Fire, Baptism, Peace and Division

Text: Luke 12:49-53
Full Sermon Draft

You don’t get much more raw than this text. This is the Jesus that tends to get submerged. This is the Jesus of a sign of contradiction (Luke 2:34, Acts 28:22). So much of Christianity and church has been scrubbed and sanitized, domesticated and made safe…and then you read passages like this. And if you are going to be apostolic and orthodox, you have to make room for them. You have to talk about fire and division. And you have to see them as good news, because it is passages like this that are at the core of the Christian proclamation. Repent, for the Kingdom of God is here. Settle before you are thrown in debtors prison until the last penny. (Luke 12:58ff)

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The Apostle & The Gospel (or the false Gospel of ‘Christ and’)

Biblical Text: Galatians 1:1-12
Full Sermon Draft

This week was the 2nd week after Pentecost otherwise known as the first week of ordinary time or the first of many Sundays with green altar cloths. The lectionary during these times is something called a lectio continua or a continuous reading of two books. The gospel reading, which is normally the sermon text is from Luke this year. But for the next six weeks we are reading Galatians from the pulpit for the Epistle lesson. I’ll be preaching through Galatians for that time. This sermon starts that series.

In my reading of Galatians there are three main themes. Those themes are being an Apostle, the Gospel of grace and our delivery from this present evil age. Paul’s opening words, Gal 1:1-5, touch on all three.

What this sermon concentrates on is “Christ and…”. The devil is always trying to pervert the Gospel by sneaking in one small word, and. Galatians is all about pushing back on the and, in all possible ways. Pushing back such that it is clear that “there is no other gospel other than Christ alone”. False teachers may come and trouble the church, but the sure answer is always the apostolic word which is nothing less than the Word of God.

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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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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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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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Passion Absurdities

Text: Luke 19:28-48, Luke 23:1-25
Full Sermon Draft

The sermon is somewhat pointillist. There is one theme, the absurdities in the Palm Sunday and Trial before Pilate sections of the Gospel according to Luke; and how those same absurdities play in our day. That choice of structure seemed fitting. Luke tells a story full of irony and absurd details. The modern world is the one that ceased making sense captured as the arts turned from form and beauty to abstraction and shock.

But of course the over-riding absurdity of the Palms and Passion is why did He do it? For a bunch of inconsequential dust. For creatures that strut about in stubborn defiance and invincible ignorance. Christ took to the cross to redeem all the absurdity. To redeem our absurdity.

And to compound it, he left us as His ambassadors. He gave us a roll to play. The only question is if we know the things that make for peace.

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Taking Stock of the Gift of the Vineyard

Biblical Text: Luke 20:9-19 (Hebrews 6:4-6)
Full Sermon Draft

There are some passages of scripture that are so resonate in the original time frame you wonder exactly how they apply to the people of God. The parable of the vineyard is one of those. The text itself even points at its being told against the Pharisees, Scribes the and the Priests. The entire parable also seems to be a synopsis of salvation history. How do Christians of today legitimately read and apply this parable? Is it possible or is it just something of historical interest?

I don’t think this is only of historical interest. If it was, why would it have made holy scripture? That is what Josephus and Eusebius are for. What this sermon does is take to core problem of the law in the parable and apply it to Christians today. The core problem in the parable is the unwillingness of the farmers, those who maintain the vineyard, to take the Word of the prophets and eventually the Son seriously.

There is a difference between the original farmers and the new ones. The original farmers leased the vineyard. They were bound by the law (a contract). But when the son came and died, and the vineyard was cleansed of the murderers, the new farmers were “given” the vineyard. Our place in the kingdom is not longer by a legal arrangement, but now it is by grace.

We are still sent the word. In the preaching and teaching of the church, in the scriptures, in the sacraments. In the parable words, we are still sent prophets. We are still expected to produce fruit. Not by contract law, but free offering. But the problem is that we neglect and abuse those prophets (word and sacrament) to the point that we might even kill the son. That is where the Hebrews verse comes in. I think to legitimately apply the parable today we are dealing with the 3rd commandment and Luther’s explanation. Do we gladly receive preaching and the word, or do we despise it and avoid it? For someone in the vineyard, the second is a very dangerous choice.

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Both Get Asked the Same Question

Text: Luke 15:1-3,11-32
Full Sermon Draft

The text is the prodigal son. Actually the entire 15th Chapter of Luke should be taken together, but the assigned text was just the last of three parables. I struggled this week to find the clarity. Part of that I think was that pastors, especially those who are trying to be orthodox, feel something different from this parable.

The orthodox preacher teaches law and gospel. Both of them have their place. The church since the reformation has been about a specific viewpoint on the gospel. And that viewpoint is neatly captured by the prodigal or by the hymn amazing grace. I once was lost by now am found. The focal point is all on the individual and the God they are being reconciled to. Now what gets taken for granted in that reformation mentality is the whole. The prodigal is reconciled to the family of God. The prodigal is restored to the church. But let’s call it the reformation on steroids, TROS eventually loses the church. What we have is a whole lot of people in churches of one. They have achieved a state they think of as wholeness between them and their god. And then the church attempting to shepherd that person in holiness points out that the law is how God intended things to be. But in TROS the reply is “that’s not my God” or “God didn’t mean that” or some such answer. And the communicant in this church of one, if the true church persists, starts shouting things like Pharisee, or unloving older brother. You just need to accept me, because god has.

That is a completely different order than what the prodigal did. The prodigal may have thought he was returning but keeping his “freedom” – “make me a hired man”. That prodigal at the state wanted to enjoy the benefits of the family while still keeping his little shack just outside and rejecting those parts of the family he didn’t like. But by the time he has arose (a loaded term) and walked the path back and felt the compassion of the father in his embrace that demand or caveat on the repentance is gone. The prodigal submits himself completely to the household.

