The Alien Work

Biblical Text: Luke 12:49-56

The Gospel lesson for the day often gets put in the “hard saying of Jesus”, but Jesus doesn’t think it belongs there. At least if I’m reading it correctly, he is amazed that we can read the times. And what are those times? They are times of division. The Word of God is proclaimed. That Word does not return empty. It accomplishes what it goes out for. But that purpose ends up being a division. The intention or desire of the Word is the proper work of God. God wishes to “help, save, comfort and defend” his people. But God has not created robots. We have the agency to reject the word. In which care that Word accomplishes the alien work of God. That alien work is the work of the outer darkness.

It is that division of the ages that is taking place today in this world. Christ did not come to bring peace to this world, but division. Because his proper work saves us from the devil’s kingdom. But many will reject that work and demand the alien work be applied to them. The peace comes when the work is completed. It’s a passage for us to understand this existence. To not give up hope. As long as there is breath the Word might accomplish its proper work. But we should not lose heart seeing division. The division is in fact proof of the power of that Word.

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What’s a Prophet?

Prophet has always been this strange class to me. So many people line up to claim the mantel prophet. Cultural prophet, moral prophet, financial prophet, they line up in almost every sphere of human activity. And they line up with a complete misunderstanding of the call. I suppose the biggest thing that gets attached to the idea of a prophet is some kind of future predictor. There is also some romantic ideal of standing athwart some all powerful leviathan long locks blowing in the breeze. But that is a huge misunderstanding of the gig. The definition of the prophet is the one who speaks the Word of the Lord.

Our Old Testament Lesson of the day (Jeremiah 23:16-29) wants to draw some clear lines. And they are lines that resonate down to us. On the one side of the line are the false prophets. And those false prophets have two modes of speech. The first is to substitute their own plans for the Word of God. ‘They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:16).” The second is to dull the conscience of those who are listening. “They say continually to those who despise the Word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you (Jeremiah 23:17).’”

What is the purpose of each of those modes of speech? The second is that each of us has had the law written on our hearts. Over time we can callous our hearts and make them hard, but we have a natural reaction to sin and evil – to jumping the curb of the law. We know that sin stores up wrath. But because we want to go on sinning, we collect people who will tell us “No disaster shall come upon you (Jeremiah 23:17).” We want to find those voices who will affirm us. The first mode is more complicated. What is the point of listening to someone else’s dream? Yes, we might buy into it. But I think the point God reveals a bit later, “who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another (Jeremiah 23:27).” Mankind lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And if you turn away from that meat, you replace it with junk food. Even the absence would remind us of the Word. So to forget it, we find other dreams.

The false prophet’s gig is to run out your clock and make you forget the Word. Contrary to this the prophet speaks the Word. “If they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds (Jeremiah 23:22).” The Word of the LORD does not return empty. It carries out what it intends. And the results of the false prophet and the authentic prophet are compared to straw and wheat (probably better translated chaff and grain.) The Word of the prophet is true spiritual food. That of the false prophet only fit for the fire. “And is not my word like fire, declares the LORD (Jeremiah 23:29).” The works of all will be revealed in due time. Don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line.

Jesus the prophet – heard in the Gospel lesson (Luke 12:49-56) – picks up on that. “I came to cast fire on the earth.” The very WORD has come. And that WORD causes the division. Do we yearn for affirmation of our ways? Which will never come. Or do we hear the absolution and turn from our ways toward the ways of the Lord? The prophet is more Firestarter than romantic hero. Be careful if you see a lineup of people wanting the gig.

The Raven

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Biblical Text: Luke 12:22-34

I’ve never really found belief in God to be that big of a problem. A materialist philosophy is so obviously full of holes it requires more faith than any of the world religions. But a base belief is God doesn’t really buy you much. It answers a bunch of questions that ultimately don’t mean much to you personally. It just moves you onto the questions of the character of this god. Is he a Loki trickster? Is he a god that requires child sacrifice? Is he the Calvinist God who would condemn billions on hell without a chance to demonstrate his grace? Or is he the God the prophets proclaimed – slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love?

The Gospel lesson is Jesus in prophet mode. “You are worth much more than birds.” He’s proclaiming the steadfast love of God for his creation. Which still brings on the question, how do we know? We know: 1) because the life of Christ fully reveals the love of the Father. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. 2) because we have faith and that faith endures and hopes and is not put to shame. If you put that faith in the things of this world, it never returns anything. If you put that faith in god, he gives you the kingdom.

