Redemption Tour: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Biblical Text: Psalm 133, Hebrews 12:22-24

We are continuing on the Redemption Tour – specific things that Jesus can be said to have redeemed from ruin. This week the topic is brotherhood. It’s a topic that gets demoted or devalued by our current “the future is female” culture, but it is a surprisingly strong biblical theme. Maybe it should not be so surprising as erasing biblical themes is what our entire culture is about. Although we are not alone in this. That has been Satan project all along, to erase the work of God.

While I was thinking about brotherhood or fraternity, I got to thinking about the French Revolution motto, hence the title. That is the opening to this sermon. And the overriding theme is that in our sinful quest for equality with God, we lost liberty and fraternity. In Christ those are redeemed, especially the fraternity. We will never have equality with God, but Christ is our brother.

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Are You Born Again?

030126 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: John 3:1-17

I’m sorry, we had audio problems this morning. The audio recording of the sermon wasn’t good enough for me to really use. If I have a little time tomorrow I might do an after the fact recording. Which sometimes I hate Satan, because this one felt on fire with good material. The manuscript is never 100%. There is always something in the moment that is better. And a re-recording is never the same. An actual congregation just makes things live. The text has John 3:16, but the sermon and in my reading the text is really about the interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus. John 3:16 is a conclusion only earned in a very specific conversation. “Are you born again?”

And that question takes in baptism, faith and just who you think God is. Nicodemus’s last words in the middle of the story are “how can these things be?” As the sermon would develop, he’s got a very specific concept of God. A concept tied to the fleshy existence of the children of Abraham. Jesus challenges him and through him us to believe in the Spiritual God. The God who so loved the world.

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Redemption Tour: Worship

022526 MW1 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Psalm 50:1-15

I rarely do this. The sermon itself explains a bit more. But my Lenten Midweeks this year are going to be a Series. They will each be based on a Psalm. The general theme will be redemption. Each week will expand a bit how in Christ the specific part of our lives are redeemed. This week the Redemption Tour starts with worship.

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Lead by the Spirit

022226 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 4:1-11

I start this sermon with a little reflection on what I believe the purpose of preaching is – proclamation. And mention that I think this particular sermon does some of that, but it ventures a little more into speculation that normal. The text is the temptation of Jesus. In the lectionary it is paired with the Old Testament reading of the fall into sin. Which at least for me brings up the problem of Evil. Why is Satan allowed to do this? And extending further, why does he continue to have such reign. The sermon does eventually attempt an answer. Or at least it is my answer. And it is an answer rooted in a duality word – testing or trial and temptation. In the Biblical languages they are really the same word. It is in English they are different words. And it is that divergence that I think causes so much trouble with evil. We have a simplistic and rosy view of God who never brings the trial. How that trial is allowed to happen is often by evil. Satan surely means for us to die. But the time of trial for God has two potential outcomes. 1) We pass the test, but we pass it because we have grown closer to God and know how he carries us through. 2) We fail the test, but are then met with the grace of God to restore us. Evil loses either way when you are not just looking at temporal things but things eternal. The sermon develops that.

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He Knows Our Frame

021826 Mt. Zion Ash Wednesday Download

Biblical Text: Psalm 103:1-22

This is an Ash Wednesday sermon. Gave a version of this Valley Lutheran High School chapel earlier. Had to rework it a bit for the home crowd. Although the basic message is the same. Had to tweak some of the examples. They are both more numerous for an older crowd and they didn’t need to be as strong. Ash Wednesday is a unique day. I’m not sure any – other than maybe Good Friday, but the focus of GF is the unique God-Man, Ash Wednesday is on us poor humans – but I’m not sure any day gets closer to the weird consolation of the gospel. We are constantly striving for the glory story, the sermon the American Dream, yet that story is a single point. It is balanced on the tip of a pin. It is easy to undermine. The gospel is the admission that the glory story is an Empire of Dust, and that God loves you and has you anyway. He knows our frame and his steadfast love is from everlasting to everlasting. And you don’t get one pole without the other.

