Sermon for September 26th (Faith and Love)

How many people have you told, “I love you.”? What did you mean by it? How old were you? Do you still love them? Today’s message is about love and it scares me to death. Not because I think that I am going to say something wrong, or controversial or something like that. But because it’s just too darn easy for this message to fall flat like a day old Pepsi can sitting out in the sun. I believe that love means a lot more than what we’ve accepted it to mean and the reason that I believe this is because of what I read in the Bible about love. We’ve made love into chicken broth when I believe it is something more like Kim Chi.

Has anyone here ever eaten Kim Chi? I have. Only once. Kim Chi is a staple of the Korean diet and is extremely important for that culture. It is made by fermenting vegetables, like cabbage, for a long time. The taste is unparalleled by anything else I have ever tasted. It is spicy, yes, but terrifically pungent and hits you like a ton of bricks. Some people love it (like I said, it is a staple of the Korean diet) but for many Americans (myself included) it is just too much for my nose and tastebuds to handle.

I believe that love, according to the Bible, is much more like Kim Chi than chicken broth. While chicken soup can be comforting when you are sick, Kim Chi is considered one of the most healthy foods you can eat, especially when you are sick (that is, if you can stomach it). In the same way, love, the way it is sold to us as Americans, is all about chocolate hearts at Valentines Day and snuggly teddy bears. But love in the Bible, is presented as something that isn’t always very snuggly and delicious.

There are two statements and two stories that I’d like to present to you that have convinced me that love is much more radical than we make it out to be. The first is this: God is love. Now that sounds nice and all, but have you ever thought about how different you and I are from God? “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Says the Lord. And yet, when we hear that “God is love” we somehow think that Valentine’s Day comes close to what “love” means.

If God’s thoughts are so different than ours. If God’s ways are so different than ours. Than why do we assume that our concept of love is so similar to God’s? Maybe hugs, and kisses, and tolerance, and smiles, and nice words, and doing a few good things for people barely touch the surface of what real love is in God’s eyes. In fact, I think we have definitely underestimated what love is according to a second statement, again from today’s reading: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Hands nailed into rough cut pieces of wood, having your face spit on, a crown of thorns, abandonment, sacrifice, forgiveness . . . that’s what love looks like. A crucified Jesus is the face of love. Have you ever come close to that kind of love on Valentine’s Day? Have we ever come close to that kind of love as a church?

Let’s come clean this morning and admit that we haven’t a clue what love means, at least not the kind of love that “God is” and the kind of love that Jesus had for us in order to die on the cross for us. Why is this so important? Because we have to start over. We have to chuck out our old concepts of love and get a new one—albeit a more radical one, if we are ever to understand how to truly love one another.

You’ve heard the two scripture passages, but now I have two stories of love. The first one is actually the beginning of a rather long story about a Father’s love for his children. “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. The Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Some of you might know this story. You might know that, as the story goes on, the man did eventually eat from that tree with the help of his partner. And that Father, the Lord God, cursed that man, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

So what does this loving Father do with his cursed children? This is where the real love shows I believe, “The Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.” Now, does that seem like love to you? Not in most people’s definition of love.

What are the words that you hear when we talk of love in the church? Acceptance. Compassion. Tolerance. So, if “God is love” how is it that He can cast his children out of their garden so that they can’t live forever? What’s so wrong with living forever? When I brought this question up at seminary one time, my professor answered in this way. “If Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of life, they would have lived forever in death . . . as cursed people . . . they would have lived forever in their sin.” The most loving thing for God to do was to make sure they would die so that, one day, in Jesus Christ, their death might be destroyed. So that one day Christ would become a curse to free Adam, Eve and every one of us, from the curses we are under. A loving God does not accept or tolerate sin—he sacrifices himself to free you from sin. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” This love does not smell like chicken soup . . . it smells like Kim Chi!

But it is more than our definition of love that is so different than God’s. It’s how God DOES love that is so different and how he uses that love to do amazing things in His world. Why is love so important? Because people come to know God through our love for them. No kidding. “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” THEY WILL KNOW we are Christians BY OUR LOVE. And if they know chicken soup love, that what they’ll think God’s love is all about. The kind of love that is nice to visitors, tolerant of newcomers, compassionate for victims. And if they know Kim Chi love, that’s what they’ll think God’s love is all about. The kind of love that is more than a feeling, but willing to sacrifice something important for the sake of a stranger. A kind of love that is passionate for those who are the hurting and the lost. The kind of love that doesn’t just accept someone, but is willing to forgive unconditionally. The most radical kind of love is forgiveness.

Another story, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’” What did he say? Did he argue for her civil rights? Did he say that they were wrong to judge her? Did he try to get her off the hook? No, he said this, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” They all left.

But the story continues and Jesus’ love becomes much more radical than letting a guilty woman go free. “Jesus straightened up and asked her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir,’ she said. “then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin.’” Jesus forgave her, he did not condemn her. But just as His Father did in the garden of Eden, he did not want her to live forever in her life of sin, “Go now, and leave your life of sin.” He said. What if our church didn’t just love people, or tolerate people, but when we saw someone struggling with a sin, what if we loved people so dearly that we could tell them the truth about it, and never leave their side until their heard and believed that that sin was forgiven.

Maybe you’d like to see more of this kind of love in the church, but how do you get it? “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he is God.” If you want to love as God loves, you must have faith in God, because “God is love”. “We know God through love and rely on God for our love. If you start trying to love on your own you will fail. If God loves through you, He will succeed every time.

If you want to see this kind of love in the church, in your friendship, in your marriage and in your life, there is only one way to get it and it’s not by trying to do it better. You don’t love better just because you are told to (out of fear of punishment if you fail). Remember that there is no fear in love. We love because of faith.