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Interesting Lines

There are some biblical lines that stick out. They seem like throwaway lines. Extra epitaphs added at the end of the story. Like at the end of Moses’ life. “His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. (Deut. 34:7).” Or when Isaac finally finds a place to pitch his tents, “And there Isaac’s servants dug a well (Genesis 26:25).” Or the introduction to Isaiah’s call, “In the year King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6:1).” They seem innocuous enough, until you stop to think about them and realize how deep they can actually be. Moses’ sight might be his physical sight, but it is also what allows him to see the Promised land from afar. He will not enter it, but God allowed him to see it. Moses was always clearsighted in the ways of God. But what exactly did he see up on that mountain? Isaac was a digger of wells. Maybe if as a kid you had been strapped down to an altar, you would find something else with which to praise God. And the water, the living water which bubbles up to eternal life, which is not simple water only, is a deep and eternal well. I’ll leave the puzzling over Uzziah to you.

Our Epistle lesson for the day has a bunch of those phrases, but the one I want to call out is applied to Abraham. “And he went out, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8).” Normally taking off on a journey not knowing where you are going would be frowned upon. Failure to plan is planning to fail and all that. But then Abraham is the man and model of faith. And a journey is a metaphor for life. When we “go out” do any of us know where we are going? Oh, we might have an idea, a goal, an aim. But knowledge? The younger we are – like elementary kids – we just go out the door each day and whatever we meet that day, there we are. Only a few 8 year olds have plans for the day. Yet most seem to be right where they belong. Trusting that those around them have arranged things just so. Abraham would occasionally try and help God out, but largely he wandered around like an 8 year old. Whatever the day brought, the day brought.

He may have not known where he was going when he set out, but by the end he seemed to have a better idea. “For He was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder was God (Hebrews 11:10).” Abraham’s journey of not knowing took him out of Ur, the original Babylon. It took him all the way down to Egypt. He dealt with Sodom and Gomorrah and the Philistines. In all his journeys in life Abraham had seen every city that man might build. And he knew that none of them were where he was going. He didn’t know where he was going, but he had faith that God would build the city. I imagine Moses’ keen eyes were seeing the same city as Abraham.

At the core of any man of faith is an interesting tension. There is a contentment with where one is for God has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love and still is ours today. He has provided me everything I need to support this body and life. And yet…and yet there is a longing for a better country. One that we know we cannot see perfectly. One that is not possible in the land we have set out from. And if we want to settle into contentment here in this land, we probably could. But the faith keeps our eyes looking at the horizon, our ears desiring a clear trumpet. For any sign of The City, a heavenly one.

Dividing the Inheritance

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Biblical Text: Luke 12:13-21 (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-26)

This is a stewardship sermon, but I don’t think it is the common stewardship sermon. It is both more aggressively local than most I’ve given or heard, while I think also being more about the spirituality of money that is universally applicable. The specific situation of our congregation might or might not be shared, but the self-examination called for, and the opportunity of the gospel offered is the same everywhere.

The gospel lesson starts off with a familiar complaint, “tell my brother to divide the inheritance.” Even if we ourselves have not been there, we know that spot. And Jesus has two responses to the man. The first is that Jesus is not that man’s judge in this. What providence has given to each of us is up to us to use. But Jesus’ 2nd response points to the spiritual trap of money or hoards of money. There is a point where the money and vocation that providence has given us to support this body and life, to thank God and to help our neighbor becomes our life itself. Our lives become more about collecting than about caring.

I can’t call it a universal law, but everywhere a church has a budget problem, there is a law issue and a gospel promise. The law issue is too many people are living on the wrong side of that trap line. They are laying up treasure for themselves and not being rich toward God who has given it to them. But the gospel invitation is to bring it in. You can look a Haggai 1 and Malachi 3 for the OT examples. The sermon text has all the references. But that is exactly what God says. Bring in the full tithe. Test him in this. See if He doesn’t open the heavens with blessings or everything needed. That isn’t the prosperity gospel. The sermon gets a bit into why not. It is simply what God says. Bring it in and watch the Kingdom move, both in your congregation and in your own life.

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Hidden Impressions

There are some weeks or fortnights that get indelibly marked in your mind. And I’ve usually found that there is some piece of media – music, movie, TV show – that you just happen to have been listening to that becomes the shorthand for that time period. The week my brother died it was this CD by a group called Butterflyfish. I was attempting at the time to build a VBS around the songs. Anyone who has done a GROUP VBS knows the format. There is a song of the day for 5 days. There is an overall theme song. There are one or two reworked hymns which are usually the best songs. This disc included a Doxology in that category. Day 4 – the highest attendance day, kids disappear on Friday – is resurrection day. That Butterflyfish CD had this incredible Day 4 song, “All Sad Songs”. “I know all sad songs have another verse/It’s the one the heavenly choirs rehearse/For that day when the broken will mend/And the sad songs will end.” It is not Evening and Morning or O God, Our Help in Ages Past, but it was what I was listening to at the time. And it stuck. Putting that record in takes me right to that week or right to my brother.

