Sermon for October 31st (Confess)

“Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.”
I want you to imagine yourself standing in front of God Almighty, the creator of the universe, the mighty and everlasting God as you shout profanity at your spouse because you’ve had a bad day. Imagine Jesus Christ, your Savior, your friend, the lamb of God who was crucified for your sins listening in as you gossip about what a jerk someone has been to you at church. What would it be like to experience the power and presence of the Holy Spirit as you fall into a dazed and drunken stupor one Saturday night with your buddies. You might feel embarrassed. You might feel guilty. You might feel afraid. You don’t have to imagine any of this. God is by you during every sin and shameless deed, watching, listening, waiting, crying.

Do you realize that during every argument, during every steamy movie’s cinematic sex scene, during every late night party, throughout every bitter feeling, God is present and aware of your thoughts, actions and deeds? Do you realize it now? Imagine what it must be like for God to catch you in the act. To remember what has happened. If you feel even an inkling of shame, of guilt, of fear—then you can appreciate that a man named Martin Luther felt the same way once.

Now, imagine how you would feel if you were a slave being set free. No more beatings, no more demands, no more fear. Imagine falling in love at first sight and having that person love you back. Imagine you were an orphan, and you met your birthparents, and they had come to take you home once and for all. Do you realize that when Jesus died on the cross, he set you free from sin? Do you know that the creator of the universe cherishes you with a love unequaled by any other on earth? Have you heard that your father in heaven has looked and looked for his one lost sheep and now he has found you, you his beloved child? If you’ve ever known the feeling of relief, of freedom, the joyful celebration of reunion, the butterflies of love in your stomach, then you know what Martin Luther felt when he found out that the God he had been terrified of was actually a loving God, his Savior, his Father and his protection.

So then, is that what we are celebrating today on Reformation Day? The thoughts, feelings, and actions of a German monk 500 years ago? No. We are gathered together today because, get this, God’s not done yet! We are NOT simply memorializing the day a monk read the Bible and had his life changed. We are NOT simply remembering the 95 arguments that monk nailed to his church’s door-the 95 Theses. We are NOT celebrating HIS efforts at reform or even his great confession of faith in the face of great danger.

We are gathered together today with the faith and expectation that God’s Holy Spirit is doing it again today. The Reformation. Right here. Right now. In your life. In your heart. In your mind. In this church. Right now. Today. The Holy Spirit is not content with reforming one monk or even one Holy Catholic church in the 16th century. He is after the reformation of each one of you here. So get ready. Maybe historians will have something else to write about one day.

To have faith means to confess and God is out to get that confession out of you one way or another. Hey confirmation students! We talked about this the first week we met together if you remember. When God calls us to confess, he means for us to do two things. Both are important to our faith? Do you know what they are?

First of all, confessing means to admit that you have done something wrong. We do this every week at our worship service. “We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves . . . .” We are all sinners here. If you’ve come into this church today broken down by life, believing that you don’t belong anywhere, then you are in the right place. You belong here. Faith means to confess that we are all equal in the sight of God. No matter our virtues and no matter our hang ups. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We stand speechless before God’s almighty justice.

Confessing also means to say, out loud, what you believe. We also do this every week in worship, maybe most clearly in the words of the Apostles Creed. When there is a baptism, we don’t just come up and say, “I believe in my heart”, we stand up and commit ourselves to faith in Jesus before the entire congregation. Why? “Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you shall be saved.” Confessing what you believe, out loud, for the world to hear, is essential for faith.

If you attended a Roman Catholic church, you might begin to realize that the essential part of every worship service there was Holy Communion. In every Roman Catholic service, it is necessary to celebrate the Lord’s Super. If you attended a Protestant church such as a Baptist, Assemblies of God or Pentecostal church, you might begin to see that the essential part of every worship service is “conversion”: the altar call, the testimony of faith, the renouncing of the old self and the regeneration of the new self.