Today, you have another opportunity to put your trust in God, perhaps for the first time and perhaps for the 100th time. Faith isn’t something that you store up over the years, it comes new every morning and every day. If you’d like to know what true love is, pray with me today and risk believing that Jesus Christ truly is the Son of God; that he died on the cross as a sacrifice for your sins; that every wrong thing you have done has been forgiven once and forever. And when the prayer is over, don’t ever start trying to love someone simply on your own—but when you go out this morning—have faith that God is loving through you. “We love because God first loved us.” Amen.

Sermon for July 18th (Conflict and Forgiveness)

Last week, I presented you all with a vision of what the ministries here at Emmanuel might look like one day. I continue to pray that the Holy Spirit inspires us as we are coming in to be sent out together in mission for Christ. But before we can go and do all the fun stuff, before we go out and do all the hard work, before hearts are changed, before lives are changed and before the world can ever be changed we must ensure that we have a firm foundation upon which to build.

We need to build our ministry upon a firm foundation so that, when God calls upon us as a faith community, to plants churches or to go out on missions or to serve at food kitchens, we can put our time and energy into that work. We don’t want our community falling apart like a sandcastle if issues come up that attempt to bury us under conflict and unforgiveness. When I was working as a chaplain one summer in Minneapolis, the group I was studying with heard this imperative over and over again, “Deal with your issues now so that the people you serve don’t have to deal with them later.” One of the best ways we can serve others as a faith community is by putting into place a good system for dealing with our own conflicts.

And yes, we will have conflicts. Conflict is a part of our life together. If we can accept that fact and handle it appropriately, our community will grow stronger. And Jesus has given us a specific way to deal with conflict in our church so let’s take a look at what he has to say and apply it to our situation here at Emmanuel. Jesus starts off: “If another church member sins against you, go and point out the fault, just between the two of you.” Let’s just stop right there. I call upon you all today to heed the words of the apostle Paul as well, “Do NOT be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” I know that this is NOT the way of the world BUT, “If another church member sins against you, go and point out the fault, JUST BETWEEN THE TWO OF YOU.”

That means that you DON’T talk to other people about what happened, you talk to the person who hurt you about what happened. The book of James says, “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire . . . full of deadly poison.” When someone says or does something hurtful towards you and you talk negatively to someone else now about what that person did. . . well, you are committing the same sin, don’t you see? And not only that, but the wound that was opened in your heart is now burning from the heat of your anger and stinging from the result of your bitterness. Hatred, anger and gossip will not heal your wounds—in fact they make it worse. Bitterness is the poison that we drink ourselves with the hope of killing someone else. Healing occurs when there is both repentance and forgiveness. “If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.”

“But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” The key word here again is WITH. Take them WITH you. Don’t rant and rave about the injury or attempt to bias them to your side. If your cause is just, the truth will be clear. Calling your best friends to “back you up” is for gang fights, not for a conflict that you wish to settle peacefully.

If you are called to join the conversation, it is not your job to side with one person or the other. Your job is to help them talk and reconcile their differences. If you cannot think of someone to go along with you, I would like to encourage you to call upon me, as your pastor, to help you deal with this conflict. However, when you come to me alone, while I can do my best to counsel you, without the other party there the conflict will not be solved. Bring them WITH you. Putting me or anyone else in the middle of a conflict is neither helpful nor is it very nice.

“If the member continues to refuse to listen, tell the church.” What is the church? Does that mean the town of Fontanelle? Does that mean facebook? Does it mean to tell all your friends during fellowship time or during a ministry team meeting? No. We have called people from our congregation to serve as our representatives and leaders and put them on the council to help us deal with conflict in a healthy way. So, if someone has hurt you and even after speaking privately with them, and then with another person, there is no repentance—if the two of you have met together with others or with me and nothing has changed (perhaps the behavior has even become worse) come together to the council and together we will do our best work to settle the conflict as a community.

If there is still no repentance and no attempt at resolution of the issues—if the one who has hurt you refuses to listen to you and continues the hurtful behavior with no remorse, according to Jesus, as a community we are called to treat this hard-hearted person like a pagan or a tax collector. What does THAT mean?

I’d like to make two statements about this phrase. Both are important. First, pagans and tax collectors were the people Jesus hung out with to the horror of the rest of the Jewish leaders. “I have come not for the healthy but for the sick, not for the righteous but for the unrighteous,” Jesus said. We are under obligation as followers of Jesus to seek out pagans and tax collectors, pray for them and bring them back to Jesus.

However, pagans and tax collectors were also considered to be outside of the faith community, according to Jewish people, until they were restored. In other words, as a church, we should never kick someone out, faith in Jesus is the gate to this community. We cannot judge others as being more sinful that we are ourselves. However, repentance is a necessary part of the Christian life and so, we also must realize that until true repentance has occurred, a person should be disciplined in some way. For example, they may be disallowed from voting and kept from being on ministry teams or in leadership positions until the conflict has been resolved. The most common instance of this is when a pastor sins publically and is stripped of his position. Some pastors who go through this serve other churches, eventually, but not without public repentance taking place.

But have you noticed that Jesus’ system of conflict resolution, even if it works perfectly, is still missing something. Notice that Jesus keeps referring to a person “listening to you”. The most a person can do, when they have hurt you, is to repent. They can sincerely say that they are sorry, do what they can to make amends and attempt to stop the bad behavior. However, is that enough? Notice where Jesus goes next in this discussion. “Peter came and said to Jesus, ‘Lord if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.’” As a congregation, we must not only have a system in place to deal with conflict, but we must have forgiving hearts or else we can never be free to serve anyone else.