When in the idiocy of the world we all decided to larp the black death, and all of a sudden my kids were home all the time. And the job of keeping a struggling church afloat became even tougher. Having sheriff’s cars drive through your lot most Sunday’s because you complied with the “no more than 10” rule by having 4 services instead of one, was memorable. Especially when you got more visitors than you expected because yours was one of the few doors open. The TV show that marks that time for me is Stargate SG1. COMET was showing three episodes an evening. I could DVR them and in 90 mins at the end of the day escape into the fantasy of stepping through the Stargate to a world that hadn’t lost its mind. It’s not that there weren’t some theological works that also kept one sane, but echoing the Apostle Paul sanity isn’t always about “prophetic powers and understanding mysteries and all knowledge (1 Cor 13:2).” Those things aren’t nothing, but absent love, I’m still empty. And the can-do attitude of Col. O’Neill was honestly more important that any deep understanding. Which five years later we might just be entering into some reflection. I’m told I have to go see the movie Eddington in these matters. We’ll see. Might still be too early. I can feel the anger still.

I suppose I should be getting around to a point. The past fortnight has been one of those. Having a major surgery at 86 years old focuses the mind, or at least it focused my dad’s. He’s been gathering all his “in case this all goes wrong” files and having “last suppers.” This has included many extra evening trips to correct or rescue from disaster various computer files and passwords. It has also included wrangling the entire family together on some type of decent behavior. This fortnight also has graced me with the gout flareup such that walking is difficult. Preparation for a Congregational meeting. Annessa, who keeps me sane in the office, telling me she’s getting a real job. And a few other sidebars. Somehow I stumbled upon Detective Bosch in this fortnight. A salty LA detective that never lets go of a bone. The note he hangs on his desk reads, “get off your a** and go knock on doors.” He’s got a sharp eye and plenty of courage, but Bosch’s greatest attribute? Nothing life throws at him is too much if you just do the work. The truth reveals itself in the end.

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossian 3:3-4)” That’s the apostle Paul in this week’s Epistle lesson sounding very Bosch like. “Put to death what is earthly in you…put on the new self, which is being renewed.” What exactly we will be, we do not know. But we press on. We do the work. Because the way, the truth, and the life are hidden in that work. And one day all will be revealed.

Knowing God

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Biblical Text: Genesis 18:17, 20-33 and Luke 11:1-13

Superficially this is a sermon about prayer. It is an encouragement to prayer. But beyond that superficiality it is a sermon about knowing God. Can you know God? If so, how can you know God? What the sermon meditates on are three ways of knowing God. The first is not unimportant, but it really isn’t enough. It is knowing God as information. This is the way the demons know God. The second is knowing God through His word and promises. This is faith or the faith. And ultimately all ways of knowing God are grounded in his universal revelation of Himself in Scripture. But we are also invited to pray. And Prayer, as the Old Testament lesson of Abraham interceding for Sodom is an example, tell us something personal about God. Prayer is a personal knowledge of God. The sermon expands on this and the great invitation we have to know our God personally.

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High Sounding Non-Sense

Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. – Colossians. 2:8 NLT

I love the zest of the New Living Translation. We live in an age of empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense. Around every corner there is someone attempting to lure you into a way of life. And all of it being sold as if it would make you into the most noble human ever. Whether that is such things as “manifesting” – putting the good vibes out into the universe such that the universe will repay you seven-fold, or believing “the science” – which was always contrary to actual science. Science isn’t believed because it is proven or disproven and invites challenge as its only way forward. The world is a smorgasbord of ways to live your life. All often reduced for easy consumption down to bumper stickers and focus grouped phrases. Love is Love. And don’t you ask anyone to define their terms. They are empty and high-sounding, and they have no solid ground.

The Apostle Paul tells us these things come from a couple of places. They can “come from human thinking.” It is not that the Apostle Paul is condemning all human thinking, but he is warning us of that specific type that thinks itself “the smartest man in the room.” Floating around recently was a syllabus of the last semester of Columbia University’s Core Curriculum. Marx, Freud, Fanon, Foucault and Saito. Now I don’t expect you to know all those names, nor even necessarily to look them up. But all of them could easily qualify as empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that comes from human thinking. The workers/psychological/colonial/sexual/ecological utopia is right around the corner. If you just implement my ideas and kill 100 million people. It’s for their good. (And yes, there would be a solid academic reason to read them, if the reason was to be aware and warn of such foolishness, but that is not why they are on the Ivy Syllabus.) Such is our sinful nature.