All of this is of course important for every Christian, but when you attend a Lutheran church, you will hopefully find that the essential part of the service is confession: confessing sins and confessing faith. If we don’t have the Lord’s Supper one week, it’s ok. No hymns, if we must. No offering, no faith talk, no sermon? Still possible. No scripture readings? Well, that’s tough to swallow, but you can still read the Bible at home. What is worship in a community all about? Why do we come together instead of being spiritual at home in our gardens and cornfields? Jesus said, “Repent and believe in the good news.” In worship, you confess your sins, you repent, and then you hear God’s forgiveness so that you can believe again.

In worship, this voice does not come from your own mind, or simply written in the pages of a book for you to read, it’s easy to wiggle out of that. In worship, this forgiveness comes from another person, someone who heard your confession, and when that person says, “By God’s authority, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all yours sins.” You can trust that forgiveness is as good as from the lips of Jesus himself. Because it’s God’s promise. And he promised, “He who hears you hears me. He who accepts you accepts me.” Faith comes through hearing. So that you can believe. Not just repent, but believe.

Without confession, we never admit that God has touched us. That we need a Savior and that we have faith in Him. By the power of the Holy Spirit, there is the possibility of a reformation every day. In your heart. In your life. In your church. Martin Luther didn’t reform the church, the Holy Spirit did. God did. And He still is. Whenever you take a stand for your faith in the face of danger, the Holy Spirit is reforming again. Whenever you confess your faith at church, the Holy Spirit is reforming again.

Yesterday, we had a praise band recharge. Like Martin Luther, these people in praise band are people who realize their failures, their tendency to selfishness, unforgiveness and anger. No one can see their sins without the Holy Spirit reforming their lives. But these men and women also have spiritual gifts of music, leadership, mercy and evangelism (to name just a few) and when they believe that God’s forgiveness is stronger than their sins and stand up in front of you again each week—standing up for their faith—that’s the Holy Spirit reforming this church. Every person who gets involved in this church is part of this reformation. When the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin and then compels you to stand up for your faith even in the face of your failures.

Martin Luther didn’t reform the church, but he sure did have some great quotes. I’d like to end today with one of my favorites, “Sin boldly, but believe in Christ more boldly still.” You are a bunch of sinners. Praise God for that! Because without the Holy Spirit, you’d never believe it. There is nothing more scary to me than meeting someone who doesn’t realize that they are a sinner. But today, on Reformation Day, we celebrate the possibility of God creating such faith in our hearts, that we stand up for what we believe in, trusting in God’s forgiveness more than our sinfulness, trusting that we are righteousness in God’s eyes through faith alone, not by what we have done or not done. Faith means to confess. To confess yours sins and then for the power of the Holy Spirit to wash over you with such exhilarating force that you start confessing your faith. In your heart. In your mind. In your mouth. In your world. In your church. Praise the Lord! It’s Reformation Day! Amen.

Sermon for October 25th

“While Philip and I were drinking beer, the Word reformed the church.” That’s a quote from Martin Luther referring to himself and another reformer Philip Melanchthon. It’s Reformation day and so today we will try to discern what it means to be a Christian over four-hundred years after Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenburg and started making arguments that would eventually get him excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church.

Luther explained quite rightly what all the fuss concerning the Reformation was really all about: God’s Word. It was about the God’s Word and NOT Martin Luther. Not Philip Melanchthon. It wasn’t simply about popes or indulgences or nationalism or the Roman Catholic Church. God’s Word reformed the church as it has done for centuries and it will continue to do this until Jesus Christ returns and reforms us all from dead corpses into an eternally living people of God. We always need reforming. Today is not about being a Lutheran or a Protestant; it’s about being a sinner clinging to God’s Word and being reformed through the work of the Holy Spirit. So let’s get right to it.

First off, why would anyone cling to God’s Word as we hear it in Scripture when there is so much in it that we hate, so much that scares us, accuses us and makes us run away from it? To explain this, I’d like to tell you about some experiences that I have had recently. The first thing you need to know is that I run in the mornings. The second thing you need to know is that our neighbor attained a rooster sometime this summer. And, finally, you need to understand that I despise running. I hate it, perhaps a little less than I hate beets, but still, running is never very much fun in my opinion.