I believe that there are some of you listening today who have not truly repented for your actions against others, even when you have sinned against other members of this church. If you truly believe that Jesus Christ died to take away your sins, what are you waiting for? Nobody’s perfect, this is true, but admitting your sins and turning from them is a part of being a Christian. In the gospel of John, Jesus saved a woman, caught in adultery, from being stoned for her sins. But while he did not condemn her, he also did not tolerate her behavior, “Go and sin no more,” He said. Each of you have been given a piece of rope with a knot in it this morning. If there is someone in your life you have hurt, you’ll understand that that knot is no mere symbol—it is the knot in your stomach and in your heart—a knot of guilt. Your relationship with that person, with this community and with God is not as it should be. Repent and believe in the good news. Jesus died for sinners just like you. Trust in his forgiveness. Trust in his mercy. Risk repentance.

I also believe that there are some of you listening today who, even when presented with the opportunity to forgive, have refused to do so, even when those who have hurt you have asked for that forgiveness. Just like the slave in the Bible story today, you have received and accepted the unconditional forgiveness of all of YOUR sins and, yet, somehow, you cannot also forgive? Do you truly believe that you have been hurt more than the Son of God crucified on the cross? Will you continue to hold resentment for those who have hurt you while God gives YOU pardon? Should you not have mercy on those who ask forgiveness just as God has mercy on you when you come to him with remorse? In the story, the slave is handed over to be tortured . . . Jesus said, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Perhaps that is why you have the knotted rope today. To remember to forgive because your heavenly Father has forgiven you.

It’s hard. I know that. All of this is hard. It is hard to confront someone when they have already hurt you. It is hard to say, “I’m sorry.” It is especially hard to forgive. We all struggle with these things. But I still see a day, when we are coming in to repent and being sent out to forgive. I want you to take a moment as we end today to think about your relationships with others in this very church. Who has hurt you? When will you go to them and let them know? Who have you hurt? How will you say you are sorry? Who has asked for your forgiveness? When will you forgive them? Perhaps you came in today to hear this promise, “By the authority of Jesus Christ, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins.” Perhaps you will be sent out today with the same promise on your lips. Amen.

Sermon for June 13th (Faithfulness)

Temptations are a part of life. Temptations are a part of every marriage. There are a lot of beautiful people in this world and only one of them, at the most, can be your spouse. There are exciting things to do, wonderful places to go and great things to buy that you may never get to experience in the life you have, with the kids you have, with the partner you have. You may have had dreams about what marriage was supposed to be like that just have never come true or maybe were lost a long time ago. But, believe it or not, those temptations, those unmet expectations even those frustrated dreams can still be a part of a loving, healthy and faithful relationship. A Christian marriage, much like the Christian life in general, isn’t about perfection; it’s about forgiveness. A marriage isn’t built simply on excitement, but on love.

Many married couples are unhappy, aren’t they. But what makes them unhappy? Unmet expectations, feelings of rejection, lack of communication and the list goes on. But what would make these marriages happy? Some people have affairs in order to find happiness. However, there is no fleeting pleasure that can compare to the flood of guilt that follows later that night or the heartbreak that it causes to spouses, children and families. Some married people believe that leaving their marriage will make them happier and make things easier only to find that lonliness and depression, finding a new place to live and a dealing with custody battles aren’t really easy to deal with after all. Divorce is sometimes the best of two bad choices, but it is never easy and it really isn’t a “happy” experience.

You might be surprised to find out what the Bible says will bring happiness. It’s not about having the perfect spouse or the perfect life; instead, as Psalm 32 puts it, “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” For those of you who are married, or who were at one time, you know that having a “perfect” spouse would probably be pretty miserable . . . because, not being perfect yourself, you could never keep up with them! What makes a happy marriage is not the sum of the good qualities in both partners. In a happy marriage, each person can accept the bad qualities in one another and continue loving that person for who they are—worts and all.

Today’s topic is faithfulness in a marriage. This morning, I am going to empower those of you who are married with ways to stay faithful to your spouse and I will deal with how a marriage can go forward after there is infidelity.

Nobody starts their marriage with the intention of cheating on their spouse. It is usually not even a matter of intentional infidelity, but a simple issue of “drifting”. Often, an affair will start with an acquaintance with common interests or with a friendship built on “being there” for one another. Then, only as friends of course, dreams are shared, more time is spent together, they laugh together and cry together . . . and everything is so great because you don’t have to bother your spouse with these issues or take up their time. It’s nice to have someone you can share things with at work, or on the internet, who doesn’t already know all your old stories.

Then, months later, you go out for a quick bite to eat one week and invite your friend over that night without remembering to tell your spouse who had to work late. What happens next nobody ever planned, or expected, but it just feels “right” in the moment. You never meant anything to happen, there was never any such destination, but by then it is too late and you’ve drifted to another shore.

As a Christian community, we have to be diligent in helping one another stay faithful to our marriages. If you see a good friendship “drifting” into something more, gently bring up the subject with them and pray for God’s guidance in the matter. This way we can keep our friendships strong AND our marriages stronger.

Kristy and I were engaged after dating for nine months in college . . . but we weren’t married until two and a half years later. At one of my jobs, I got to be friends with another work-study student and she and I would talk for a few hours each week while we folded envelopes. I don’t know when it was that I realized that I missed her at work and thought she was pretty cute. Then the guilt started setting in. I was engaged to the woman of my dreams and yet here I had a crush on some other girl and that really bothered me.