The other place the Apostle Paul tells us these things come from is “the spiritual powers of this world.” It is funny (at least to me) that I saw reported just this week that some start-up was reporting a way to turn mercury into gold in a fusion reactor. (https://gizmodo.com/startup-claims-its-fusion-reactor-can-turn-cheap-mercury-into-gold-2000633862). The alchemical dream has not died. Although it is an open question which is further away, stable fusion or mercury to gold. Joseph Smith’s tribe continues to proclaim their spiritual powers to get you your own universe. Maybe you can make it easier to transmute lead into gold. And of course the largest cult of the day holds that men can become women and vice versa. And they do so with high-sounding nonsense leading untold numbers into stunted lives and ruined bodies. Such is the world and Satan’s schemes.

Against these the Apostle tells us is the Word of Christ. For He “is the head of all rule and authority (Colossians 2:10).” And through your baptism, “you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh (Colossians 2:13),” God has made you alive together with Christ “by cancelling the record of the debt.” In the Incarnation of Christ, in His flesh, He has defeated our sinful nature and given us His nature. Likewise by the power of the cross, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them.” The World – Pontius Pilate – and Satan thought they had won. They killed The Son and heir, and the world would forever be theirs. But death could not hold Him. And “you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God.” Christ has defeated the World, and Satan’s time is short.

So don’t let anyone capture you. You have the solid philosophy of the risen Christ, not some made up myth. Christ is risen indeed. You have the plain Word of God. Your sins are forgiven. Hold fast and grow into the fullness of Christ.

One Thing’s Needful

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Biblical Text: Luke 10:38-42

Of all the biblical stories that cause complaint, Mary and Martha is right up there. We are all natural Marthas. And even those who think they are Mary’s probably aren’t. But this sermon reflects really mostly on one phrase of Jesus in the story – “but one thing is necessary.” It set me thinking about the current American love affair with gambling. Because what Jesus is asking us to consider is something like “what is the probability of God revealing himself personally to you?” That is the one thing needful. And the truth is that when God shows up we are often behaving like Martha. When the Word is present we are letting the cares of the world dictate our actions, and we miss the time of our visitation. Thinking in the mentality of a gambler can actually be helpful in this. We might learn to recognize the truly worthy, the one thing needful – The Word of God, Jesus himself.

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All the Suffering in the World

Some internet wit posted an aphorism the other day. Something like, Protestants find sin in pleasure, Catholics find goodness in suffering. It is something of a perennial observation that comes back in multiple places and styles: Northern Europe vs. Mediterranean, Prussian vs. Bavarian, Yankee vs. Reb. I don’t know about you, but I always hated it everywhere it shows up. It superficially might fit, but the second you scratch the surface it doesn’t. The real point is to elevate some third group that is neither Protestant or Catholic above such trivial concerns as sin and suffering. As if all the sin and suffering in the world would just disappear if we all were as flippant as the enlightened wit.

The Apostle Paul in our Epistle lesson for the day (Colossians 1:21-29) makes one of his deepest statements. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” The world might have ever shifting ideas of what is sin but there is always something that the world thinks is sinful. The natural law is too powerful, written on our hearts, for the world to get away from sin for that long. With sin what the world tries to do is get the individual to justify themselves and the larger community to act like Pharisees about ceremonial laws instead of moral laws – stop self-reflecting and start cancel culture. We might lose the word sin, but we never lose the concept. Suffering is different. The World, that third enlightened group, doesn’t know what to do about suffering. The Apostle Paul does.

Now, not all suffering is the same. If one suffers because they have trespassed, that is earned. “For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? (1 Pet. 2:20)” The rhetorical answer is none. Suffering in itself can just be the due natural punishment of sin. If we avoid it, it is by the mercy of God. Because we are all sinners. St. Peter in his contemplation would say, “but rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed (1 Peter 4:13).” To Peter there is a suffering that shares in Christ. It is more a reflection of what Jesus had instructed them: “It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. (Matt. 10:25 ESV).” But Paul takes it beyond emulation. ‘I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” Ponder for a second how remarkable that is. The bearing of the cross is not an emulation, but participation.

To Paul the church is the body of Christ. And “whatever you do to one of the least of these, you have done unto me (Matthew 25:40).” Suffering that is endured for the sake of Christ or his church, suffering that is taken on for goodness, is a participation in Christ. If we endure such suffering, we are being conformed to Christ. It is not as the wit thinks that the Christian finds goodness in suffering. Because all suffering is ultimately because of a sinful and broken world. But innocent suffering is a participation in the cross. And the cross has been redeemed. The cross is where all those sins have been collected and paid. The cross is the beginning of the glory. The Christian might rejoice in these sufferings, because the mystery of God is being revealed.

The World has no place for suffering because it is passing away. Every day the glory of the World diminishes a bit more. And suffering reminds the World of its temporality. But Christ is eternal and through sufferings, made full in his body the church, has overcome the world.