A Lutheran tries to Preach on James – Trials, Temptations, Perseverance and Absolution

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Martin Luther once called James the “epistle of straw”. He thought is was a bunch of law and not much gospel. His antagonists in Rome also had a knack for using it to point out inconvienent scripture to Brother Martin. James deserves his voice and in the modern church he might be the more necessary epistle if for no other reason than he is just so darn practical. James does not get tied down in fancy theological arguments. He has no time for speculative thoughts and navel gazing. Don’t deceive yourself, we are sinners. Don’t blame God, we are sinful by nature. That sinful nature drags us along. We don’t need any push from God to sin. Be on your guard for those times and feelings and situation. But the good news is that God chose us. He saved us in Jesus (the word of truth) and made us to be the firstfruits – God’s rightful and chosen portion of creation. Don’t follow the path of sin, instead hold on to that election.

Ash Wednesday Sermon – Mark 13:24-31

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Text: Mark 13:24-31

Wants, needs and our one real need – Jesus Christ. The text always intringued me. It is not just the bad stuff or just the fallen world that passes away. The best stuff also passes – heaven passes away. It is all headed for the ashes. Everything except the Word of God Jesus Christ. Good news – in baptism you have become the body of Christ. You are made a new creation. The Ashes of Ash Wednesday are redeemed in the resurrection of the dead. Baptism is your guarantee. So, if you receive the ashes, remember that baptism.

Sermon – Mark 9:1-10 – Under the Gospel there is no fear

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Transfiguration sunday. Exactly what we do with this picture of the Glory of God in Jesus is tough to talk about. Fundamentally, the image is too bright for our mortal eyes. What we can look at is the reactions of the disciples in contrast to the reactions of other people who have glimpsed the glory, primarily those healed like the leper or the deaf man in Mark’s gospel. Those two can’t keep the joy and the word in. Jesus tells them to be quiet, but they run and tell everyone, and there is no crackdown.

The Disciples don’t do that. They do three things. 1) They equate Jesus the messiah with Elijah and Moses – just another teacher, and they want to build an institution around them. Let’s build three tents. When God works in his glory we often want to domesticate it. We are scared of God working so we try and put Him in a box. The world and the church is full of sad empty boxes where God used to work. 2) They react out of fear. The text says they were terrified. The leper and the deaf man come to Jesus, unafraid or at least uncommented. Jesus drags the disciples up the mountian, and they cower. This view of the glory before calvary was for their reassurance, but run in fear. Fear is the power of the law. In Jesus God is doing a new thing. Fear is not called for. 3) They keep the word to themselves. They have just glimpsed the glory of God. Would this not have been something to share? If they had been healed like the leper, if they had been under the gospel, they would have told everyone.

Don’t build institutions, but follow Jesus where the Spirit wills. Don’t cower in fear. The law has no claim on you in Jesus Christ. And please, pass the Word on to those still in cowering. Under the Gospel we are freed from fear. The little kids know it best. Jesus loves me this I know. Hide it under a bushel – no! I gonna let it shine!

Sermon – Mark 1:40-45 – The clean get the mission

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Allen Bauchle asked a great question/observation in bible class after worship about something called the ‘messianic secret’. That is a technical term for those times when somebody is telling who Jesus is (the messiah/the son of God), but he tells them to be silent. The demons obey. The humans do not. Strangely, the disciples do. Many words have been spilled on this theme, and while it is present to some degree in Mathew and Luke it is primarily something in Mark, the gospel for this year.

The truth of the matter is that I have received view, one that I’ve been told and strikes me a very close to truth, but I have not given enough pray and study to hold a view of my own. The only piece that I’ve done some work on is catagorizing the who and why.

The text of this sermon has one of the secret events. Jesus tells the leper to be quiet. The leper goes and tells – in loaded terms the former leper – “proclaims/preaches the word”. I don’t know why our more “literal” translations give us things like “talk freely about it and spread the news.” The New Living Traslation gets very “literal”…”the man went and spread the word, proclaiming to everyone.” The juxtaposition of proclaiming the word by the man made clean and the command to be silent seem to be core. The leper is doing more than just talking about an event.

Part of my answer has to include the why’s of the people told. The demons, who have no interest in spreading the gospel, shut up at the command. The leper breaks the command, the law, for the sake of the speading the gospel. That is a slippery slope. Which laws can be broken? When are you breaking them for the sake of the gospel? Martin Luther’s quip about ‘sin boldly’ would seem to be appropriate.

Ultimately, it is those who have been cleaned by Jesus Christ that are given the mission to save others. Jesus can’t go into the towns, but everybody is looking for him. They are coming out to the desert places. It is the cleansed, the healthy, that can give directions where to find him.

Sermon – The Mission of God – Mark 1:29-39

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Not a very Lutheran sermon, but I think it is spot on. (It was not very Lutheran becuase the overly simple condensation is Jesus was/did this, so we should do this. Lutherans tend to frown on Jesus the example which drifts to close to Jesus the law giver.) I liked it enough that I used it with the circuit meeting today. Lutherans love talking justification, and law/gospel and freedom from the law. The freedom from the law is absolutely correct, but it is freedom in Christ and not a general freedom. Even Paul’s response to that thought (should I sin so that grace may increase?) was absolutely not! Sometimes the simple Jesus the great example is called for especially when the issue is His mission to save sinners. It is directly out of that mission that the gospel comes. If we get the gospel we are part of His mission. We make his mission ours.