So why do I run? Because I know that it is important to be healthy. I want my heart to be healthy and I want to lose weight (or at least not get overweight). So, in other words, I run because I am afraid. I am afraid of death and want to put it off for as long as possible. Now, when I began running this summer, every animal in the forest would scurry away because they heard my heavy breathing from miles off. I was still quite out of shape, you see. And every morning, still irritated that I had to wake up and go run, and already hot and uncomfortable, I would meet my next door neighbor the rooster. And he would crow at me and give me a look that only a rooster can give. And I felt that he was making fun of me. Because he knew how dumb and out of shape I looked. And I hated that rooster and how his crows would mock me.

Months have passed and I have continued running. I still hate it most of the time, but I’ve seen it in a new light. Rather than feeling like I’m going to die every day, I know that running gives me more energy and makes me feel better. I may not like running, but I like the way it makes me feel. I used to run to keep away death. Now I run for the sake of my life. It may not seem like a big difference, but in some ways it really is. Along the way, the rooster and I had gotten on different schedules I guess. I had forgotten all about him, until a couple of days ago, when I was on the way home heading up the last hill and he looked at me, with a look only a rooster can give, and he crowed at me like old times. But something was different this time. For some reason, at that moment, he did not sound like he was mocking me at all. In fact, I heard it quite differently. It felt like he was congratulating me. Cheering me on! Encouraging me. Saying, well done! Good job!

A reading from the Romans, chapter 3, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For ‘no human being will be justified in his sight’ by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” Martin Luther saw these words in the Bible as full of judgment. These words drove him to not only hate himself for the sinner he was but to hate God for being such a harsh judge. “No human being will be justified in his sight”? Luther could not understand how he could love a God like that. Luther hated God and he hated himself even more for knowing that he felt that way.

Each day, as Luther would read scripture, he would hear God crowing his anger and judgment. The reading from Romans continues, “But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” God was a righteous judge. All were sinful. There was no escaping that fact for Luther. He could not be found holy according to the law and he could knew he could not be found holy in the sight of Jesus Christ either. Luther spent his days in misery looking for a God who could love him, but finding only a righteous God—a God crowing out death and judgment as Luther ran out the days of his life.

There are many of you who can probably relate to a part of this story. Perhaps you are too pious to say that you out and out “hate” God, but you doubt him sometimes and you doubt how he could love someone like you. I don’t know all of your stories and, even if I’ve heard parts, you probably have left out the juiciest sections, you haven’t told me your favorite sins, the worst sins, the embarrassing situations you’ve tried to forget, the memories you keep running away from, the addictions you keep running to for comfort. And, try as you might to punish yourself for not being able to get past these behaviors, the question remains, “How can God, a God of justice, a God of righteousness, love a sinner like you?”

God must follow his own law and, according to that law, you are not worthy. There is no way around this. We are all condemned. Every time I ran by that idiot rooster, it was almost like he knew what I would not admit out loud: I wasn’t good enough run. I was out of shape. I should’ve just turned around and gone home before I embarrassed myself anymore with my heavy breathing and pitted out t-shirts. Luther read the pages of the Bible and knew there was no hope for him either. Not in this life or the next. Looking at your life, honestly, would you fare any better in God’s eyes?

But then, one day, everything changed for Martin Luther. He said, “I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the righteousness of God or the justice of God,’ because I took it to mean the justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner . . . . Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the ‘justice of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven . . . .”

God’s law is true, and just, and holy, and righteous and you are expected to follow every word of it not only because God demands it but because your neighbor needs you to. However, even by following this most excellent rule of life, you cannot save yourself. It will do you no good! You cannot get closer to earning your salvation. Not even a little bit. Trusting in your own abilities only makes you look worse in God’s eyes. “But now,” as Romans puts it, “apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are not justified by his grace as a gift effective through faith.”

