God’s Crumbs

Biblical Text: Matthew 15:21-28

The text is the that of the confrontation between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. As I mention at the start, this lesson is probably the source of more terrible 20th century theology than any other. Stuff so ridiculous that it barely deserves mention beyond signifying that these people can’t read the scriptures. But I do think that the text has a deep challenge that goes without mention these days. The first and very surface meaning is the easiest. The Jewish messiah – the son of David – is also the messiah of even the Canaanites – the all time enemy of the Jews. It is right there on the surface that any of the worldly divisions that we live with are not part of the Kingdom of God. But there is a much deeper second lesson about the character and providence of God. It is more about what type of God do you believe in? Is your God a god of scarcity or is he a God of abundance? Is he a God who always provides what his people need? And Jesus’ back and forth with the Canaanite woman establish just what she believed. And what we should believe. It also establishes how hard this faith is. The sermon develops these themes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Loaves and Fishes

080226 sermon Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 14:13-21

It could be that a death in the parish family gave some depth that isn’t there. The Holy Spirit does show up from time to time and turn absolute dreck into something good. And the word cloud is nothing special – other than that big Jesus on top. And that is ultimately what this proclamation is about – exactly the kind of God we have, the kind seen fully in Jesus. And the feeding of the 5000 is such a revelation of exactly who he is. You have to back up a bit and hear the stuff the lectionary skips. That is in the introduction. But it sets the stage for the revelation that follows. And then understanding the God we have, understanding how he continues to work in exactly the same way among us. This is a good sermon. I don’t say that too often.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Sower and Soils Redux

I have three purposes behind this “corner.” A) To offer a meaningful engagement with the Word of God for those who might not make Sunday service or one of the Bible Studies. B) To occasionally challenge or simply announce some activity or need of congregational life. C) To provide an example of Christian meditation. The word is a lamp to our feet and a guide to our path. What that means is that hopefully we are walking somewhere purposefully and not just aimlessly stumbling

The parable of the Sower and the Soils was the gospel reading last week. And I know in my sermon delivered that I encouraged more meditation in the Sower and less on the soils. More recognition that the Sower’s supply is inexhaustible, that He doesn’t care about the current soil status, and that sowing is not a once and done thing but moves in seasons. I think these are all the gospel elements Less concentration on discerning the soil, unless that discernment was turned toward the status of one’s own heart. Where have I been rocky soil, hard packed, shallow? What weeding or cultivation of my own heart might I do?

I usually do not have trouble leaving the prior lessons behind. Every Sunday before leaving the building I read the lessons for next Sunday. They can sit in my head and gut on my day off out of the office. Maybe they have germinated by the time I get back. But this week I could not shake the image of the soils. Many if not most of us give little thought to institutions. It is popular to be cynical about them. And many deserve it. Or if we are not cynical, we assume that they will be around forever even without our help. The seed sown is the Word of God. But the Word of God turns into a plant that is supposed to be fruitful. Maybe stretching the parable beyond what it is meant to take, but plants are planted somewhere. We are planted somewhere. We grow somewhere. And that somewhere is often various institutions.

At the most basic level we are all planted in specific families. We are citizens of specific nations. We are members of a specific church. And within those three estates – or broad institutions – we often have roles to play in other groups. And those groups are both shaped by us, but more often form us. I’ve been reading Vice President Vance’s recent memoir of his return to faith. My interest is professional. What type of faith did he have? What type of faith has he returned to? What spurred it? Who or what helped or hindered along the way? And his story is largely one of formation by various institutions. His family gave him a faith, but honestly not one set on a very secure foundation. He watched more televangelists with his memaw than Sundays he was in a church. He had developed something of a relationship with one pastor in one of the phases where his Dad was active in his life, but it could not have been that great, because when he tried to contact that pastor he was surprised the man had taken a call elsewhere. “I had no pastor that I could turn to…and I was too far away to stay in close touch. (p49).” Life in the Marines and especially in Iraq had given him both the best witnesses and a perfect storm of cynicism as waiting for his discharge he got sucked into an attempt to end a Sarge’s career.