The writer of today’s psalm knows this feeling all too well, “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand O God was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” Would Kristy be really angry with me if I told her about my crush? Would she be jealous? Was God angry with me? Would this affect Kristy’s trust in me? What happened next is very interesting, I think.

You see, I told Kristy about my crush and you know what? She said she forgave me, that everything was fine and she may have even laughed a little bit. And at that very moment, once my deep dark secret was out in the open, the crush was crushed. It was over. I couldn’t figure out what I had seen in that other girl in the first place. Confessing my temptation was all it took for me to realize what a wonderful woman I already had been blessed with in my life.

Psalm 32, “Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin.’” Of course, it is extremely important not to simply confess all things to the Lord, but to also confess to your spouse or else the temptation stays a secret and the guilt continues. How do you stay faithful in your marriage? Confess your secret sins before they become too much too bear. The faster you bring your secrets out into the open, the less power they will have over your life.

Finally, what are the options after trust has been broken, both emotionally and especially physically? Should infidelity mean immediate divorce or is there, really, any possibility of reconciliation?

In Matthew 19, Jesus answers his disciples’ questions about divorce with a concession that unfaithfulness is indeed grounds for divorce, but his concession does not change his first statement, “It was because you were so hard hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” While all of us can understand why unfaithfulness would be reasonable grounds for breaking up a marriage, I want you all to see that it is the ONLY reasonable option. Any marriage would be shaken to its core due to infidelity, but Jesus didn’t mandate that ALL unfaithfulness should end with a divorce.

In fact, the entire book of Hosea portrays God as the kind of God who continues loving and forgiving us even when we are unfaithful. God commands the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute and even when she leaves him again and again to be unfaithful, God demands that Hosea return to her to bring her back. Would God have the right to cast us all off for our unfaithfulness to Him? For running after other gods and other lifestyles that we find better looking from time to time? Of course he would be justified for doing that! But he is a faithful God who forgives us again and again.

Only through confession and forgiveness can any marriage survive the struggles of this life. We are called to be faithful to one another, just as God is faithful to us. And through all circumstances, we are called to forgive each other just as Christ has forgiven us. Just as the woman in the story with Jesus could show great love because of the great forgiveness shown her, the more possible your forgiveness can be for your spouse when you realize the mercy shown to you through the death of Jesus on the cross.

God is faithful to you no matter what the cost because his relationship with you is not something he can separate himself from. It is my hope and my prayer that God will give you all the strength to be faithful to one another, and to forgive one another in all circumstances, so that your marriages might reflect the love God has shown you. No matter how much your marriage may be struggling right now, trust in God’s power to redeem. Seek help together and confess your secrets to one another. Forgive just as you have been forgiven. God is mighty to save both you and your marriage. He is faithful and He will do it. Amen.

Sermon for December 6th

The psalm we sung today is actually part of the gospel of Luke, it’s a prophecy spoken by the old man Zechariah after the birth of his son, who was later to be known as John the Baptist. Zechariah, who had not spoken a word throughout his wife’s entire pregnancy was suddenly filled with the Holy Spirit and said this about his newborn son, “And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give God’s people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”

How do you know that you are saved? What should you look for? Should you look for little signs? Like whether you are a forgiving person or whether you read your Bible every so often or whether you come to church a lot? All those signs will fail you one day. There is only one place that you can look and see, and hear and know that your salvation is in the hands of God: The forgiveness of your sins. John the Baptizer went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins was John’s goal. The forgiveness of sins is God’s goal for you. The forgiveness of sins is Jesus’ goal for the world. The forgiveness of sins is the goal of every single worship service at Saint Peters because, without your hearing of that forgiveness, you cannot truly believe that you have been saved by God. Trusting in anything else is simply not enough.

There are a lot of different ways to go about “doing” church. A lot of different services you could go to, types of music to listen to, places to worship, theological arguments to dissect. But without hearing God’s forgiveness, it doesn’t matter how traditional, liberal, conservative or popular any church service is . . . it’s simply missing the point. As your pastor, my goal is simple at each service and during each sermon: Dinstinguish between God’s laws which point out the sins in our lives and the Gospel of Jesus Christ where we can believe in the forgiveness of those sins. Only when the Law is given full rein can we see that our salvation lies only in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

Forgiveness is a gift from God. But it doesn’t always seem like a gift. That became very clear to me as I began working on this sermon. In fact, when I think about forgiveness in my own life, it can seem like a very heavy burden to bear. Forgiveness is not only a gospel issue, but it also finds its way into our lives as a terrifying law. I know that forgiveness is also a heavy burden for many of you. And the more wonderful we make it sound, the more guilt we bear when we cannot or will not do it ourselves.

Forgiveness seems pretty easy at first. It sounds nice. But, before you are in the mood to start forgiving anyone they need to, you know, say they are sorry, that type of thing. They need to repent! They need to ASK for forgiveness. Because if there is no repentance or no acknowledgement of a mistake, something just doesn’t seem right about forgiving.

But what happens when repentance just isn’t there? What if no one says they are sorry? What if they say they’re sorry, but you still can’t forgive? What then? Jesus said, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Ouch! What if you just CAN’T forgive someone? What if you’ve tried and they won’t admit that they are wrong? That they have hurt you? What then? And what does that mean for your salvation? “if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” What if your bitterness is just too strong? What if you know in your head that it’s the right thing to do, but just can’t make your heart truly believe in it? Would YOU still be forgiven? Would you still be saved?

