A Specific God with A Specific Grace – Trinity Sunday

Biblical Text: John 8:48-59, Athanasian Creed
Full Draft of Sermon

I believe that Trinity Sunday, at least as we normally observe it, is the most offensive Sunday of the Church year. Let me explain that statement. The Sunday School answer – Jesus – is what we proclaim most Sundays. Scratching under that simple statement I would tend to hold that the three theological virtues (faith, hope and charity/love) take up a large amount of Sundays. Closely following or intertwined would be grace and the fruits of the Spirit. I’d like to say that in this I’m just following the texts of the day. And if I am being an orthodox preacher, I am saying what the texts have to say for the people gathered at St. Mark’s. So depending upon the texts you get some other subjects: prayer, discipleship, creation, eschatology (last things), and so on. And it is possible to be winsome and happy and non-offensive on most of those things. Likewise it is possible to be a complete a**. Traditionally the cross was the scandal – the cross was foolishness to the gentile and a scandal/stumbling block to Jews. It is still possible to hear and feel that scandal, but most people giving a preacher a listen don’t seem that shocked at the cross. (And I am aware that many would say that is because you must not be preaching the cross. I don’t think that is the case. If I have one cliche visible motion it is pointing at the cross on the altar like the Issenheim Altarpiece.) In a pluralistic society, the doctrine of God, the Trinity, becomes offensive. The bigger scandal isn’t the scandal of the cross where God dies. The bigger scandal is particularity. There is a God and this specifically is how He has revealed himself. And that specific revelation is the ground of truth and freedom.

Trinity Sunday, when marked by the reading of the Athanasian Creed, is one Sunday given over the the faith which is believed. While most Sundays include faith and some part of the (intellectual) faith which is believed, the emphasis is on encouragement in the faith which believes. The faith which believes, the work of the Spirit within us, is what saves. It does not come from us, but is given to us by grace. And that faith which believes is what grabs onto the cross like the old pictures and stained glass of the man holding onto the cross that is either going over a waterfall or is amidst the wind and waves. This is our stained glass window, but I’ve seen the same icon in other churches. That is a great visual of the faith which believes. Trinity Sunday is about the faith which is believed. It says boldly and clearly – “This is the God we believe in.”

In a plural society such clarity doesn’t leave room for “muddling on” or a soft syncretism blending a little of Buddha, a little of the great spirit, a little of gentle Jesus and a little of precious moments. That is why I think it is the most offensive. It is also very necessary. Quoting myself in the sermon, please excuse me, “A lowest common denominator faith eventually betrays both – producing a confusion of God, which is no god at all, and a smear of cheap grace, which is not grace.” Are you building on the rock or on sand? The creeds, like Jesus in the festival discourse in John 7-8, are a statement of the rock.

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From Babel to the New Jerusalem

Biblical Text: Genesis 11:1-9
Full Sermon Draft

How does the Spirit work? That might be a question that leads to a just-so-story. But just-so-stories don’t give the Bible, and its author the Holy Spirit, enough credit. Such stories can be manipulative. If you are taking Babel as a just-so-story, the real purpose is to say “know your place”. It would be the Biblical Icarus, and God would be the capricious Zeus. But that is not the story told at Babel and Pentecost.

The story told is of a God who saves us from the worst of ourselves. The story told is of a Spirit that takes the wounds of sin an glorifies them. No longer are all the languages a reminder of how sin turns us inward, but they are a testament to the width of the love of God. The new creation comes not through compelling force or manipulative story, but through an invite to the heart. God’s will is done, the New Jerusalem is built, one heart (one stone heart turned to flesh) at a time.

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The Terms of Unity

Biblical Text: John 17:20-26
Full Sermon Draft

…But Jesus prayer for unity continues and we might say gets tougher in verses 22 and 23. The basis of the unity in these verses is the glory. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them…that they may be one.

Now we’d love to see glory, because we think we know what it looks like. And our thoughts are glory are not completely false, just out of order. I say that because I’m assuming that most of our definitions of glory would probably be gleaming surfaces, gold streets, never ending crops, basically what John sees in the reading from revelation. But bringing that definition in at this point is out of order. That is the glory of the world to come.

