “had hoped” that Jesus was their Messiah. But now, they had seen him die and they were unbelievers once again. But, whenever you smell a sinner walking around, you can expect God to start building a church for them. So Jesus comes and starts preaching, to give them faith and hope once again.
But not everyone comes to church, right? What kind of people don’t go to church? Regular people. Unbelievers, just like you and me. Your friends and family. Your coworkers. Your acquaintances. The only difference between you and them is this: you know where you can go to get your belief while they might still be walking on the road. You know a place to strengthen your faith. When you are starving for hope, you can feast on God’s Word. As a pastor, many people like to tell me how often they go to church. In fact, if it doesn’t come up, I can probably guess that they don’t go to church much at all. But what kind of virtue is it? Going to church I mean.
You might be impressed the first time your three or four year old doesn’t ask you for a snack, but just goes to the refrigerator and gets it themselves; but when your kids come home from college, you don’t pat them on the back when they pour themselves a bowl of cereal. Do you really expect extra credit from God just because you know where to eat? When your soul can be fed? Church attendance isn’t something to necessarily be proud of, but it is something very important to learn.
What kind of people don’t come to church? Regular people. Unbelievers like you and me. Your friends and family. Unfortunately, most people in the world do not know where the spiritual refrigerators are, or don’t realize there is food in them, or can’t get to the food to eat. The church seems to complicated, or too demanding, or too exclusive or boring or something like this. So they starve. Or maybe they have never heard that Jesus Christ can feed their hungry bodies and souls.
If your aging mother came up to you and told you she was really hungry, but didn’t know where there was any food, what would you do? You’d tell her where the food was, you’d bring her to the food, or you would bring the food to her. Well, if your mother tells you she is depressed and feels like something is missing in her life what might you do? Point her to the closest church, pray with her, or call a pastor to share God’s Word with her so that she doesn’t have to go hungry anymore.
What kind of people don’t come to church? Regular sinners like you and me. Hungry people. Some people don’t come to church because they believe they can live without it. This includes most of us as well, when it comes right down to it. But anorexia of the spirit is very dangerous. We want to look good in the eyes of the world all on our own. We don’t want the crutch of religion, or belief or faith to fatten us up and make us anything less than perfect in ourselves. So we keep cutting weight, cutting our relationship to God and to family more and more so we can be more and more self-reliant. Until finally, finally. When we feel we have become perfect in the eyes of the world, we are so skinny we are unrecognizable. Sometimes people get used to the hunger and start believing that faith itself is a bad thing, a temptation, a crutch. When you are fed with God’s Word, it can show you how close to death you were.
Not going to church is socially acceptable. The more self-reliant you are the better, right? But the church is not a place where perfect attendance is counted, it is a place where God attends to your needs. He feeds you with himself, his very own body and blood. He gives you all he has until you are fat and happy and trusting in him alone to satisfy your hungry heart.
What kinds of people don’t come to church? Unbeleivers like you and me. Your friends and family. Your coworkers. Your acquaintances. Some people just don’t come to church anymore. Maybe they grew up in the church. They believe in God, and they know that believing is good and necessary, but they have found something much sweeter to chew on. Perhaps it is all about finding God is nature, or on the ski slopes, or at Saint Mattress by the Springs, as my college pastor would say. God is a God of love . . . only. God is a God of tolerance . . . above all else. God just wants everyone to be happy and get along. Do the right thing, be a good person and you are halfway up your own personal stairway to heaven.
Now, you can probably live a long time on chocolate bunnies, or ramen noodles, or pizza. Hey, at least you are eating, right? Or as I hear it, at least I believe in something! The question is, what would you do if your spouse skipped mealtime and only ate pie for dessert. Day in and day out. It works fine when things are going great, but when times get tough, your body needs more nourishment than what a sugar coated pastry can give you. When life hands you cancer, or diabetes, or arthritis, or depression, you need to hear from a God who has suffered on a cross with you, not just a God who hands out candy.
