Good Omens

Biblical Text: Job 38:4-18

There are two amazing things about Job. The first one is that it unapologetically holds that God owes us nothing. You can go so far as to hold with Job himself, “the LORD gives and the LORD takes, blessed be the name of the LORD.” If it comes from God, we owe him praise, whatever it is. The second amazing thing is that God allows himself to be called as a witness. He is not mute in his glory. This sermon is a pondering of a God who offers a justification for himself without ever abandoning the fact that He owes us nothing.

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3 AM

Just when you think the bible is giving you shallow travel directions it opens up a deep picture. The Gospel reading this week (Matthew 14:22-33) starts with those travel directions. The crowds have been fed, but as the disciples had remarked earlier, it is late in the day. Even later after 5000 have eaten. And Jesus knows what the crowds want to do – make him king. So, “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side.” And, “after he dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself.” How exactly does Jesus dismiss the crowd that wants to make him King? We don’t know. Why does he force the disciples into the boat? Maybe because they would have been just as much caught up in making him king, but we don’t know. But if we stop to ponder the scene, it is quite a view of the Christian life.

First, Jesus has sent us out at night onto the chaos of the waters. And somehow this is for our good. Even though we might end up “a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, and the wind was against them, in the fourth watch of the night.” That fourth watch is the metaphorical 3 AM. If you are a horror fan, you know everything bad happens at 3 AM. If you are a worrier or an insomniac, and you are up at 3 AM, it has not been a good day or night and neither will the fast approaching day be good. We know what this feels like. It is dark and we are exhausted and all the creepies come out. Why did you send me to this place alone?

But the second part is the recognition that we are never really alone. Jesus on the mountain top – with apparently Moses’ 120 year old eagle eyes – has them on his disciples. Mark’s gospel is explicit, “he saw they were making headway painfully (Mark 6:48).” The eyes of God are always upon those he loves. And his compassion – his guts being churned – are not just for the crowds. “In the fourth watch of the night he came to them walking on the sea.” The chaos and darkness of the sea have no power over this one. He walks on them. What are our reactions when God acts?

The first one, “they were terrified and said ‘it is a ghost!’” We expect the bad. We expect the creepies that have come out to finish us off. This is what the world does; it finishes off the weak and exhausted. Of course lurking in the background there is that saying it is a ghost is easier than saying “our deliverance has come.” Because if what comes to us at 3 AM is God, that comes with demands, with strings attached. Not the least being that he has witnessed our state. Jesus answers all this with the affirmative, “Take heart; It is I.” And yes, our translators wimp out. “Take Heart, I AM.” The Almighty has been watching and has come for you.

The second one, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Ok God, I’m not sure about this, so tell me to get out of this perfectly good boat you placed me in, and walk by myself over the chaos to you. Yeah, we don’t think too good at 3 AM. But Jesus goes with it, maybe for the same reason he sent them in the first place. Of course we were not meant to be on the waters outside of the boat. And that is not because we can’t. Peter does manage it for a couple of steps. But then we always “see the wind” and the fear returns.

So what does Jesus do? Grabs Peter, puts him back in the boat, and joins the rest, who all then worship him. We are meant to be in the boat (please see the church). We are meant to be with each other. And yes the boat is sent out on rough seas, but God sees it. And Christ comes and is with us and the winds cease. When we see God at 3 AM, we know. He has not sent us out alone, and He Is.

Abundance

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Biblical Text: Matthew 14:13-21

Do we go out to the desert anymore? I don’t think so. I think we do everything in our power to avoid time in the desert. Of course we just end up in a desert of distraction then. That’s part of the meditation on the familiar passage of the feeding of the 5000. This sermon is a meditation on the abundance that God provides and the ways in which He provides it. It looks at three images from the scene: the location, the rarely provided inner thoughts of Jesus, and the provision of abundance.

I’ve learned over the years that trying to grade sermons is impossible. Oh, you can grade them as pieces of rhetoric, but then they aren’t just pieces of rhetoric. Your worst sermon I guarantee is the one someone walked out with their lives changed. It isn’t you. Whatever scraps you brought the Spirit worked. I’ve come to two ways of thinking about grading. The first is preaching intent crossed with baseball. The every Sunday preacher has a variety of things they have to do. Not everything is going to be a homerun. Sometimes you climb into the pulpit with the intention of a single, of moving along the runners. (This is usually a teaching sermon.) Some weeks the text is obscure enough that getting a walk is good. And some weeks you better get that extra-base hit. Of course, like in baseball, unless you are Barry Bonds on PED’s, you might not get on base. And the reception in the congregation is probably everything from HR to K. The second thing is always did you find the core of emotion in the text. If you didn’t the best you’ve got is a walk. I say all that merely to say, I liked this one. I think it is workman-like as a piece of rhetoric. There is only one phrase that feels more than average and even then it is probably one of those darlings that you are supposed to kill. But as a sermon, it touches the bases.

