Prisoners of Hope

Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of Hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. – Zechariah 9:12

Some phrases just dwell in the imagination. Prisoners of Hope. That’s one of them. Two words that you wouldn’t normally put together. Prisoner and Hope. Prisons of various types are famed for the words put over their entry. The entry is Hell in Dante is “Abandon Hope All You Who Enter Here.” The entry to Auschwitz was “Work will set you free.” On Riker’s Island (NYS Prison) you will find the correction facility motto “New York’s Boldest.” On one Soviet Gulag it said, “Shock labor is the path to early release!” It is absurdly funny that Hell might have been the most honest. In most ways we might think of prison as being the opposite of Hope. Yet the prophet Zechariah ties these two things together to describe faithful Israel, prisoners of Hope.

Zechariah is prophesying to Israel in exile. Their kingdom gone, their temple destroyed, the reality of their covenant with God at least in question. Would any God with any reality allow this for his people? Israel’s exile for most of Christian history has been used as a metaphor for the church in this world. Wherever you find the church, that is not its native ground. That is a beachhead in Satan’s territory. The people of God an infiltrating Army in this old world. And often an army surrounded. Maybe an army in chains. Most of the apostles found themselves in various prisons. Yet they were always prisoners of Hope. As Paul once said, “it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain. (Acts 28:20)”

And what is that hope?

That you would behold your King coming to you righteous and having salvation. That the chariot and the war horse would be cut off. That the battle bows would be broken. That your King would speak peace to the nations. That his rule would be from sea to sea, from The River to the ends of the earth.

That sounds great, by why is this my hope? Why would I endure chains now, for that hope? Why would I consider myself a prisoner held by this hope?

“Because of the blood of my covenant with you.”

Christ has shed his blood for you. Christ has given you his body and blood. He has marked you in your baptism as one redeemed. And these things – these sacraments – are the acts of his covenant with you. Now we might break contracts or covenants. We might be faithless, but God is faithful. God fulfills his promises, his covenant. And He has given us a covenant sealed with the blood of his Son. “I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.”

We have been washed in the waters of Holy Baptism. The Good Shepherd will lead us beside still waters. Today, we might find ourselves in chains of various kinds. Worldly chains of fame and status and want. We might find ourselves in personal chains of besetting sins. But God has set us prisoners free in the blood of his Son Jesus.

Today we might be prisoners of Hope. Tomorrow, God declares, “I will restore to you double.” As Jesus said last week. “You will not lose your reward.” We are prisoners of this hope. Even the shiniest and most gilded cage of the world’s prisons can’t promise this. They all lied, other than Hell which has no hope. But with Christ, we have hope.

Walking in Danger All The Way

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Biblical Text: Matthew 10:34-42

The hymn referenced at the start is I Walk in Danger All the Way – LSB 716. The meditation is based largely on Jesus’ statement, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Which saying I think is one of the hardest for the current generation of Christians to absorb or think about. I am rarely simply happy after a sermon. There is always something that comes up after that I think “that would have been a lot better.” But this one I have a strange contentment about. So I’m just going to say listen, maybe after you read through the stanzas of that hymn.

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Election Returns

I’ve been struggling what if anything to write about our Synodical Presidential election. I suppose I will start with the simple facts. Matthew Harrison, who has been Synodical President for 16 years/5 terms, has been reelected to a sixth 3 year term. To anyone handicapping the election that result would not have been a surprise. The surprise was in how that came about. It took three ballots. He won on the first ballot his previous times often with vote shares approaching 60%. This time his share was 50.1%. He got 4 votes over the absolute minimum on the 3^rd ballot. Now after 16 years the “time for someone else” vote is going to grow naturally. But this particular vote was not just that. Todd Wilken, the host of Issues, Etc, I think has it right. “The Venn diagram of voters against Harrison often had a single point of overlap – anyone but Harrison.” There were people in the Synod mad over the closure of various Concordia System schools and various lawsuits around those schools. There are people mad because they want expansion of ways onto the ministerial roster. There are people mad because they want a reduction in the ways onto the roster. There are people mad over Harrison talking more explicitly about the order of service and Lutheran distinctives. There are people mad that he doesn’t cast out of the synod those who are not using “our hymnbook.” And behind all of this anxiety is the fact of decline. Peak reported membership was around 2.8M in 1970 – the year before my birth. The last published reports (2026 Lutheran Annual) that number is 1.6M. And of course membership is not attendance. On any given Sunday the last reported attendance numbers were a little over 500K.