Reformation Day is not about Martin Luther, or Lutherans, or Protestants; it is about how God reforms sinners. God’s law accuses all of us, demanding that we live better lives for the sake of one another, but Jesus saves you through faith alone. Faith that God has worked APART from the law and gives you life, forgiveness and salvation as a gift.

So, today, we thank God for Martin Luther and the Lutheran Reformers because they had the audacity to cling to God’s Word when it wasn’t popular or pleasant to do so, so that we today you might hear the crowing of Scripture as your biggest fan rather than your harshest critic. Luther sums it up quite well, “If you have a true faith that Christ is your Savior, than at once you have a gracious God, for faith leads you in and opens up God’s heart and will, that you should see pure grace and overflowing love. This is it to behold God in faith that you should look upon his fatherly, friendly heart, in which there is no anger nor ungraciousness. He who sees God as angry does not see him rightly but looks only on a curtain, as if a dark cloud had been drawn across his face. But this must be our ground and anchor-hold, that Christ is our only perfect righteousness Therefore we must always believe and always hope; we must always take hold of Christ as the head and fountain of our righteousness. He that believes in Him shall not be ashamed.” How will God reform your life? On this Reformation Day and everyday, look to Christ alone for your salvation. Amen.

Sermon for March 1st

As the blue fairy said in Pinocchio, you should all be good boys and girls and always let your conscience be your guide. Your conscience, you know, that part of you that tells you what you should do and what you shouldn’t do. The part that knows right from wrong. Your conscience is that instinct in you that makes you feel bad if you are going to do something wrong, but gives you the go ahead sign if you’re about to do something right.

The Greek word that is translated as conscience in English is suneidasis and it shows up thirty times in the Bible, mostly in the letters of Paul, but several times in other books of the Bible as well. But the term “conscience” is most well-known, at least in Lutheran circles, not because of its use in the Bible but because it was famously used by none other than Martin Luther himself at the Diet of Worms where he was being tried as a heretic early in his career as a reformer.

On April 15th, 1521, Luther was put on trial and told to recant for what he had written against the Roman Catholic church, its theology and practices. Luther argued that while there were some things he had written which might be in error he could not recant all of his works. John Eck, in charge of the prosecution made his case against Luther, “Martin, how can you assume that you are the only one to understand the sense of Scripture? Would you put your judgment above that of so many famous men and claim that you know more than they all? You have no right to call into question the most holy orthodox faith, instituted by Christ the perfect lawgiver, proclaimed throughout the world by the apostles, sealed by the red blood of the martyrs, confirmed by the sacred councils, defined by the Church in which all our fathers believed until death and gave to us as an inheritance, and which now we are forbidden by the pope and the emperor to discuss lest there be no end of debate. I ask you Martin . . .do you or do you not repudiate your books and the errors which they contain?” (Bainton, 144)

Luther responded with this famous statement, “I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” (Bainton, 144)

Is the blue fairy from Pinocchio talking about conscience in the same way that the Bible talks about it? The same way Martin Luther spoke of it? What do you understand conscience to mean?

I believe that when we hear the word “conscience” used in the Bible or by Martin Luther, we think of the blue fairy, Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. We think of that little voice inside of us that is trying to tell us right from wrong. The little angel or the little devil on our shoulder fighting for control over our actions.

After 9/11, when terrorists attacked the twin towers, America eventually went to war first with Afghanistan and then with Iraq. Some people made the argument back then, that to not retaliate, after having Americans killed in cold blood, would be unconscionable. It would go against their belief in freedom and justice. It would not be patriotic to just sit back and do nothing. On the other hand, some people argued that it went against their conscience to have their country be at war. No matter how many people died in the towers, they argued that we didn’t have the right to kill other people. Here we have two different responses, both of them based on conscience.

That’s the problem with making choices based on your conscience. It is very subjective. What is right for one person might not be right for another. Some people do not eat meat because they feel bad for eating a poor defenseless cow. Others see no problem with it and like to chow down on Bessie. Who is to say what is right and wrong? We all have different experiences and therefore different feelings on different issues. When we “let our conscience be our guide” as Pinocchio was told to do, we all come up with different opinions about what should be done.

