God, You Cannot Be Serious

Biblical Text: Habakkuk 1:1-2:4

I think this longer passage – the lectionary as read cuts out important parts – is one of the most important in the bible. At least to the curious. Habakkuk the prophet has had it. He asks the question that I think many people do when things are going well, “God, where are you? Why do you do nothing?” And unlike most places, here God responds. He is doing something. He’s sending “the Chaldeans.” Now the Chaldeans are just code for Assyria/Babylon/Persia, the great power that takes Israel into exile. And God elaborates on who they are. It is what God often does, set one evil against another. But we don’t like that. The prophet doesn’t like that. He pushes back at God a second time. “Really, that is what you want me to go preach? Babylon?” And God answers one more time. And he makes clear what he is after – faith.

This sermon sets Habakkuk’s story in the light of Adam, Eve and the Old Snake. What Satan is always pitching in knowledge. “You will know.” It is not that God won’t grant knowledge, but that knowledge from God comes at the appropriate time. When we have the wisdom to handle it. Satan doesn’t care the damage it leaves. The “Violence”. The “Justice perverted.” But God does this because he is not really about knowledge. He wants us to have faith. He wants us to trust Him. And that is the second answer. Habakkuk, write the vision. It’s the same vision as always. The promise of Christ and his kingdom. And its the promise, “It will come. Wait for it. The righteous live by faith.”

On a rhetorical note, these sermon gets a little hot. To me it was meant to match the prophet’s complaint.

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Looking Up

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Biblical Text: Luke 16:19-31

People want to use this text to get glimpses or insights into the afterlife. But I honestly think that is rather boring. There is nothing in the Rich Man and Lazarus that gives any special insight. It is a heaven of sorts and it is a hell of torment. You can argue a bit and make a distinction between sheol, the Old Testament pit or abode of the dead, to which apparently all went, which upon Holy Saturday the victorious Christ lead the saints out in triumph and the post resurrection reality. But this sermon doesn’t want to get lost in those weeds, and for purposes of the story itself, it’s a distinction without a difference.

This text is not about glimpses of the afterlife, but it is looking up in this one precious life. It’s about how the Kingdom of God operates on different rules than this world. And it’s about how one finds true meaning. It’s a plea to look up and recognize everything that is going on around you. To see the Lazarus at your gate. To see that person or that work of God that we have become blind to. And know that today is the only day we are given to do that work of mercy. In regards to meaning it corrects our understanding. We tend to think that we need the sign and wonder and that would give us meaning. But the signs and wonders are given. A man has risen from the dead. We are given the promises of God in the sacraments. And there are others all around. But without the Word we don’t know what they mean. Like poor Lazarus, they become part of the scenery we step over. It is the Word – Moses and the Prophets in the story – that tells us what the signs and wonders mean. And how they are incorporated into our regular lives in days and months and seasons. How we can live in sacred time illuminated by the resurrection.

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Quickly, Mark it to Zero

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Biblical Text: Luke 16:1-15

The text is probably the hardest parable Jesus uttered. It doesn’t come with an explanation. The context immediately before and after it doesn’t really help. Or maybe I should say it would lead to an interpretation that would feel contrary to much of the gospel. And there really isn’t a “natural’ understanding that at least sets you on a fruitful path. It is as close to the feeling that Jesus said the parables were actually about (Mark 4:10-12) as you get – “Hear but not understand.”

I’m not so foolish as to say “I’ve got it the key.” But this sermon puts forward my understanding of the Parable of the Unrighteous Manager. And I think people shy away from this because it makes a comparison between Jesus and the unrighteous manager. They also shy away from it because it is explicitly Trinitarian. But Jesus compared himself to a thief entering the strong man’s house (Mark 3:27). And we Christians really need to drop the dregs of Unitarianism that we inherited. The Creed is the Father is the source, the Son was begotten of the Father before all worlds, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The sermon develops that and on into the parable itself.

The short key is that the Rich Man is the Father, the Unrighteous Manager is an incomplete Jesus in that he doesn’t trust the Father enough, and the debtors are us sinners. The encouragement is to trust the Father revealed by Jesus. We are never outside of the Father’s love. And there is no end to the Father’s bank account if you will. The unrighteous manager is like Abraham content with no destruction of Sodom if there are 10 righteous. We’ve all negotiated with God. It’s natural law-based thinking. And in the law we always sell God short. It’s his good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. And there we are trying to buy it. Jesus came and said to us, “write what you owe to zero.” And the Father accepted it. Because we are in his love. And it is all his anyway. You can’t empty his accounts. It’s been done, we just need to believe it.

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Closing the Gap

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Biblical Text: Luke 15:1-10

Again, I am always amazed at how the lectionary serves up a perfect basis to preach to the day. The text really is based in Jesus’ regular habit. He ate with tax collectors and sinners. And the Pharisees hated him for it. Jesus would talk with anybody. He wouldn’t do it from a place of weakness. His proclamation was “repent, for the Kingdom is near.” He was serious about holiness. But the gap between the holy and the profane is not one we can close. That is why he came. To find the lost. To close the gap. And he did this by talking. He does this through the foolishness of preaching. He did this by a table. He does this by the table where his still gives us his body and blood. He does this by making us the body of Christ. And the parables relay to us that this is who God is. He does not give up. He keeps talking. Until every last one is found.

Of course doing this enrages the Pharisees who find their power and conception of self attacked. And while some sinners repent, others certainly feel attacked. Giving up our pet sins can feel like giving up ourselves. Even though the chasm the grows within us gets deeper and wider. Of course those who won’t stop talking are eventually killed. This is a reflection on Charlie Kirk, a man who would not stop talking. But Christ has the last word. And that last word is when we are called from our graves in the resurrection. When Christ closes the gap for all time.

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The Ask

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Biblical Text: Philemon 1-21, (Luke 14:25-35 as background)

The letter to Philemon is to me almost the proof of the entire bible. There is no way this letter survives without divine shepherding. And it carries the heart of the gospel in it. Faith that there is more than this. Faith that God will provide. The Love of the Saints. The centrality of the cross. How Christianity is not just a philosophy or a religion, but it is a confession that must be lived. How the living of that confession can deepen and is always unique. In the Sermon I use the phrase “The Ask.” If you’ve done sales, or leadership of any types, you know you eventually must get to the ask. Philemon is one story of the Gospel Ask. The promises are given. Are you willing to live them?

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Will Few Be Saved?

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Biblical Text: : Luke 13:22-30

Questions can come from the variety of places. Especially questions like asking Jesus “will few be saved?” And in Jesus’ answer to the man I hear at least two different assumptions about the purpose of the question. This sermon is structured around a 2×2 box of motivation behind the question. Are you truly asking about others, or are you asking about yourself? And then are you optimistic about your chances or pessimistic? It explores each one of those purposes of asking and how Jesus’ answer addresses it.

Others/Optimistic = In line with many of the promises from Abraham to Revelation

Others/Pessimistic = Redirects away from the fate of others toward yourself. Are you walking the narrow way?

Self/Optimistic = The danger square. Many will say “Lord, Lord”

Self/Pessimistic = You, come up here. The call of the gospel. The last shall be first.

And it is that last one that meshes with its spacial or directional metaphor that meshes with the Old Testament lesson of the day (Isaiah 66:18-23). That last box is also what Lutheranism is really made to address. When you find yourself as Wednesday’s child, you are very near the heart of the gospel.

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The Alien Work

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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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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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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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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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