Family Troubles

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

061426 Sermon Download

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

(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

060726 Sermon Download

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

053126 sermon Download

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Axiom not Analogy

You either loved geometry or you hated it. We all learned Euclidean geometry which has five axioms. And yes, I’m hurting people’s heads, sorry, I promise this goes somewhere on a Trinity Sunday. An Axiom is just something that is or at least is taken as something that is. In Euclidean geometry the famous axiom is that parallel lines never cross. Or at least that is the simple rendering of it. And then you learn a bit about non-Euclidean geometry, usually polar. Because lines of longitude are parallel, but they meet at the poles. Euclidean geometry you could say is a limit case. It holds in the common sense human scale, but if you get really big or really small that axiom breaks. It is not a universal one. Parallel lines can cross. And all the rest of Euclidean geometry is built on the foundation stones of those axioms.

Many Trinity Sunday attempts are attempts at analogy. You know them all I’m sure: St. Patrick’s clover, The Sun (which is actually perfectly Arian), the apple (which has its own CPH book that I remember loving as a kid, and so is probably the seed of my bad theology). These are all attempts at an analogy for the Trinity itself. And they are all ultimately failures. Because the Trinity is not something you can explain. It is. If you could explain it, it would not be God. Which is more the point of my analogy with geometry. The Trinity is an axiom. Now the biggest difference between Euclid’s axioms and The Trinity is that Euclid’s were asserted from nature. You could look at the world and understand that parallel lines don’t cross. Or the first one, given two points there is a straight line that connects them. These are known by observation. The Trinity is known by revelation. The God who is revealed himself to be this way.

Now this revelation in the history of the Bible was progressive. The Patriarch’s knew God simply as God Almighty (Genesis 17:1). Moses receives “the name” – often rendered Yahweh – which the Hebrews refused to pronounce and wrote in LORD. Your bibles will have LORD all capitalized when that name appears. (Exodus 6:3). Then Jesus talks about Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Now we would say that Father, Son and Spirit with the gift of hindsight make clear appearances in the Old Testament. For example Genesis 1:1-2 with God and the Spirit of God. Or the three men who visit Abraham (Genesis 18). The LORD is a name of the unity of the Godhead. The persons become known through interaction and revelation. Jesus came to reveal the Father (John 1:8, John 14:9, Matthew 11:27). The Holy Spirit testifies to the Son (John 15:26). And it is this revelation of Jesus that is the cornerstone planted. Christ himself is the foundation that everything is built on. If Christ is not raised from the dead, our faith is in vain. If this axiom does not hold, the entire edifice might be pretty like Euclidean geometry, but not eternally true, only locally true. And if God is only locally true, then He isn’t God.

And this is what the Athanasian Creed does so well for me. It is simply the best statement of what is. “The Catholic Faith is this…”. The creeds are the axioms of the faith. If you proved one of them wrong, the entire edifice falls. If you prove something in them wrong, you have proved Christ a liar. And CS Lewis’ trilemma – Liar, Lunatic or LORD – kicks in. It’s a good thing people have been trying to disprove them for 1800 years. They have been rejected – there are always people who will say “this is a hard teaching, who can accept it (John 6:60).” – but disproven? No. “This is the Catholic Faith, whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.” The creeds are not analogies or proofs. The creeds are proclamations. This is God. This is The Faith. They are to be believed as foundations for eternal life.

God in a Box

052426 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Numbers 11:24-30, Acts 2:1-21, Pentecost

The Holy Day was Pentecost – hence the red and the Holy Spirit. Both Pentecost and the Holy Spirit are parts of more staid Protestantism that tend to get forgotten or played down. And I think they tend that way for what this sermon attempts to address. What we really want is God in a Box. Whether that is because we would like personally a God who does what we want, or whether we are protecting God’s reputation from losers and unsavory acts, we can find ourselves like Joshua telling God to “stop it.” The problem there is that the Holy Spirit does what He wants when He wants. And if your theology can’t handle that, as the kids say, it’s not going to make it. The flip side of that is faith, that God loves you, and if this is how the Spirit is acting it must be for your eternal good.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Pentecostal Fire

Pentecost is the forgotten major Christian Holy Day. Like the Holy Spirit is the forgotten person of the Trinity. At least in respectable churches. Let the snake handlers and tongue-speakers have the Spirit. Ok, I’ll drop the joking around.

The Jewish religious calendar had three High Festivals on which all true Jews were supposed to sojourn to the temple: Passover, Pentecost and Sukkot. You know what Passover was, the exit from Egypt. Sukkot was a harvest festival. And like all harvest festivals it looked backwards in thanks for bringing us to this place while looking forward to some better final fulfillment, the last harvest. But what was Pentecost? It was the remembrance of Israel at the foot of Sinai receiving the law. It was the cutting of the covenant of Moses.

Passover fulfillment is rather easy. Jesus is our Passover lamb, and in his resurrection the angel of death passes over us. Sukkot doesn’t have a completed fulfillment. That would happen when Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead. But I often think about All Saints’ Day as a Christian Sukkot. We give thanks for those who came before and where we are. And we look forward to that uncountable number. Pentecost’s fulfillment is ongoing.

Unlike the law of Moses which was a static thing. It was written on stone tablets. It stood outside us as a word. We can read it and understand it and pledge allegiance to it…and then immediately go break it. We can twist it to say what we want it to say. We are all expert lawyers looking for the loopholes. Unlike that static law of Moses, the Christian Pentecost is God’s living covenant with us. It is not outside of us, but resident in our hearts. It is not a word directed at us, but the word of God spoken by us at the right time. It is not the proclamation of what we should do, but what God has done for us. Pentecost is when the things that separate us, primarily sins, are broken down and overcome. The curse of Babel is undone in the working of God. Because God is no longer casting out and spreading abroad but calling all his own to him.

As a living covenant it is one that we can’t control. The Holy Spirit blows when and where and how He wills. Maybe in one time and place and age by Bach and Byrd and Gregorian Chant. And maybe in another by snake handling and tongues. And in yet others by something not yet seen our understood which we can scarcely imagine. This is probably why Pentecost tends to be forgotten. There is nothing scary about a baby placed by his mother in a manger. And Easter is pure joy and triumph. But Pentecost? Pentecost is a walk into the unknown. Young men see visions and old men dream dreams. Male and female alike prophesy. Moons turn to blood. All of which are visual codes for when God shows up, and acts, and changes hearts. Maybe changes our heart. And that can be scary. What does a living God ask of us?

The short answer is love. But that love is rarely our definition. That love is the cross. That love is a fire that burns yet does not consume. At least not the eternal things, even if it might burn away the dross of this mortal frame.