The glory of this world is the cross.

If you want to see how you get from that to Mother’s Day (or at least an attempt) read/listen to the whole…

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Prayer and The Sabbath Day – A Simple Way to Pray

Sermon Text: John 16:23-33, Acts 16:9-15
Full Sermon Draft

The text continues one of the LCMS divergences from the revised common lectionary (RCL). In that RCL John 16 is never read on a Sunday. I’m somewhat surprised as this is all part of Jesus’ final teaching to the disciples at the last Supper, and chapter 16 has a bunch of important and practical teaching. The themes seem to be the Spirit, life in community post the resurrection and prayer. Now if I was a conspiracy sort I’d say it’s because Jesus, especially in today’s text, is at his most Trinitarian and High Christological (i.e. Jesus = God). The RCL has its origin in Vatican 2 and has significant input by church bodies like the Episcopal church and other mainline bodies. And let’s be kind, portions of both of those bodies at the time of the RCL’s creation weren’t exactly big on such clear teaching and were guided by hot at the time critical readings that thought of such parts of scripture as “secondary additions”. Some have continued down that path, others have reformed.

Anyway, the theme of the day was prayer with the trouble with prayer being found in our problems with the 3rd commandment – remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Luther explains that commandment in terms of the Word. We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. In Luther’s simple way to pray, which is summarized in the application section of this sermon, prayer that starts with the Word is put forward. Our problems with the clear Word is often what stands between is and prayer. We can’t even start to pray because we despise the Word. We have put so much between us and the Word, that we can’t hear it or commune with God in prayer over it.

Paradoxically, prayer and the Word are the answer. We learn in prayer to let God work on us and teach us. When we set ourselves under the word we also set ourselves under its promises. What God wishes to give to us through His Word in prayer, is the fulness of joy, peace and the grace of Christ. And that is the gospel. While the devil, the world and our flesh conspire to keep us out of communion with God, Christ has overcome the world. Our tribulation in the world, ultimately has already been defeated.

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When you can bear it…(The work and means of the Spirit)

Biblical Text: John 16:12-22, Acts 11:1-18
Full Sermon Draft

We had a little malfunction with our audio equipment this week, so the recording portion of the sermon is a recreated reading. The hymn and lessons of the day are from Sunday. It is interesting, just one of those coincidences, that the sound system chose this week to “pop”. I say that because with most of my sermons, later in the day or on Monday when I write this posting, I have the general feeling of: this phrase would have worked better, I missed that fertile preaching ground completely, nobody got that allusion, and the list goes on. This sermon, after struggling with the text most of the week, in between trying to put the right words together for a funeral I dearly wanted to honor, didn’t have many of those criticisms. If you were asking me to pick out pieces for the portfolio, this one would go in there. And the system just fails. One of those thin spaces where you might actually believe we are not fighting flesh and blood, but something darker.

The wordle picture above is all scrambled this way and that. I thought that is highly representative of how the Holy Spirit is taught. We are big on the Spirit blowing when and where he wills. There is definitely a mystery in how the Spirit acts, but there is an underlying solidity as part of the promise of Christ. And that is what I think this sermon presents solidly. The Spirit has a role and typical means. In Luther’s words the Spirit, “calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies”. The Spirit prepares us to bear the Word. The Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ. And until we are ready, when we can’t bear it, Christ does. It is not that the Spirit says something new, but that the Spirit enables us to hear the old old story where we are. And the Spirit acts through the same old old ways – Word, Sacrament (baptism), Repentance and Holy Living. Those are the means of the work of the Spirit. Not sexy, just true. When the Spirit comes, He will lead you into all truth.

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Hearing Voices

Text: John 10:22-30
Full Sermon Draft

The world is full of voices. In the past week we’ve heard from some of the more gruesome. What Jesus says in the text today is “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” He also says bluntly that those who don’t believe (because they haven’t accepted/heard the testimony) are not his sheep.