How do you know when someone is hungry? Sometimes they come right out and say so. They tell you they are getting a headache, or their tummy hurts or they haven’t eaten in awhile. So you tell them about your favorite restaurant or invite them over for lunch. The same is true for people who are hungry spiritually. Sometimes, they come right out and say it. But often they tell you about their depression. Or they tell you about their suffering. Or they tell you about their loneliness. Or they share their opinions about religion. Telling them about church isn’t going to get you any brownie points, but it might help them out and give them hope.
You wouldn’t go up to a complete stranger and ask them if they were hungry, neither would you ask them if they went to church. That would be both silly and difficult. God puts you in the right place at the right time. It’s not your job to argue anyone into belief. Show them a place to eat. God will do the feeding.
The church is wherever sinners gather to hear words of forgiveness from God himself. We all need to hear the words of Jesus Christ. Even when we are blind to his presence, like the men walking in the story today, even when we are unbelievers, and ungodly and sinners, God promises to feed us and give us faith to believe in him again and again.
I believe that all of you who come to church are hungry and maybe even starving. That’s why I am called to declare God’s forgiveness to you and to anyone and everyone you invite through these doors. Children, young and old, Adults, young and old. This is what it means to be a sinner. To be starving, but believing you are full. To be dead, but believing you are alive. To be blinded by darkness, but believing you can see. So, behold, Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus promises to take away your sin and promises to be all in all for you, your light, your life, your salvation and your heavenly food.
We are all unbelievers then. We are the ungodly. We are God’s enemies. But here is the good news. That isn’t the last word for you. Why isn’t it the last word? God demands that you hear more. I made a promise at my ordination. I made it again in the contract that I signed to be your pastor. I promise that I will not only preach God’s law and his commandments to you, but also his gospel. Therefore, this church is a place where you can come and hear not only that you have sinned and fallen very short of the glory of God, but you can also hear that God has chosen you on the basis of what he has done. Jesus Christ died for the ungodly, for you. While we were God’s enemies, Christ died for us. While we were crucifying Jesus, he was forgiving us.
What is the church and why do you come here? Why would you invite anyone else to come here? Is it to grow the church so that it pops out the windows and we have to build another one? Is it to pay for our bills? Is it to justify our existence to get together as a club? To see friends and feel that we are a part of something? This church was built for unbelievers, like you and me. This church was built so that you might come learn God’s laws and hear his promises. Not just the bad news that you hear all week long in the newspaper or on the radio or on the evening news. This is the place where you can hear an unconditional promise from God for you. A promise that is not based on what you do, but on what God has done.
According to our Lutheran Confessions, the church is the place where the gospel is taught in its truth and purity and where the sacraments are administered rightly. The church shows up on the road to Emmaus with two of Jesus’ followers who were unbelievers once again. They wanted to fear, love and trust God above anything else. They “had hoped” that Jesus was their Messiah. But now, they had seen him die and they were unbelievers once again. But, whenever you smell a sinner walking around, you can expect God to start building a church for them. So Jesus comes and starts preaching, to give them faith and hope once again.
But not everyone comes to church, right? What kind of people don’t go to church? Regular people. Unbelievers, just like you and me. Your friends and family. Your coworkers. Your acquaintances. The only difference between you and them is this: you know where you can go to get your belief while they might still be walking on the road. You know a place to strengthen your faith. When you are starving for hope, you can feast on God’s Word. As a pastor, many people like to tell me how often they go to church. In fact, if it doesn’t come up, I can probably guess that they don’t go to church much at all. But what kind of virtue is it? Going to church I mean.
You might be impressed the first time your three or four year old doesn’t ask you for a snack, but just goes to the refrigerator and gets it themselves; but when your kids come home from college, you don’t pat them on the back when they pour themselves a bowl of cereal. Do you really expect extra credit from God just because you know where to eat? When your soul can be fed? Church attendance isn’t something to necessarily be proud of, but it is something very important to learn.
What kind of people don’t come to church? Regular people. Unbelievers like you and me. Your friends and family. Unfortunately, most people in the world do not know where the spiritual refrigerators are, or don’t realize there is food in them, or can’t get to the food to eat. The church seems to complicated, or too demanding, or too exclusive or boring or something like this. So they starve. Or maybe they have never heard that Jesus Christ can feed their hungry bodies and souls.