Martin Luther had a different view of what conscience meant in the context of his confession at the Diet of Worms. He wasn’t just trying to be a good boy. He was confessing his faith in Jesus Christ. His preferences, his feelings, his knowledge and his experiences were captive to “the Word of God” as he put it. It was not good for him to go against his conscience because his conscience was informed by Scripture and to go against Scripture was neither good nor safe.

In the second reading today, Peter talks about conscience in relationship to baptism. He refers to baptism as “an appeal to God for a good conscience.” What is baptism? It is water, but not water only. Water with a promise from God to wash you clean of every spot or blemish in God’s sight. In baptism, you receive salvation and the forgiveness of your sins. A good conscience, in this passage, isn’t talking about “feeling good” about what you are doing. A good conscience might be another way to say that you are in a “good relationship” with God. Instead of being located outside of God’s favor, you are in harmony with God and his Word. To have a good or a pure conscience in the Bible, doesn’t just mean that you “feel good” about what you are doing. It means that God feels good about what you are doing.

A good conscience is bound to nothing less than God’s Word. Sometimes having a good conscience, according to God’s Word, might not feel so great, we might not like what we are being called to do. In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul says this, “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.” Just because your conscience tells you that you are right, doesn’t mean you necessarily are. God gets the final say. That’s why we look to the Bible, and not to ourselves, to determine what is right and wrong. That’s why we cannot just trust what feels right or looks right in our eyes.

Later in Corinthians, Paul talks about those with “weak consciences”. A person with a weak conscience might assume something is wrong when it is neither commanded nor forbidden in the Bible. They might think they have sinned when, in fact, they are free to make a personal choice. Paul refers to people who believe that they are not free to eat meat sacrificed to idols. He says that a Christian is free to eat this meat or not. But, he explains, if someone hasn’t been taught about this freedom, he understands that they might feel guilty. Eventually, once they know the freedom of Christ, they might not worry about it, but since this might take some time, in order to protect their consciences, he encourages Christians around these people to also refrain from eating this kind of meat. Since eating meat sacrificed to idols is neither commanded nor forbidden in the Bible, they were free to do whatever needed to be done for the sake of their neighbor.

But there is an important difference between having a “weak” conscience and a bad or guilty conscience. Someone with a weak conscience might assume something is wrong when it is simply a matter of preference, something neither forbidden nor commanded in the Bible. On the other hand, a bad or guilty conscience is out of line with God’s Word. When God forbids us or commands us to do something, to claim that it goes against our conscience is simply another way of saying that we don’t feel like following the rules. Just because a murderer no longer feels bad or feels remorse for killing doesn’t mean he is acting with a pure conscience in God’s eyes. Conscience is based on God’s Word and NOT on personal preferences. It is finally God who will judge.

God wants you to have a good conscience. He wants you to be a good relationship with him and to live in harmony with his Word. That’s why we take the time to learn, read and discuss God’s laws and expectations for us.

God gives you his promise of eternal salvation, but he doesn’t just stop there. He gives you his words in scripture to study, preaching to hear and the sacraments to receive, so that you will learn to live in harmony with God and His words. So that you and others will learn right from wrong, not in your own eyes, but in God’s eyes. This is what it means to have a good conscience despite what Jiminy Cricket and the blue fairy say. When struggling with temptation, don’t just hope that you’ll know instinctively what is right and wrong; instead look to God for help and guidance. Read your Bible, see what it says on the topic, and pray for wisdom from God when you are making difficult decisions.

Finally, however, your salvation is not based on the strength of your conscience or your ability to follow it and be a good boy or girl. You are GIVEN a good conscience through faith in Jesus Christ. You are put in a right relationship with God every time you hear your sins forgiven not through your efforts but through God’s proclamation. And God will continue working in your life to strengthen you and help you work in harmony with his Word. Jesus died on the cross for you, so that you might be free. Free enough to follow God’s laws not because you feel like it’s the right thing to do, but because you mind, your heart, your feelings and even your conscience are bound to God’s Word. Amen.