To forgive someone involves sacrifice. Someone needs to die. I know that that probably sounds a little hyperbolic, but have you ever done something really awful to someone you love? And then had to say you were sorry? I understand that forgiveness, in itself, doesn’t involve blood or anything like that, but, in the moment, when you ask for it, you just cannot continue to exist the way you were before. It is impossible. The old you, the one who hurts people and feels no shame, has come to an end and the new you is left to watch and wait and see what the future holds. Will you be forgiven? Asking forgiveness is not an easy thing to do. It opens up new possibilities only through the death of the old.

What happens when you are the one waiting to forgive and repentance never comes? What do you do when you have been hurt and no one knows? What if the person who hurt you has died? Or was a stranger? Or is someone you want to protect from the knowledge of your pain? What then? What if the pain is old? What if the hurt seems too silly to say anything? What if you are waiting to forgive but no one ever says they are sorry? God’s goal is your forgiveness, but what if you just can’t follow in His footsteps?

Forgiveness always involves a sacrifice. Who has hurt you? Maybe someone at work, or in your family, or at church? What feelings are you carrying? Bitterness? Anger? Resentment? All of the above? If you forgive, without ever being asked to do so, that means you will lose something. The anger, the resentment and the bitterness must be sacrificed. And by now they have become close friends. Are you willing to just let them die? When you forgive someone who never asked for that forgiveness, you are the one who has to die. And while your heart keeps beating, a part of you comes to an end.

When you begin to understand what it means to forgive you’ll understand why Jesus had to be born. When you realize that with forgiveness comes sacrifice, you’ll understand why he had to die. Each one of us sins day in and day out. We hurt people. We often either don’t realize or don’t want to admit what we have done. We inflict pain daily on the ones we love and those we work with, we forget the needs of the destitute and become lax in our prayers for the sick and dying. We intentionally defy God and worship our own unholy Trinity: our needs, our wants and our feelings. And we are called to repent of the things we do, Jesus says, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” But we don’t. We choose not to.

So, God had to make a decision. If he relied on us to say, “We’re sorry”, to repent or to ask forgiveness, the sacrifice would never have been made. We would have all died without hope. So God became the necessary sacrifice. God forgave you. The forgiveness of sins became His goal. Not because you deserved it. Not even because you asked for it. But because you didn’t and he loves you. He gave you the knowledge of your salvation by forgiving your sins.

Jesus said, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Jesus gave us an example to follow, by sacrificing himself in order to forgive our sins. However, Jesus was more than an example. Do not for one moment believe that Jesus was simply an example for you to imitate. God knows that we do not want to forgive. God knows that we do not know how to forgive. God knows that we cannot truly forgive so he BECAME the sacrifice, not just for our sins, but for the sins of the world.

If you cannot forgive those who have hurt you, trust in God’s forgiveness. Trust that He has covered their sins just as He has covered yours. If you cannot bear to sacrifice your bitterness, trust in Jesus’ sacrifice. “I believe, help my unbelief!” “I forgive, help my unforgiveness!” Because, in the death of Jesus Christ, all of us have died along with our resentment, our hate, and our anger. For this is why Jesus was born, to give God’s people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. That goes for you, for me, all those we have hurt and all those who have hurt us. Forgiveness always involves a sacrifice and Jesus is the lamb who was slain who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus has died for you and your sins are forgiven. Amen.

Sermon for March 29th

Many times, the joke is, when the gospel text and the Epistle, the second reading, is too difficult to talk about, pastors will choose to preach on the psalm. Well, think what you will, but honestly, today’s psalm is just too wonderful to pass up. During the midweek Lenten services, we have been going through the Lord’s Prayer and learning what we can about how praying affect our lives and our relationship to God and one another. Today we’ll be learning from another prayer, from the prayer of King David after he had committed adultery with Bathsheeba.

Do you remember the story? King David is considered to be the best king in Israelite history. He was the youngest boy in his family when God called him to be king through the prophet Samuel though he wouldn’t actually take the throne until Isreal’s first king, Saul, had died. King David brought peace to his country and brought all of the tribes of Israel together through defeating the dreaded Philistines and making Jerusalem the capital and a symbol of national unity. God brought peace to his people through king David.

But David found a way to create a problem even in the midst of peace. Though he had been faithful to God’s word and followed in God’s ways, in a moment of weakness he happened to catch a glimpse of the bathing beauty Bathsheeba as she was naked upon a nearby rooftop. When he saw her, he had to have her, and so he called her to him and slept with her. He was the wonderful king David after all! But she became pregnant and, oh yes, I forgot to mention it, but she was already married. So, what did David do? Well, he killed her husband.

David was the best king Israel ever had! He was also an adulterer and a murderer. But God wouldn’t stand idly by while people were being killed and marriages defiled even if it was by his most beloved and righteous servant David. So, God sent the prophet Nathan to have a chat with the king. Nathan told David a story, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his food, and drink from his cup, and lie in his lap, and it was like a daughter to him. One day, the rich man was going to have a visitor, but he didn’t want to take one of his own flock of lambs to prepare for dinner. So, that rich man took the poor man’s lamb and made it for dinner instead.” After telling this story, Nathan asked King David, what should be done about all this? King David said to Nathan, “That rich man who has done this deserves to die!”

Nathan said to David. “You are the rich man! You had everything given to you from God. You’re the king for goodness sake! You had as many wives as you would ever need, you had money and you had peace in your kingdom. Whatever you wanted, God would have given it to you. But instead, you took matters into your own hands. Not only destroying the marriage of two good people, but killing a man just to get what you wanted.”