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Bread in the Wilderness

The Introit for this Sunday comes from Psalm 105. Specifically verses 39-43 with verse 1 as the antiphon. (What is an antiphon I hear someone ask? Think of it as the chorus. After every verse detailing the works of God you could sing: “Oh give thanks to the Lord; Call upon His name/make known his deeds among the peoples.”) The fullness of the Psalm is a remembrance of the history of the covenant, the promises of God, and those deeds starting with Abraham and culminating in the Exodus. The specific time the verses of the Introit are recalling is Israel’s days and years in the wilderness.

Why would we be recalling that? The wilderness, or the desert, is the place to do two things. In the worldly sense, rebels and renegades gathered in the wilderness. If you are gathering an army to overthrow the current ruler, you went into the wilderness. The other thing you went into the wilderness to do is draw near to God. In the absence of the delights of the World, the hope was connection to God. Why did God lead Israel into the wilderness after the Exodus? In the hopes that they would draw near to Him. Of course if we remember that physical Israel, they longed for the meat and fullness of Egypt, and they gathered in rebellion against the God who brought them out of Egypt. It would be Jesus who would go out into the wilderness and turn down the temptations of the devil and the world.

The Psalmist remembers the Works of God in the wilderness as three things. First, God draws near to his people – “a cloud for a covering, and fire to give light by night.” This is the fire-y cloudy pillar that would see Israel all their journey through. After drawing near, God provided abundant sustenance, bread from heaven and water from the Rock. And the last work is that God remembered his promises. While Israel would still be rebels in the wilderness, even while God drew near, He remembered his promises and provided in abundance.

So why would we remember this let alone sing about it or make these deeds known among the peoples? The first reason is that God again drew near, but this time not as fire and cloud, but as man, as Israel reduced to one. And when Jesus went to the desert, this Israel was faithful. When tempted to make bread from the stones, he pointed at the true bread – the Word of God (Matthew 4:4). And He came to give us this true bread, himself. God drew near to us with his abundance.

The second reason is how we might recognize this life. We are like Israel in the desert. We know where we have been. We vaguely know where we are going. And we know who leads us. We walk though this world to learn that God draws near to us, and to learn how God gives us bread in abundance and water in the desert. We walk through this world to learn that God remembers and keeps his promises.

The question to us is do we follow? Or do we go back to Egypt; do we prefer rebellion? Does the bread of heaven satisfy, or do we long for what the world would offer?

Treasures Old and New

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Biblical Text: Matthew 13:44-52

Recording Note: This recording is done after the fact. Our equipment glitched on us this morning.

This sermon is the completion of Jesus’ Parable sermon. It is a string of parables of the Kingdom. And I think we often miss the gospel in these. The way we immediately try and understanding them betrays the “Yes” that the disciples give to Jesus when he asks if they understand. Because we almost always take ourselves as the main character, when the main character is God. This sermon attempts to preach the good news of that before how it relates to the Christian Life.

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One Thing’s Needful

I probably have to issue an apology for the hymn chosen as the office hymn. It has a tricky rhythm change. And I can’t even really blame it on modernity. It is just my observation that modern hymns – and by modern I mean anything written after roughly 1960 – often fail not because they aren’t good in a doctrinal sense, but because you can’t sing them. They are set too high, they have large gaps in the melody or they use complex rhythms; all of which just mean they are meant for soloists or trained singers, not congregational singing which is supposed to include everyone. But “One Thing’s Needful” (LSB 536) is from a text in the 17^th century, translated in the 19^th century, paired with a tune from the 17^th. The Companion to the hymnal observes, “the unusual metrical structure of the text is representative of the more soloistic style of hymns found at the end of the 17^th century.” So these things go in and out of style. We are not alone.

So, why am I afflicting you with this hymn? I’d like you to ponder the juxtaposition of the first verse of the two rhythm parts. The flowing 4/4 time is serene and restful and presents a doctrinal truth. “One thing’s needful; Lord this treasure teach me highly to regard/All else though it first give pleasure is a yoke that presses hard.” The truth it communicates is something that most Christians would assent to mentally almost immediately. Christ is our only true need. We don’t acknowledge this enough. Instead our hearts chase other gods. All of them turn out to eat us alive, to place us under heavy yokes. And in our serene space of contemplation this is all very easy to accept.

But then the rhythm changes to 3/4 with its driving “bum-bum-bum, bum-bum-bum.” Gone is the serene time of contemplation. We are in the very midst of life. “Beneath it the heart is still fretting and striving/No true lasting happiness ever deriving/this one thing is needful all others are vain/I count all but loss that I Christ man obtain.” Whatever our head says in contemplation, the heart often desires other things. The heart, part of this flesh which Paul has been pondering in our Epistle lessons, has a problem with sin. It is constantly fretting and striving. Oh, I might lose this, including my life. No, I’m going to claim that and get it, I don’t care who I have to kill to do it. And we are driven along “bum-bum-bum” by things we do not know or even stop to ponder.