The question that both sons get asked is this: do you trust the Father’s judgment and ways? Older sons must accept the repentance of prodigals because God has. God works on repentance and absolution. Neither of those does away with the law. What they do is demonstrate that we have all fallen short. But prodigals, those being restored to the whole have to submit to that household. It is not Pharisaical for the church to point out that partial repentance is no repentance at all. In fact that is called Shepherding. (Ezek 33:8-11)

God is about restoring his people, restoring a whole. But we do not define that whole. All we can do is exclude ourselves from it. Do we accept the grace of the Father to be part of his family, or do we stand outside. We can stand outside in a far country. We can stand outside within the walls demanding our way. Both are forms of slavery to our sin. Only in submission and repentance do we find freedom. Do you truth the Father’s ways best revealed in Christ and the cross? The decision is life or death.

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History and Divine Necessity

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Biblical Text: Luke 13:22-35
Full Sermon Draft

A lot of people these days claim “history” on their side. We are urged to “be on the right side of history”. I’m convinced this is actually derived from a Martin Luther King quote.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

I first heard this quote modified about 15 years ago to drop the moral universe and replace it with history (Here is an example of that substitution). In fact I was surprised (and delighted) when I looked up the actual quote and its context to find moral universe. When you look at the context, which this sermon does, King’s moral universe is very defined. Where history, especially when it is claimed as a moral imperative, is always relative to the speaker, a moral universe is rooted in a larger context. King’s larger context, as the larger quote displays, is the bible, the faith and the Words of the Lord.

And that is the bedrock of the text. The only person who history is relative to is Jesus Christ. To understand the moral universe we much decide who we say Christ is. It is necessary, it is a divine necessity that Jesus continue his course. That fox Herod has no authority to stop it. Now there are a whole lot of things that we might think the divine necessity applies to or should apply to, but none of those are what God says it does. God applies that necessity to the cross. The one who had actual complete freedom chose the cross. The action is why King’s statement is true. The entire moral universe is defined by the love of God. A love that desires to gather his children under a crucified wing.

We sang a hymn new to the hymnbook and modern this morning that captures this mystery. It is paired with a pretty melancholy tune in the Lutheran Service Book, but no one would say that the combination is anything other than a tough contemplative song. For a people who might be more used to the modern praise song with snappy riffs, happy cords and simple refrains, In Silent Pain the Eternal Son (LSB 432), might just be the antithesis. What is really captured by it is the fact that the most glorious sight in the universe is a set of scars…that a body derelict and still on a cross is the definition of necessity and love.

1. In silent pain the_eternal Son
Hangs derelict and still;
In darkened day His work is done,
Fulfilled, His Father’s will.
Uplifted for the world to see
He hangs in strangest victory,
For in His body on the tree
He carries all our ill.

2. He died that we might die to sin
And live for righteousness;
The earth is stained to make us clean
And bring us into peace.
For peace He came and met its cost;
He gave Himself to save the lost;
He loved us to the uttermost
And paid for our release.

3. For strife He came, to bring a sword,
The truth to end all lies;
To rule in us, our patient Lord,
Until all evil dies:
For in His hand He holds the stars,
His voice shall speak to end our wars,
And those who love Him see His scars
And look into His eyes.

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Ash Wednesday Meditation

Text: 2 Cor 5:20b-6:10; Psalm 51:1-12

“We implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God…we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain…behold, now is the favorable time, behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Not to receive the grace of God in vain, isn’t that a strange string of words? What does it mean to receive the grace of God in vain?

We are not talking about pure unbelief or the enemies of the gospel. They do not receive the grace at all but deny that it exists. Instead we are talking about someone who has received it, but it does no good, or it doesn’t do what it is supposed to do. So what does the grace of God do?

It breaks down and it builds up. It kills and it makes alive. It cleanses and creates anew. Both the law and the gospel are a grace. By the law we know our sins. As the psalmist says, “I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me.” That is the peculiar grace of the law. But the overwhelming grace of the gospel follows, “create a clean heart….renew a right spirit…restore to me the joy…the joy of you salvation…uphold me with a willing spirit.”
So what does it mean to receive grace in vain? The core of it is to have heard the law, but never applied it to ourselves. Our ears have heard the 10 commandments. Our intellect has turned them over, maybe even memorized them along with a bunch of scripture and catechism answers. Our parents, physical or spiritual, have led us in green pastures. But the terror of that imposing law has never got to our hearts.

To receive it in vain is to receive the grace as if you don’t need it. To stand in the light of the law and think as the Pharisee, “Thank God I am not like that publican”. To stand in the light, and not see the darkness of our natural heart. To be put next to purity and think oneself not to shabby. To be shown just how lost we are, and not ask for directions thinking we are fine. We are rich, we have means, we have years, we will get out of this and be the stronger for it. We appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

The entire passage, maybe like the ashes of today, might seem a little overboard. We implore…we appeal…behold, now….a second time, behold, now. To the one who receives in vain, why all the histrionics? We’ve got this under control, calm down. But we don’t. The proclamation over the ashes, dust you are and to dust you will return is true. We don’t have this under control. We can’t add a single hour to our given time. Yet, we can receive that in vain. Never let that sink into our hearts.

Yet God holds out his grace for us. He proclaims it in many and various ways – as Paul talks about in the rest of the passage. In Christ God has declared us reconciled. God has stopped counting. He’s drawn up unilateral terms of disarmament with the most beneficial terms imaginable. We get the kingdom, as long as we don’t think it is ours by right, it is only ours by grace. And now is the time to sign that peace treaty. Now is the time to let that grace move our hearts. To break our stone hearts…and to receive new clean ones.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God…now is the favorable time…a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Amen.

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