Sometime after this, maybe it was the very next second, maybe it was the next week, but sometime after Nathan called David out for his sin, it appears that David wrote down a prayer to God, our psalm for today, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” It’s interesting to note something about these lines. After all the things David did to get into this mess, he’s not listing off what he’s going to do to get out of it? God is the subject of all these verbs. YOU have mercy on me O God. YOU blot out my transgressions. YOU wash me and cleanse me from my sin. David teaches us something very important about asking for forgiveness: it’s not going to happen because you made everything better. Forgiveness comes from God alone.

“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”

David realizes that even if Bathsheeba forgives him, even if he does all the penance he can and makes it up as much as possible to the family of Uriah, he can’t make his sin and guilt go away. He has sinned against God and all his efforts, though important for reconciling himself to others, can’t reconcile him with God.

You can hear David’s despair, “my sin is ever before me.” He is standing face to face with his sin every time he looks at Bathsheeba, every time he looks in the mirror, every time someone tells him what a great king he is, every time he prays. His mistakes are either right on the front of his mind or lurking somewhere just beneath the surface.

In fact, his despair has become so palpable, that it has moved its way into his conscience. He realizes that not only did he sin against Bathsheeba and her husband Uriah, but he has sinned against God. He realies that not only did he sin against God this one time, but ever since he was born he has been sinning. He realizes that there was not a moment in his life when he was righteous, ever since his very conception, he’s been rebelling against God.

Maybe some of you recognize this pattern of thinking. When you do something wrong and start beating up on yourself, it starts seeping into every part of your life. Not only did you unintentionally yell at your child once, but you are a bad parent. Not only are you a bad parent, but you are a bad spouse. Not only are you a bad spouse, but you are a bad person. The sin stops being about a one time event, but starts defining every event in your life until it defines you. Not only did you sin, but you are a sinner.

Sometimes, even in the life of a Christian, sins can lead to unthinkable consequences. People who have driven a vehicle recklessly or under the influence of alcohol or drugs sometimes find themselves in accidents with fatalies that they were the cause of. They know that their relationship with God has been changed and they don’t know how to make it better. It doesn’t take long for the statement, “I am lucky to be alive” to change into, “I shouldn’t still be alive” and then finally become, “I don’t have a right to be alive.” Their sin is always before them and they can’t see anything else.

The next section of David’s prayer is a cry for help again from the depths of his despair, “You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.” David realizes what must be done. He cannot just justify his sin or learn to live with it. His sin must be erased. Blotted out. Hidden from his eyes and from God’s eyes in order for life to become livable again.

In the story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner, there is a woman whose car breaks down when three men stop by the road to help her. The woman is talking and talking and talking and being very annoying saying how one of the men looks just like her son. The men aren’t really there to help her at all but are convicts as we find out. At the end of the story, we discover that the man she thinks looks like her son IS actually her son, but he is so annoyed with her that he shoots her in the head. When questioned about it by another one of the men he says, “She needed to be shot in the head every day of her life.”

Now, I know that this might be a very dark way of looking at things, but in much the same way, we need to be shot in the head every day of our lives. We need God to, “put us out of our misery” so to speak by forgiving us so that our sin is no longer right in front of our face. So that he can hide his face from our sin and wash us cleaner than snow. King David couldn’t see past his own sin and neither can we, so God must do something for us.

“Create in me a clean heart O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.”

If God shoots us in the head, then he’s got to give us a new one. If he crushes our bones he needs to raise us up to new life. Here, as at the beginning of the psalm, all the verbs again have God as their subject. David doesn’t ask God to “fix him” so that he’ll run better like a tuned up sportscar. He doesn’t ask God to help him live a better life. David asks to be made NEW. Give me a new me David says because the old me is a pile of junk. Create in me a clean heart and give me a new spirit.

When you are fighting with a friend, or a family member, or a spouse, the worst part is the estrangement. Sometimes it’s so difficult just to be patient and wait for everything to get back to normal. David knew what it was to be loved by God and faithful to God’s Word and here he prays that God would make that a reality again. Not by fixing the old King David that used to follow God’s laws, but by making a new creation, a new King David. That’s really the key; you see, we aren’t trying to change history here. Sin has happened. There’s no going back. God deals with sin by creating you new. You don’t have to go back in history and change it. In fact, you can’t. So God makes sin history and gives you a future through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Even Jesus had a history after his resurrection or else you wouldn’t know it was him. He shows up with the wounds still visible and touchable on his hands and feet. God knows that when he gives you a new heart and a new spirit that you’ll still have a history too. In fact, we pray that Jesus remembers every one of our sins so that he doesn’t forget to forgive a single one of them. But, we also pray that on the last day, he remembers that they are history. We pray, just as David did, that God hides his face from our past and only sees the new future he has in store for us.

Finally, God does more than listen to David’s prayer. He sends Nathan to forgive his sinful king. After David admits his sin, Nathan says this, “Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.” Nathan admits that yes David deserves to die, but that death is not the final word. There were consequences for King David as there will be for us from our sinning, but God’s forgiveness is the last word. God also has a last word for you. “You sins are forgiven. God has hidden his face from them. You are new in God’s eyes. God has separated you from your sins, calling you new and calling your sins ancient history. God restores you now to the joy of his salvation. Your sins are forgiven and your life is made new. Amen.

Sermon for March 25th

There are two problems most people have with forgiveness. Why God would forgive and why they would forgive. The first problem comes with trying to get a grasp on why God would forgive us. Either we don’t think we’ve done much in our lives that would necessitate needing forgiveness or else we don’t think we’ve done much in our lives that doesn’t need forgiven. Either way, we can’t figure out why God is so interested in forgiving us.

The second problem is that we don’t understand why we need to forgive others when they are usually much worse than us. In tonight’s reading, Jesus reminds us that these problems are somehow connected. “For if you forgive others their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray that God deals with both of our problems—with being forgiven and with forgiving.