Something that I believe to be the truth that impacted this election, and impacts what this summer’s convention is going to debate, falls under Hemmingway’s observation about bankruptcy. How did it happen? Slow, then fast. I think the reality is that many congregations within the Synod have reached that “fast” part of the decline. And there are a variety of reasons. There are congregations on the great plains that are just the victims of their emptying out. What used to take 100 people to farm now takes 1. The town I grew up in at that time had a population of 6000. Today it is 3000. In more populated areas either you have congregations spaced before the advent of the car, or based on assumptions rooted in 1960s attendance and growth, we spaced congregations too close. And when those assumptions didn’t pan out, you’ve had undersized, undercapitalized and in competition with each other congregations for decades. All of that exacerbated by other changes, like the wholesale move of women into the workforce. Congregations that responded by hiring people to do what used to be done by volunteers benefited. Those that did not saw entire generations leave. And none of that incorporates all the one off church fights that blighted otherwise healthy congregations. And none of that even touches doctrinal rails or failures.

All of this reflects our Old Testament lesson this week too much for my comfort. You’d have to back up to the start of the chapter – Jeremiah 28. It takes place before the full exile, but the King of Judah and the temple artifacts – ark, candelabras, etc. – have been deported to Babylon. Jeremiah has been prophesying this – absent repentance, absent change – for more than 28 years. But Hananniah, a temple priest stands up and says he has a word from the LORD. The King and the temple vessels would be returned within two years and peace would be established, that Babylon would be broken. It reminds me of what many a Synod President has said over the years. That everything is fine. Everything will be fine. That nothing large needed to be done. Many congregations have heard that over the decades. Meanwhile Jeremiah hears Hananiah and responds. “Amen! May the LORD do so.” It is not that this wouldn’t be nice. But Jeremiah points everyone back to the authentic prophets that everyone accepts. Is it ever that easy? They all prophesied something like “rend your hearts, not your garments.” They all prophesied absent doing something hard, returning to the LORD your God, returning to you first love, “war, famine, pestilence.”

God works in a peculiar way his wonders to perform. He works by death and resurrection. He does a new thing, and the old thing often has to die for the new to come in. Whether that death is the death of the old Adam in ourselves that often stands in the way of the Kingdom, or that death is not just the loss of the temple artifacts, but the temple itself, it happens. But the Kingdom ours remains. Because the Kingdom is not of stones – even such great stones as the temple. The Kingdom is the living stones built on Christ. And God has placed that stone. It shall not be moved.

Family Troubles

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Biblical Text: Matthew 10:21-33 (34-35)

These lessons early in the “green season” are about discipleship expectations. And this one touches on something that effects many Christians today – the family is all over the place in regards to faith. Not long ago, within living memory of those who live in Christendom lands, being baptized and being a Christian were just assumed. And it was often a good assumption. And even if people might complain or worry about a living faith, you didn’t have the open opposition that these verses talk about. Today that is different. And the sermon addresses, there isn’t a family that isn’t torn like this. The text says this is the more likely reality. Because the kingdom advances by hearts and minds and souls. Household by household. Eternal stakes.

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The Man of Sorrows & The Sparrow

Jeremiah is a hard book and when I first looked at the lessons for this week I wondered what they were doing pairing this reading (Jeremiah 20:7-13) with the gospel lesson. But the pairing might not be as off as I first thought.

The first thing you should put in your memory is the context of Jeremiah. He is a prophet for forty or so years. And his message the entire time is essentially “you guys are doomed.” Jeremiah is the archetype for the “The End is Near” sandwich board guy ringing a bell. He’s the archetype, but with two primary differences. That guy to us is a character of mirth. The end never comes. The end most definitely was coming for Jerusalem. That comedic guy is not self-aware. He goes ringing that bell with the pure bliss of ignorance. Jeremiah is self-aware.