Our only help in that midst of life is often the “Jesus Take the Wheel” prayer. Jesus, I know there is no happiness in this way. I know that I need you. Save me. And then the hymn returns us to that moment of contemplation. Our frantic prayers are turned into communion with God or the consolation of the Spirit. And in those moments we start to learn the basics of wisdom. “Wisdom’s highest, noblest treasure, Jesus, is revealed in you/Let me find in you my pleasure, and my wayward will subdue.” I know this, teach me your way so that I might follow it all my days.

All our days we are thrown back and forth. Luther called the Christian life: “Prayer, Meditation and Trial.” (He of course used Latin – oratio, meditation, tentatio – snob.) And like Luther’s last recorded words, “We are all beggars”, we end in the trial of death. Our hope is completely outside of us. “Through all my life’s pilgrimage, guard and uphold me, in loving forgiveness O Jesus enfold me.” And we only find our rest in faith that “this one thing is needful, all others are vain, I count all but loss that I Christ may obtain.”

I’ve included it because I think it is a masterful work in both word and song of this current life and our one hope in the midst of it. (If you do not have a hymnal at home, this particular hymn can be seen online here: https://hymnary.org/hymn/LSB2006/536 )

Hope Amid the Weeds

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Biblical Text: Matthew 13:24-45

The gospel lesson continues the parable sermon of Jesus, the 3rd of 5 sermons that make up the Gospel of Matthew. The parable is often called: the wheat and the tares. I remember it by a line from a hymn – the wheat and weeds together sown/unto joy or sorrow grown. It is a hard teaching parable, as may or may not be apparent from that hymn line.

The background summary that I’ve taken in my sermons on the parables is that these are some of the deeper teachings that would be taught to newbies in the faith. The sermon on the mount is rather straightforward first teaching. The missionary discourse (Matthew 10) is a presentation of how the Word comes to us from outside of us and how the call to discipleship is not all sunshine and roses. But then Jesus turns to parables for what are harder questions. Why are the reactions to hearing the word all over the place? (The Parable of the Sower and the Soils). And the biggie of the Wheat and Weeds – Why is their evil in the world?

And the answer of the parable isn’t the most satisfying, but it is an answer. While that might be the question that the parable is an answer to, the parable wants to turn our attention to something better. Yes, there is evil. Yes, we live amid weeds. But there will be a harvest. The weeds do not stop the wheat from being fruitful. And polished by the parables sandwiched between the parable and explanation, that eternal hope is not all we have. The Kingdom is working now, like a mustard seed, or like leaven. The devil sowed his weeds, but the kingdom has its own trickery that overgrows those. And that is Hope. The eternal Hope seeps and grows into this life. And Hope does not disappoint us.

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Hype Man

Who is like me? Let him proclaim it! – Isaiah 44:6

I joke with a couple of buddies that I must be losing brain cells, that or just starting to see things I was too uptight to recognize before. I was never a Wrestling fan in my younger years. I was a “real” athlete and looked down on the show. One thing in particular always annoyed me. All my coaches were hard guys. You don’t find their type anymore. But they were all the type to quote Bear Bryant, “if you score a touchdown, act like you’ve been there before.” It was not that they were not emotional or stunted as the cliché would have it. The teaching was use that emotion to power something that helps, like running over the linebacker, not the cheap release of the touchdown dance or bat flip. The one particular thing that annoyed me about wrestling was “thy hype man.” That’s the guy who comes in with the guy holding up the belt. He’s the guy who is “talking smack” about what the champ is going to do to the poor guy in the ring with him. He’s the guy (kinda like me) who likes to hear his own voice and if that is in service of some semi-literate brute, that’s fine. It pays, and the brute can back it up. If he can’t, you find a new brute.

In the middle of Isaiah you find the passage where God is his own hype man. “Thus says THE LORD…The King of Israel…and his Redeemer…the LORD of hosts.” You can hear the cadence. The hype man reeling off the titles and the glory. Oh, you think you are getting into the ring? Do you know who you are getting into the ring with?

“I am the first…and the last…besides me…there is no God.” I pity you. You think that stone thing can compete with me? You think whatever idol you’ve made can stand in my presence. You better look again.

“Who is like me? Let him proclaim it!” This is so lopsided you can’t even find a hype man to join you. There is no one like me and there never will be one like me. And you know it. Everybody knows it.

“Since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come and what will happen.” I was before you and will be after you. I was so before you I don’t just have a hype man, I have a hype nation. They have a long history with me. They know what is coming. Hype nation, let them know. I’m taking a break, you let them know for a bit.