Let’s get to the first problem first, why DOES God forgive you? Why do we start every service with a confession and an absolution when somebody new to Christianity might not even think they have sinned? They might be turned off by having to do such a countercultural thing. Isn’t having to confess sins and get them forgiven kind of a downer? The simplest answer is “because you need it.”

I am sure that having to confess sins is a downer and quite awkward especially to someone who is a new Christian; however, that doesn’t change the need. Despite the awkwardness and socially unacceptable character of forgiving sins, if the church stops proclaiming this, we are all in trouble. God forgives sins, pure and simple, and if we are a place to hear God’s word, then we’d better expect forgiveness to come up a lot. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God would somehow, someway get our churches, our pastors and our Christian brothers and sisters to find us and forgive us so that we can’t live a moment without knowing it.

Sometimes, however, as Martin Luther put it, we know that we need forgiveness, but we also know that “we deserve nothing but punishment” and can’t figure out why God would forgive us at all! In this case, we pray that God would stay true to his word despite our objections and continue being the crazy God he is. We pray that he would always hear our prayers despite our unworthiness and would not hold our awful flaws and failings against us or allow them to hinder our prayers. After we pray for faith and for things in our prayers, we pray that God might remember his promise of forgiveness. For, without forgiveness, we would only be God’s enemies instead of God’s children.

But the most difficult problem with forgiveness is that God demands that we must forgive others as we have been forgiven. Why must our ability to forgive have anything to do with the forgiveness we receive?

I used this example in the online Bible study this last week, but I’m going to refer to it again. When people are married, they must say some vows—make some promises to one another before witnesses. Must they say them? Well, yes, although these vows seldom seem like much of a demand on those who are head-over-heels in love. Will I love you till death do us part? Of course, I will snookems.

However, these promises, these vows made at a wedding, seem much more demanding when there are problems in a marriage leading one or both partners to look into divorce proceedings. Then that whole “for better or for worse” part seems a lot more difficult. Men and women going through a divorce often find themselves wondering if there should be an inherent limit to how much “worse” they should stand or how “poor” they should be. The loving promises made long ago seem like awful demands today.

You often hear that marriages are built on trust. Forgiveness is also based on trust. You can hear that your sins are forgiven day in and day out, but until you believe those words, until you trust that God means it, you won’t want to forgive anyone else. God’s forgiveness needs to become a reality for you before you’ll be willing to make it a reality for someone else. We pray, especially in the Lord’s prayer, that God puts faith in your heart, faith to believe that he is willing, loving, able and faithful to forgive your sins so that you will gladly want to share that joy with others. It is a matter of the heart and we ask in our prayers that God would give us all new hearts and new spirits, to trust him not only to forgive us but to help us forgive others.

When you hear that your sins are forgiven, you can trust that it happened. But, as Jesus says to his disciples, if upon hearing your forgiveness you remember a grudge you are holding, you will know in that moment where you have ACTUALLY placed your trust. When you realize the depth of sin and its hold on you, it’s easy to forgive another because of the mercy that has been poured out for you. You trust in God alone to handle it. On the other hand, when you cannot forgive, you’ve set your trust on yourself. You’ve placed yourself on the judgment seat. How can you believe that God can forgive you when YOU want to be in charge of who gets forgiven and who does not? If you are unwilling to forgive someone else, you’ll find that you trust your own forgiveness less and less because you want to be the one in control instead of God.

What will you do in that moment? Well, that’s why we do a confession and absolution each worship service, so that you might be given faith again and again to remind you who is God and who is not. When your heart is full of bitterness, anger, unforgiveness and even hatred, well, the best place to go is for another dose of absolution from God. Just pray that the Holy Spirit can get it through your thick skull and your hard heart that forgiveness is not just about you and your salvation but about the life and salvation of the world. Everyone needs it. You do too.

Sermon for September 21st

What if you heard that you never had to go to church again? You heard that God loved you and your sins were forgiven without any work on your part? Nothing more was necessary. What if you never had to tithe another cent to any church or religious organization because you heard that Jesus didn’t love you for your money or your goodwill? Your were made right with God and you didn’t have to pay for it? That would be a pretty good deal wouldn’t it?

Today, the gospel lesson told the parable of the workers in the vineyard. The story starts with a group of people waiting for work and hoping for a break. Some work all day, some get called in for just half a day and the rest only have to work one hour for the same full day’s pay. They all get paid the same for an unequal amount of work. The people called in last get paid first and the people that worked all day get paid last.

In the 16th century, Martin Luther had a disagreement with the Roman Catholic Church regarding one aspect of this story: What happens the next day? You see, the way this vineyard owner runs his business, all the workers might just show up the next day at 5:00, work one hour and expect a full day’s pay again! What would he do then!? You can’t run a business that way! But Martin Luther believed that this was exactly the way the church should be run.

You see, Luther argued that Jesus was sent down to preach the forgiveness of sins to real sinners. Real sinners. He argued that Jesus wasn’t primarily an example of obedience and good works, even though he was obedient and did good works. Luther argued that Jesus wasn’t primarily a blank check to pay off God for the balance of sin that Adam had created. Jesus healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, forgave sins AND he did it all freely. No strings attached.

But what if real sinners, the lost of this world, the bad guys out in society find out that Jesus just hands out grace free of charge! They might just be . . . well . . . forgiven! Just like that! And, well, who would want to come church anymore? What if people just stayed for the confession and absolution and then left! Before the offering! Without even attempting to become more moral people! What would the church do then?