And that is where our lesson today starts, with one of the most heart rending verses of the entire bible. “O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day, everyone mocks me (Jeremiah 20:7).” Jeremiah has been preaching doom for 40 years, and it has not yet come. He has been shouting “violence and destruction” for decades, and the walls of Jerusalem still stand. Everyone wants him to just shut up to the point they would be willing to kill him. “Denounce him! Let us denounce him…and take our revenge on him! (Jermiah 20:10).” It’s the guy with the sandwich board who knows how everyone looks at him. And know that his message has no effect.

This burden is enough for Jeremiah that he attempts to put it down himself. “I will not mention him, or speak anymore in his name.” But the Word of the LORD, the prophetic calling is too powerful. “There is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot (Jeremiah 20:9).” The LORD is stronger and has prevailed. The Word finds its way. Yet the question I think lingers to anyone who reads it. How can God do such a thing? Is this really how God is, a divine tyrant making us the rump of jokes?

Jeremiah works his way to his answer. Those who laugh at him now will not have the last laugh. “The LORD is with me as a dread warrior; my persecutors will stumble, they will not overcome me.” He even manages to get in a bit of bragging. They are laughing at Jeremiah like sandwich board guy, but “They will be greatly shamed…Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten (Jeremiah 20:11).” And indeed it is not forgotten. 2600 years later the book of Jeremiah is still read. 2600 years later his message continues to resonate and spread the warning to those with ears. 2600 years later, those residents of Jerusalem standing on the precipice of destruction who would not hear, who looked to kill the prophet of the LORD are held up for derision, for blind eyes and stubborn hearts. Jeremiah’s ultimate answer is that the LORD “tests the righteous and sees the heart and mind.” That this LORD justifies all who commit their cause to Him (Jeremiah 20:12). And like all hard meditations, it ends with praise. “Sing to the LORD!”

Jesus himself is a fulfillment of Jeremiah – the man of sorrows. We put him to death in the most shameful way possible. But his cause was trusted to his Father who raised him from the dead. And we disciples are not above our teacher. We can expect these things. Cause part of our message is definitely “The End is near.” If not capital T capital E THE END, we all meet our end. “Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. (Matthew 10:28).” The LORD is not the tyrant we might fear, but one who shared the temporal shame. He is one who knows when every sparrow falls. And are you not worth more than a sparrow? Entrust your cause to the LORD.

Harassed and Helpless

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Biblical Text: Matthew 9:35-10:20

It is very rare you stumble across something in translation that I’d describe as uniquely terrible. Words don’t just mean one thing. They have a range of meaning from hyper-literal to extremely metaphorical. You could also label them formal to slang, and general to specific. Most translation issues are more like “I think the translators were a bit to formal and general. The word in its original context is more specific – say raven and not just bird – and more colloquial – say it happened instead of behold.” And the translators would rightly point at their degrees and expertise and tell me to shut up. And this is part of the reason people migrate to different English translations. If you look at about 5 version you can get a sense of the range (say KJV, ESV, NIV, NRSV, NLT) because each of those translation committees tended to have their sweet spots. But occasionally you find something like “affliction” is Matthew 9:35 in the ESV. The ESV tends to default where possible to the KJV. But the KJV goes with sickness. The NLT illness. The RSV with infirmity. And the point in getting this picky is that affliction is something that comes from outside. The word itself, which the RSV gets, is something that comes from the inside, some softness, some weakness, an infirmity. And so you have two type of A to Z phrases. Jesus heals every disease (outside) and every infirmity (inside). And you have the people being harassed (outside) and helpless (inner strength).

And the gospel is that Jesus heals all of these. The Devil and the World might harass. Our sinful flesh makes us helpless. Jesus heals.

The sermon develops that insight.

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(Not So) Ordinary Time

The church calendar and its divisions are not biblically mandated stuff. As the apostle says in Romans, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. (Rom. 14:5 ESV).” But I do think there is a reason that it was created rather early, that it perpetuated, and that it keeps coming back. Even Calvinist Presbyterians and Free Will Baptists tend to have Christmas and Holy Week these days. Which is basically how that calendar originally started. And then everything else fell into place around those “High Holy Days.”