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Direct Spiritual Experience

021526 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 17:1-9

The text is the transfiguration. And I do think the sermon comes deeply from the text, but the subject is really from the disciples’ point of view. They have a direct spiritual experience at the top of that mountain. Now talking about such things might not we in the normal wheelhouse of an everyday suburban congregation, but it is more in the air than you think. The first part of the sermon reflects on how our longing for such an experience expresses itself all around us. The second part of the sermon reflects on the troubles of such spiritual experiences: they don’t tell us what we think they do, we think the experience is the point and seek to stay in it or repeat it, we interpret everything based on them. The third part hopefully resolves or answers those troubles. The voice from the cloud says “listen to him.” That is where it starts. And if we listen to Jesus, that voice starts telling us what to do with the vision. That is what this sermon is about.

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Getting Salty

020826 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 5:13-20

As we dig a little into the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), the real start of the sermon after the poetic beatitudes opening, begins with the juxtaposition of salt and light. Standard parallelism would hold that these two images are supposed to mean the same thing. But I’ve honestly never really liked that, or at least I’ve felt they contained a bit more contrast. And the entire Sermon on the Mount to me is weaving of contrasts. What always made me think deeper is the note about salt losing its saltiness, while you can’t hide a city on a hill is part of the expansion on the light. There is a built in contrast. As it turns out, Luther’s reading is one of contrast. Now I can’t explain either why I never read Luther’s thoughts prior, or if I did why I dismissed them. It might have something to do with modern interpreters, including those I highly value, more or less dismissing Luther. But then that in itself is common. Over and over you find people dismissing Luther, but then he just resonates.

This sermon preaches salt and light as Luther would have it. The salt being the stinging but preserving function of the law while the light is the proclamation of the gospel of free grace. Both are good. But as Luther would say, we are often in trouble of losing our saltiness. And when we lose contact with the truth of the law, the gospel is placed under a bushel.

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You Are Blessed

020126 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 5:1-11

The main text for the day is the Beatitudes, which are the opening lines of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The follow a rhetorical pattern common in the day: Blessed are a certain people, for they will get some reward. The rhetorical pattern was a way to introduce poetically what the good life entailed. The patter would often extol certain virtues. The problem with Jesus’ beatitudes is that absolutely nobody would base the good life on what he blesses. And since the entire sermon on the mount is something of a constitution for the Kingdom of Heaven or the People of God, when you hear the Beatitudes you really need to think about how they apply.

That is what this sermon does. As it moves into proclamation. I’d argue that only a Lutheran can honestly read them. Or someone who can rightly hear law and gospel. Because you can only hear the beatitudes and the rest of the sermon if you hear “the kingdom of heaven is yours.” It does not come to you by works. It comes to you in the poverty of your spirit. When you have nothing to offer, Christ gives it to you. The promises, the second half of each beatitude, are yours already. You are blessed to be able to do the first parts, because Christ has given you the second. Christ has given you the Kingdom

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A Good Start

012526 sermon Download

Biblical Text: Mattew 4:12-25

The gospels in my reading have a log of prologs. Stuff like the Christmas stories and John the Baptist and even the temptation of Jesus. These are all things that have important doctrinal meaning. They are interesting. But they aren’t the main story. That main story starts with this part of the gospel. It starts when all the preliminary stuff is off stage and Jesus is left alone. And what are his first words? “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” This sermon is a meditation on how those first words contain the entire story that follows right down to us.

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Spirituality of the Church – “Come and See”

011826 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: John 1:29-42a

The Gospel Lesson is One of the insertions from John into the lectionary. And it is John’s take on how the early disciples meet Jesus. Like most of John is fills in some gaps. In the Synoptics Jesus just starts calling them “follow me.” John lets us know that some of them were disciples of John the Baptist first and heard John’s proclamation. But what this sermon focuses on is Jesus’ question. When he recognizes that Andrew and presumed John were following him, Jesus turns and asks “What are you seeking?”

There are a ton of different spiritualities. The sermon talks a bit about them. But all those spiritualities of the world tend to be inward manifestations of our desires: fame, money, power, knowledge. When Jesus asks “What are you seeking?” this sermon develops that as a spiritual sifting question. Because all that is really on offer in the church – and with Andrew – is Jesus. And that is the Spirituality of the Church. You get to see Jesus.

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