If your aging mother came up to you and told you she was really hungry, but didn’t know where there was any food, what would you do? You’d tell her where the food was, you’d bring her to the food, or you would bring the food to her. Well, if your mother tells you she is depressed and feels like something is missing in her life what might you do? Point her to the closest church, pray with her, or call a pastor to share God’s Word with her so that she doesn’t have to go hungry anymore.
What kind of people don’t come to church? Regular sinners like you and me. Hungry people. Some people don’t come to church because they believe they can live without it. This includes most of us as well, when it comes right down to it. But anorexia of the spirit is very dangerous. We want to look good in the eyes of the world all on our own. We don’t want the crutch of religion, or belief or faith to fatten us up and make us anything less than perfect in ourselves. So we keep cutting weight, cutting our relationship to God and to family more and more so we can be more and more self-reliant. Until finally, finally. When we feel we have become perfect in the eyes of the world, we are so skinny we are unrecognizable. Sometimes people get used to the hunger and start believing that faith itself is a bad thing, a temptation, a crutch. When you are fed with God’s Word, it can show you how close to death you were.
Not going to church is socially acceptable. The more self-reliant you are the better, right? But the church is not a place where perfect attendance is counted, it is a place where God attends to your needs. He feeds you with himself, his very own body and blood. He gives you all he has until you are fat and happy and trusting in him alone to satisfy your hungry heart.
What kinds of people don’t come to church? Unbeleivers like you and me. Your friends and family. Your coworkers. Your acquaintances. Some people just don’t come to church anymore. Maybe they grew up in the church. They believe in God, and they know that believing is good and necessary, but they have found something much sweeter to chew on. Perhaps it is all about finding God is nature, or on the ski slopes, or at Saint Mattress by the Springs, as my college pastor would say. God is a God of love . . . only. God is a God of tolerance . . . above all else. God just wants everyone to be happy and get along. Do the right thing, be a good person and you are halfway up your own personal stairway to heaven.
Now, you can probably live a long time on chocolate bunnies, or ramen noodles, or pizza. Hey, at least you are eating, right? Or as I hear it, at least I believe in something! The question is, what would you do if your spouse skipped mealtime and only ate pie for dessert. Day in and day out. It works fine when things are going great, but when times get tough, your body needs more nourishment than what a sugar coated pastry can give you. When life hands you cancer, or diabetes, or arthritis, or depression, you need to hear from a God who has suffered on a cross with you, not just a God who hands out candy.
How do you know when someone is hungry? Sometimes they come right out and say so. They tell you they are getting a headache, or their tummy hurts or they haven’t eaten in awhile. So you tell them about your favorite restaurant or invite them over for lunch. The same is true for people who are hungry spiritually. Sometimes, they come right out and say it. But often they tell you about their depression. Or they tell you about their suffering. Or they tell you about their loneliness. Or they share their opinions about religion. Telling them about church isn’t going to get you any brownie points, but it might help them out and give them hope.
You wouldn’t go up to a complete stranger and ask them if they were hungry, neither would you ask them if they went to church. That would be both silly and difficult. God puts you in the right place at the right time. It’s not your job to argue anyone into belief. Show them a place to eat. God will do the feeding.
The church is wherever sinners gather to hear words of forgiveness from God himself. We all need to hear the words of Jesus Christ. Even when we are blind to his presence, like the men walking in the story today, even when we are unbelievers, and ungodly and sinners, God promises to feed us and give us faith to believe in him again and again.
I believe that all of you who come to church are hungry and maybe even starving. That’s why I am called to declare God’s forgiveness to you and to anyone and everyone you invite through these doors. Children, young and old, Adults, young and old. This is what it means to be a sinner. To be starving, but believing you are full. To be dead, but believing you are alive. To be blinded by darkness, but believing you can see. So, behold, Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus promises to take away your sin and promises to be all in all for you, your light, your life, your salvation and your heavenly food.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)