In the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church was selling things called indulgences. Indulgences were these little pieces of paper that were marketed as a way you could buy your way out getting punished in purgatory for what you had done wrong in your life. In other words, if you were worried that you had made too many mistakes, you could buy yourself some forgiveness. All of this was authorized by the leader of the church himself, the bishop of Rome, the pope.

Martin Luther argued: Jesus has already forgiven all your sins. Don’t trust in that little piece of paper you bought, or in the church that authorizes it, trust in the words of Jesus Christ alone. Luther maintained that if the pope had the power to forgive sins through the selling of indulgences, it would be most Christian of him to just forgive all the sins free of charge without having to go through all that trouble. Luther maintained that this is exactly what Jesus Christ already did and people needed to hear about it.

What if you heard that you never had to go to church again? You heard that your sins were forgiven without any work on your part? What if you never had to tithe another cent to any church or religious organization because you heard that Jesus didn’t love you for your money or your goodwill? Your were made right with God and you didn’t have to pay a cent for it? That would be a pretty good deal wouldn’t it?

Well, I’m glad you came to church today! Have I got some news for you! Your sins are forgiven on account of Jesus Christ forever. You don’t have to come back to church for this to take place, it has already happened once and for all. You’ve heard it. The forgiveness is yours. You don’t have to give any money to make it stick, you are free. I don’t care if this is your first time hearing it or your 100th year as a Christian. This forgiveness is all yours. You are a sheep in the fold of God and nothing will snatch you out of his hand.

There was a man living at the time of Luther named Desiderius Erasmus. Now this guy, Erasmus, argued against Luther with this question, “What would happen if preachers forgave sins just like that, by God’s authority, so easily, without any strings attached? Well, no one would have any reason to act well and to follow the rules. People might never show up to church again! It might be ok for the learned people to hear all this, people who already knew right from wrong. But what about the “common herd”? They might become anarchists! There might be chaos! What happens the next day when everyone shows up at 5:00 for a whole day’s wages!? Sure, it might be true, but people want to be taught morals, not be given freedom. Freedom is too scary.”

Remember the story of Jonah? The same problem is present there. What happens if horrible people suddenly start asking God for forgiveness and— GULP!—He starts forgiving them! They might go do something horrible again! Shouldn’t we expect more before we start handing out the goodies!

In the story of Jonah, in the story of the laborers in the vineyard, in the story of the one lost sheep, God says he’s willing to take the risk and just up and forgive. In the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, in the story of Saul becoming the apostle Paul, in the story of the ten lepers who were cleansed and in the story of the prodigal son, God says that he is willing to take the risk and just up and forgive. God shows that he is going to forgive with no strings attached for the sake of having you as his beloved child once and for all.

What do you think will happen that next day in the vineyard? Do you think that the vineyard owner is worried about the people who were paid more than they deserved? No. The people who showed up at 5:00 the day before and got paid a whole day’s wages will most likely be there bright and early the next day. Why? Thankfulness. They have been given a new heart and a new spirit. Jesus put it this way in the gospel of Luke, “For those to whom much is forgiven, great love is shown in return. But the one to whom little is forgiven loves little.”

Throughout the gospels you often hear the phrase, “The kingdom of heaven is like . . .” That is the phrase that starts the gospel passage today in fact. Unfortunately, we often hear this phrase incorrectly, we believe that Jesus is saying “The kingdom of heaven should be like . . .” We think Jesus is trying to convince us to do something. To live into it or something. To deserve the kingdom of heaven. But Jesus is not telling you to do something to get into the kingdom, he’s describing what the kingdom he is giving you is like. This is what happens now that you have been forgiven.

“The kingdom of God is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” And I ask you, do you think that merchant kept his fine pearl in a safe place and never looked at it again? Yeah right! I bet he wanted to see it all the time! Staring at it, admiring it, enjoying it. What will happen when a person has just heard that theirs is the greatest gift of all time, eternal life and the forgiveness of sins? Never come back to hear about it? Never step a foot into church again?

“The kingdom of God is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he had and bought it.” And I ask you, do you think that this man never went back to this field? That he forgot about his great treasure? That he became an anarchist? No! That man probably dug up and hid that treasure a thousand times just to get another peek at his good fortune. What will happen when you’ve heard that Jesus has stored away treasure in heaven for you? Never come back to hear about it? Never give a penny to the church?

“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. He went out many times to hire laborers, but at the end of the day he paid them all the same daily wage.” What will happen the next day? Will those those laborers who didn’t deserve it, come back for more? You better believe it! That’s just how it goes when you’ve heard this gospel message Jesus says, when you hear that you are forgiven by God with no strings attached.

So then, why do people come to church and never come back? Why do so many churches have money problems or volunteer shortages? Should we blame the church? Should we blame the people? Should we blame God? Should we just go back to teaching morals as our highest goal in life?

We all have ears, but as God points out so often in both the Old and New Testaments, our ears don’t always hear. People don’t always hear something even when they are told over and over again. So should we stop telling them? Save it for the learned people who already know right from wrong? Give up and just focus on being good people? No. We will continue telling people that their sins are forgiven. No strings attached!

We won’t add on demands that aren’t there. We don’t stop telling the story. We pray that we are all given ears to hear. And when we do hear, we can trust that we will all suddenly find out what the kingdom of God is like. Like living waters that overflow from our hearts with faith and our mouths with praise and our clocks with an abundance of time and our bank accounts with giving and our churches with worshippers. This is the forgiveness that is yours today. I’m not going to hide it from you. It’s yours forever. Even if you’ve found out late in the game. You are forgiven. No strings attached. You can come back next week and hear it all over again. Amen.