What the Gospel according to John sets up is the duality of voices. The voice of Christ is the call to life, and the call to life is the call to repentance and a life transformed by the Spirit. All the other voices, whatever their form, are voices of the world leading to death, voices breathing threats and murder. And there is no blending of these voices, just a division. Either we follow the voice of the shepherd, or we follow other voices. Either we believe, and nothing will snatch us out of the Father’s hand, or we join the voices contra Christ. There is no middle ground. And if this week has done anything it has shown the foolishness of dialog with those voices of the world. Voices not based in the life of Christ yield bad fruit.

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So How do we do this church thing?

Biblical Text: John 21:1-14
Full Draft of Sermon

The Epistle readings of the day during Easter this year are from Revelation and we are spending some time in bible class looking at those non-gospel lessons. In class this morning one of the questions that came up was something like “how do people come up with all these weird prophecy readings, you know like Russia and China are attacking on the 14th?” The answer I gave was that so many Christians just have real trouble discerning genre. Genre is something like history, poetry, detective stories, romance, or in the case of Revelation Apocalypse. Each genre has rules or expectations. Good interpretation will respect these rules. Most bad interpretation today first makes a hash of the genre.

Genre is important to the text for the Sermon today. When you understand John 21:1ff as an epilogue, things start to fall into place. This sermon is an entry point for reading the end of John’s gospel. As an epilogue it gives a poetic picture of how the preceding story has changed those remaining (i.e. the disciples). John 21 is John’s answer to how we do this church thing.

And the two big things covered are how the church depends lives and meets her savior in Word and Sacrament.

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Stop The Unbelief

Text: John 20:19-31
Full Sermon Draft

Okay, I’ll admit that this is one of my geekier sermons. Although I think even if you completely don’t get what I’m talking about in the middle, the introduction and the application or gospel in the world section work.

Why this is so geeky is because it is an attempt to identify something that we are dealing with but has not been completely defined to the point of say “well duh”. Trying to compress it I think our society has a hard time believing anything. That unbelief is not you garden variety doubt, which I would label as just part of the Christian life. The older saints would call it poetically a dark night of the soul. Thomas doesn’t doubt, he believes something else entirely. He believes is wood and steel and Roman power and his senses and dead things stay dead. When Jesus appears the command is not stop doubting and believe, but stop the unbelief and believe. Now I said Thomas believed in something (wood and steel, cross and spear, the marks in the hands and the side), but belief in idols is no belief at all. Idols have no real existence, so belief in them is unbelief. Jesus tells Thomas, to stop the idolatry. And that is our problem. Our old idols of nation, race, ideology and even church have failed. And postmodernism has convinced us to not get fooled again. But the problem is that we don’t have a choice. We are contingent creatures. We all rest on something. The default metaphysical dreams are our bellies or nothingness or gussied up mammon and nihilism. Those are the idols of post-modernism. And they are bad ones. The command issued by Jesus to Thomas caught in both is stop the unbelief and believe. Christ is the true cornerstone that we can build upon. All the old idols have been knocked down, but they have been knocked down so that we might see Christ. Not so that we can find worse idols.

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The Deleted – No Longer

Text: Luke 24:1-12
Full Sermon Draft

He is Risen. Alleluia!

So much in our world we deal with by deleting, or attempting to delete by shoving in some memory hole. We delete everything from pixels to inconvenient people. And we all eventually become inconvenient.

God does not delete. God does not deal with problems by covering them over. God deals with problems (like sin) by absolution…by transfiguration…by resurrection. That is the conflict of Easter and the triumph of our Lord. Sin, the World and Satan want to erase, delete and hide. Christ rolled back the stone and lives.

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Maundy Thursday – Anticipation and You

Text: Luke 22:7-20
Full Sermon Text

Luke’s record of the Last Supper is interesting. He has a fuller passover meal when he captures two cups. Over that first cup Jesus says:

For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
(Luk 22:16 ESV)

Which places a strong emphasis on eschatology or the things to come. The central image anytime you are dealing with wine and banquets is a Wedding. What this explores is the eucharist as engagement and the sense of anticipation for its fulfillment.

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