Sermon – Mark 1:21-28 – Sacred Spaces

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One of the comments on this sermon on Sunday was the “it could have found a nice home in the pulpit next door.” That could either be the Bapist Church or the African-American church. From this person I took that as a compliment. We Lutherans tend to be envious of the pulpit skills of both of those types of preachers, but we find it hard to break out of the cultural, emotional and theological strait-jackets. If my seminary professor had said that, I’d be looking for the heresy I just endorsed with passion that would be leading my flock in the wrong direction. Part of the strait-jacketing that comes with the M.Div.

I think I’ve quipped before that some days you’re preaching the Word and others you’re talking. This one certainly felt like the Word. Feelings are not always a great indicator, but I’m not quibbling this time.

Sermon – Mark 1:14-20 – The Risk of Contact

I guess I’ve been too tricky for my own good linking the file with the full text to the word cloud picture, so I’m going to start also putting a hard link to the text here –MS Word Link

Wanting to be called or to feel like someone has a job for you is an almost universal desire. Thomas the Tank engine is my son’s favorite toy/book. The original books were written some time ago by an Anglican minister. When you read those early books or see the early cartoons the main virtue being taught is interesting. The highest value for Thomas, given by Sir Topham Hatt, is to “be a really useful engine.” Men fall into that thinking more than women do – basing their entire self-worth on society’s definition of being useful. That requires a sense of call. Someone finds this useful. We are constantly looking for that Sir Topham Hatt character to contact us and affirm us.

The trick is sorting the true call from the all the things that might just be useful. In the Sermon I used the example of SETI. People desperately looking for that affirmation and sometimes salvation from contact from the stars. The people in SETI maintain an almost desperate hope that someone is calling them, but they just need to look in the right place.

We so want that contact and we often look so hard that we overlook our true calling. God has called us in Jesus Christ. It does not depend upon our skills or abilities. God takes the action. God has made first contact. And he does have something useful for you, tell someone else what Jesus has done for us.

Sermon – John 1:43-51 – What you believe effects what you see

This sermon is counter intuitive in its message. We naturally think that first we see something, then we sort it out, and eventually form beliefs based on those observations. That is not what John in the text or the small catachism say about faith.

Third article of the creed…what does this mean? I believe that I cannot by my own reason of strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel….

In the text Jesus asks Nathanael if he believes because I told you you were sitting under a tree? The answer is no, but becuase he does believe he will see greater things than that. John is full of these encounters with Jesus and how people come to believe or has deficient belief. The Strongest might be Mary Magadelen at the resurrection (John 20:10-18). She “sees” Jesus, but doesn’t believe it. She thinks he’s the gardener, but then Jesus calls her, and she “sees” Jesus. If your firm belief is dead people don’t rise, you can’t see the risen Lord, at least not without intervention.

The true Israelite, unlike the original Israel is Gen 28:16, “sees” the Lord in this place. The Son of God might be hidden behind a cross, the face of a homeless person, bread and wine, the frailty of a minister, but surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.

I putting the sermon together I stumbled accross the scientist story. I thought it was a great example coming from the ultimate ground of seeing in believing where seeing was shaped by belief.

Ultimately we as Christians have a vocation more like Philip who called Nathanael. Can anything good come from Nazareth? Come and see! We invite the blind to see. And leave the miracle to Jesus.

Sermon – The Baptism of Jesus

Liz made a comment on the way out that as a teacher an object lesson – i.e. a real baptism – would have been nice. I had to say a whole hearted yes.

Just a couple of stray thoughts. For many of us, remembering our baptism does two things – 1) it draws us toward our family and the community of God and 2) it points us in the right direction for living. For many of us were baptized as infants. Not being baptist, a rememberance of baptism immediately directs us to parents or grandparents or elders in the church. We are reliant upon them to tell us, yes you are baptized. We are reliant upon the church to be the people of God and remember who has been brought into the family. That is not a bad thing to remember that there is a corporate entity – the church – that has a role to play in our lives. It is not just us alone or me and my personal Jesus. Remembering baptism also points us in the right direction in that while the sacrament is a once for all act, the life it enables is an ongoing thing. Luther’s small catechism would say, “it indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned…” When we live the Christian life we are baptized each day or each hour when we recognize our shortcomings, but most importantly when we see the way through the water that Jesus sanctified.

Sermon – Luke 2:40-52 – Pondering Growth

I need to ask forgiveness from the Saturday service attendees. I had written the sermon and ran through it and thought good – or probably more closer – the in-laws are at home, there is a football game on, I’ve been thinking about these other presentations, and my head is in that game and those presentations and not this sermon right now. Only when really delivering did all the obvious problems creep out. It needed a couple of more dry runs.

I got it updated by Sunday morning. The sermon linked to in the Wordle is that Sunday morning sermon. But that does not help the Saturday group who got a much more muddled presentation.

Two key ideas: 1) Jesus’ life was one of growth through submission, the ultimate example of losing your life only to find it and 2) we just aren’t good at seeing those growth opportunities, but God loved us anyway. God loved us enough to submit to our cross. Jesus submitted where we could not, and so He is the the one directing growth from the right hand of the Father. Next time you feel growth stalled or advance stopped, take and second to look at Jesus and what does He want you to submit to in order to grow?