And there is a fundamental division in that Calendar that we have gently passed. From Advent to Trinity the focus is on the life of Christ. And so our meditation tends to be about the 2^nd article of the creed. It is the proclamation of who God is and what he has done for us. But when you pass into the long green season, for us the season after Pentecost – others have called it the season after Trinity and still others “Ordinary Time” – it is more about the 3^rd article of the creed, what the Holy Spirit is doing. And that is calling, gathering, enlightening, sanctifying and keeping. That is the Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, the preparation for life everlasting. As so last week opened the season with the Call of Matthew the tax collector. The Holy Spirit calls sinners and only sinners. And the readings early will continue in that discipleship vein. How exactly does following Christ work?

And so reading Romans all summer and into fall – and that is what our lectionary does – creates a realistic problem. Summer is when we all check out, right? We’ve made it through the High Seasons, this is me time. When the livin’ is easy. And yet the calendar and assigned reading are serious stuff. We’ve received the call. What the heck does that mean for us…for me? Can’t we just kick back and let it be for a bit? It’s summer.

Most of Paul’s letters have an immediacy to them. He’s responding to some crisis in a baby congregation he founded. He writing to a young kid and the young leaders of congregations how to pastor and be a congregation of God’s people. He’s doing what we all can do, putting off the reflection and ordering of things, to react and respond to the squeaky wheel. And that wheel does need oiled. It will always need oiled. And then one day the question of why the heck am I doing this oiling of this stupid wheel at all sneaks up. Romans is Paul’s answer. Romans is an invitation to: why does this Jesus and church thing work? Why does it work for me?

And it simply starts out with a reflection on the law. Think about the law as simply “the way the world works.” And this is the trouble with that law. It works 95% of the time. If you follow it, your life will actually be better. The Taoist knows this, be water, conform yourself to the shape of the world. The living is much easier. But the problem is I don’t want to do that. I want to do what I want to do. Or the problem is the 5%. I have kept all these things since my youth, why is my life a complete mess? Paul the Jew asks, “What is the value of circumcision (the covenant marking of the Jew)?” Has God lied to me? Because exactly when I needed it to work – that 5% – it kills me. I can’t do it, or it doesn’t work. Something has gone wrong with creation because the good are punished and the evil prosper.

Why does this following Christ work? Why do I keep walking the discipleship way? Because the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law (Romans 3:23). The creation was subject to futility that it might be set free from its bondage to corruption (Romans 8:20). We are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us (Romans 8:37). The hope of the disciple is not this world, but the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Which are freely given to us by faith. Because God loves us

Stopping a Moral Panic

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Biblical Text: Matthew 9:9-13

We live in a world that attempts to start moral cascades or moral panics all the time. The sermon hopefully demonstrates that and how they have sped up with social media. What the text does is both expose that this mechanism of the world has always been with us. And then it shows us what stops them. Or maybe if not stops them, it shows us how the gospel addresses them. Jesus turns their logic inside out. First, because the logic of a moral panic is the logic of contagion. We think we can stay righteous by excluding “sinners.” The gospel is only for sinners. Jesus came not for the righteous, but for sinners. Which we all are. The second way that Jesus and the gospel flips the world’s logic is that it is not the contagion that spread, but the healing. Christ eats with tax collectors and sinners. In Christ we have nothing to fear from the world. We are called like Matthew to follow Christ which is a dramatic change. But the gospel sends us out to offer the balm – the blood of Christ.

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Opening Romans

We are going to be reading from the book of Romans for most of the Summer and all the way into the fall. So we will be taking it up closely in the Sunday morning Bible Study after service. Technically we started last week and it will take a couple of weeks to catch up with he lectionary readings. I’d invite you to join us.