“Fear not, nor be afraid, have I not told you from of old? You are my witnesses!” Oh I’m not giving up the mike. But can I get a witness. I need an Amen! My corner men need to tell you how nobody has ever touched me. Hype nation, sing my praises. Let me hear you!

“Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” Not even The Rock is going to be your rock. There is only me. There is only one sure bet. And you are hearing The WORD!

I’m not sure how God as hype-man maps onto salvation history. It isn’t one of the metaphors or types that get emphasized in seminary. But maybe we need to hear hype nation occasionally. This guy has been in the ring since the dawn of history. The Jews can witness. And nobody has knocked him off yet. Satan thought he had his moment on a hill far away. And then – bam! – nothing could hold Him. The body wasn’t even cold when he reclaimed those belts.

A Sower went out to Sow

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Biblical Text: Matthew 13:1-23

The text is the Parable of the Sower and the Soils. You probably know it. To me the two poles of any sermon are proclamation and catechesis. Proclamation is proclaiming something true for you like: Jesus died and rose for you. The rhetoric of proclamation calls forth faith because it is primarily asserted to be true instead of proven. Catechesis is teaching. That is where the faith itself is explained, defended and given examples. Typically proclamation is received as more dynamic while catechesis can be the boring exposition in a movie. You need to know it for the action to make sense, but at least in movies good directors show it; they don’t tell it. Although in preaching there has to be a balance, at least for the every Sunday preacher. This sermon tips a little further to the catechetical than I typically do. And I think that is justified by the purpose of the parables themselves according to Jesus. They are invitations to deeper knowledge and understanding of the kingdom for those who have ears to hear. The sermon ends on the note of proclamation – that you, in your hearing, are those who have been given the secrets of the Kingdom.

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Like the Rain

Our Old Testament Lesson this week comes from Isaiah 55 which happens to be one of the most fascinating chapters in the bible. Not because it is part of the grand-narrative (what we are studying on Wednesday). But because of what it reveals about God and the metaphors it uses.

The first metaphor is one of commerce, but it is unlike any commerce we are familiar with. I sometimes joke that God operates in the Star Trek economy. If you are a Trekkie you know what I am talking about. The replicators, magical devices that turn energy into any matter that you want, have eliminated cash, physical exchange and in general any physical lack. God declares in Isaiah 55:1, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” The Kingdom in its fullness runs like the Star Trek economy.

But it then moves from such physical goods as wine and milk to a deeper question. “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Isa. 55:2)” Now there is always the reply “ain’t no rest for the wicked…I’ve got bills to pay and I’ve got mouths to feed.” But even the man struggling with the necessities in the fallen world doesn’t do these things simply because they are bread. He does these out of love, duty, pity and number of much deeper things. What God is offering in the Kingdom is the solid reason. “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live (Isa. 55:2-3)” The real bread is the bread of life. With this bread your soul – your self – lives. And this bread comes first through the ear.

And what is this bread? Like the cynical Samaritan woman at the well when Jesus starts to talk of the living water, “Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t have to return to this stinking well (John 4:15),” we might not have caught the change in the metaphor. This body is fed with water and bread. The soul has it’s water and bread, but that is something much different. The soul’s bread are the promises of God. “I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. (Isa. 55:3).” And Isaiah traces that promise as not just to the people of Israel, but that covenant with David is a covenant with all the peoples (Isaiah 55:4-5). “A nation that did not know you shall run to you.”

Yet this promise, this day of Grace, is not something that lasts forever. “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near (Isa. 55:6 ESV).” Today, as you read this, is a day of grace. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (Isa. 55:7).” Why is it this way? We wouldn’t pardon enemies that had rebelled against us, why does God? And if we were to do it, we’d be indiscriminate, universal. If God works in the Start Trek economy, why is there a time limit? “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD (Isa. 55:8).” Not a completely satisfying answer, but consistent and true. “What is the pot to speak back to the potter? (Romans 9:20). Who is this who darkens my council without understanding (Job 38:2). The secret things of God remain his forever (Deuteronomy 29:29).” But this he has revealed to us. Today is the day of His Grace.

How does this bread come to our souls? Here the prophet switches metaphors from commerce to weather. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isa. 55:10-11).” The word of God is like the rain shower.

Living in New York, it rained quite a bit. It was a wet climate. The next shower was never more than a day or two away. We took it for granted. Living in the desert, it’s been a month, maybe two. We don’t know when. We don’t know how. We don’t control it. We only know it when it happens. The entire place longs for that monsoon that drenches everything. And it is that rain that brings forth the ending promise. “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off (Isa. 55:12-13).”

Peace and joy and fruitfulness depend upon that rain. And you know it when you hear it. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Today is the day of grace.