Most of Paul’s letters are written either to congregations that he has founded on his journeys, or they are written to his travelling companions like Timothy and Titus. After Paul himself would get chased out of one place, Timothy and Titus would often stay behind to wrap up necessary things, or if not stay behind they would be sent back to take care of anything lacking. That is why the letters to them are often called the pastoral letters, because they are about how that office should be carried out. First by Timothy and Titus and then by those whom they appoint. The letter to the Romans is different. Paul did not found the church at Rome. In fact is it often put forward that the Letter to the Romans is a fundraising letter. Paul intends to go on a missionary journey to Spain (Romans 15:24) and he hopes to stop by Rome on his way. Romans 1:8-15 is Paul’s introductory pitch for missionary support.

I’m being slightly tongue in cheek there. First because everyone in the Christian world would have heard of Paul. His collected letters were already being read in the churches. Nevertheless Paul butters up his potential backers. “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world (Romans 1:8).” It is always flattering to have the guy who is known throughout the world tell you that you are. And he continues that “without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers (Romans 1:10).” And then adds that “I may impart some spiritual gift to strengthen you.” It is not every day that an apostle visits, even the church at Rome. And it is surely true that as Paul says, “I have often intended to come to you.” All roads lead to Rome and everyone surely hoped to see the Imperial City some day. Just like I assume everyone hopes to see New York City.

And it is here that there is a great question. Did Paul make this trip? We know Paul made one trip to Rome at the end of Acts, under guard as part of his appeal to Caesar. Acts ends saying Paul “lived there two whole years…proclaiming the Kingdom…and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ…without hinderance (Acts 28:30).” We know that Paul was martyred in Rome either in 64 AD by Nero after the fire, or in 68 AD. It is one or the other. There is scattered evidence of an actual trip to Spain, but nothing biblical beyond his remarks in this letter. In the Theology of Acts, the gospel made it to Rome, and in making it to Rome, the gospel had made it to the ends of the earth. There was no reason in that book to narrate either further missionary journeys or the death of the apostle. The gospel has made it from Jerusalem to the ends.

If Paul was following his normal routine, the people that sponsored his missionary trip are where he would return. You could imagine Paul being released, making that trip to Spain and returning to Rome. Which is unprovable but helps to hear “in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles (Romans 1:13).” I Paul might not have founded this church, but I think I can help you, and I know that you can help me, by taking a collection for a mission trip to Spain.

And what every missionary ever seeking financial support does is spell out exactly what they will be preaching. This is how your funds shall be put to good use. “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “the righteous shall live by faith (Romans 1:16-17).” Paul, the apostle, proclaims the gospel he always has. The free gift by faith.

One Eternal Christ; For You

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Sermon Texts: Athanasian Creed, Matthew 28:20, Genesis 1:1-2:4

The Sunday is Trinity Sunday, so the Athanasian Creed is a fixture. We say it responsively, and the congregational response isn’t clear enough, so I’m sorry it isn’t on the recording. Although we had a new reader this morning who did a very good job with a very long reading in that Old Testament lesson.

So, the seed idea for this Sermon comes Professor Richard Beck. He is a prof at Abilene Christian, and I’ve been reading him for what seems like forever. I’d say that all his books are on my shelf, but most of them are in my Kindle along with all the underlines (145 over 4 books, the ones in the physical books I don’t have a count on.). Now we diverge in quite significant ways. He I think would still call himself a Progressive Christian, while I’m a confessional Lutheran. The difference is that most people who would use that label do so to avoid thinking. Dr. Beck is the opposite. You occasionally find these people who are close enough to you that you can think along with them fruitfully, but they are different enough to be challenging. That has been Dr. Beck to me. Anyway, in his most recent book – The Book of Love – he starts out with a couple of very powerful ideas.

The first you find embedded in the first part of this sermon that rests on the Old Testament lesson. The devil, the world and our sinful nature present us with an ontology of death. Life is the temporary accident. The Bible is the book of an ontology of life. Death is the temporary thing. Because in the beginning God is. And in the end, God is. That is the point of the first part of the Athanasian Creed. Father, Son and Holy Spirit eternal and coequal.

The second idea from Dr. Beck is that God – best seen in Jesus Christ – is for us. You can’t lose His love. The second part of the Athanasian creed presents this to us. So that by the time we get to those end statements on the judgement, we already know that the judge is in our corner. Which means we are free to go embrace and ontology and a teleology of life. We can go live it. Because God is for us.

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