In his story it isn’t the institutions of Ohio State and Yale Law that destroy his early ungrounded faith. That work had already largely been done. But the soil of those institutions grew something different. Ohio State drilled in the idea that “I deserved everything that came to me…any sense of community attachment – that we owe something to the people from whom we come – gave way (p67).” Yale put that on steroids and added pure status. “I wanted to go to a good law school because that is what other’s wanted (p72)…the belief system of places like Yale had a way of turning real vice into perceived virtue (p79).”

Vance’s loss of faith is a story of non-participation and weak institutions. His loss of faith is a story of his family absenting themselves from the institutions of that faith, and then stronger institutions stepping in to provide different ways for the plant to grow. Within his story I think is something for us in general. If you want good soil that produces 30, 60 even 100 fold, you’ve got to maintain it. It is those institutions that are often the soil. And we have not done the work to maintain them.

Why Does It Feel So Hard at Times?

071226 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (Isaiah 55:10-13)

The core text is the Parable of the Sower and the Soils, one of about two or three Biblical stories that I think are still general knowledge even today. Although honestly this sermon doesn’t treat them as that. It has a good section talking about basic textual meaning. A smart preacher once said, “assume they know nothing.” Now the best thing about this text happens to be how great a service you can construct with the hymns. Including ending with LSB 923 Almighty Father, Bless the Word which ends on the actual Doxology. You don’t get better.

But turning back to the sermon, the text at a very basic level is one of the few answers to a why question. It’s a common and natural why question, why if God gets his way and he wants people to believe are there so many that do not? The parable of he Sower and Soils explains that. The gospel comes a certain way – by proclamation, by the Word. And it has enemies. The sermon matches these up with three types of soils. In this sense the parable is legalistic in that it describes the basic functioning of the world. But I do think there are ways it proclaims the gospel. And those come not by focusing on the soils, but by focusing on the sower. And then with the picture of the sower pondering the nature farming. How it is a seasonal game. In that sense I don’t think you are meant to take the soils are unchangeable eschatological statements. They are more encouragements to examine ourselves. What type of soil has our heart been?

Anyway, maybe it is getting older. Or maybe my personal standards are slipping. But I like this sermon.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Dr. Luther and Summertime Sadness

Sure, you could pick up the Old Testament reading and mine it for something. This week’s is Isaiah 55:10-13 and it is perfectly paired with the Gospel lesson – the parable of the Sower and the Soils. The Isaiah passage is surely part of the understanding of the soils. We do not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And that word does go out. And that word does accomplish what it was sent to do. Now we might wonder at why some of it falls on hard soil and apparently does nothing, but that is about the human heart. The Word does do something. It reveals the state of our hearts. And maybe like the rain and snow of Isaiah’s passage, that Word can eventually crack even the hardest of hearts. Or maybe they are like Pharoah. Knowing our own heart is tough. Does it bring up thorns? Or shall it become a tree, a cypress, planted over the waters?

You could turn to the Romans passage. But that would be cannibalizing what you are going to say in Bible Study after worship. Sure, that is only 20% of the worship population, but they deserve something prepared and fresh. But supposedly 60% of the total roster opens this email. If on any given summer Sunday you are fortunate to cross 50% of the roster in worship. And you humor yourself into thinking that 80% who open might at least read the first paragraph. You get to the idea that this little article is probably the item of work most engaged with in the week. And besides, as the epistle says (Romans 8:12-17), “you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.” Oh, you could certainly come up with something that quickens the spirit from that. At least if you are willing to cut it off there and ignore Romans 8:17, “provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” Even then maybe you could invoke Tennyson’s Odyssey – “made weak by time and fate, yet strong in will…to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.” Unlike Odysseus who angered Poseidon and suffered, we have not angered God and so suffer. Our journey home through suffering is walking with God, with angels, with Jesus all the way.

But as you stare at the blank page, maybe stuck in a bit of summertime sadness, you hear something moving down the hall. What soul is it in need of solace that without knowing it is giving your soul purpose? And then you get the surprise. “Dr. Luther, it’s been a few years, I was beginning to think that we might not meet again in this realm. How is Leo X doing? Are you guys having a good chuckle over another Leo excommunicating another group (SSPX) that insists they are just preaching and teaching what the church has always taught?”

“Heh. Yes, that little episode has certainly come up. Although maybe I’d point out with a little too much pride, half of Christendom sided with me. Bishop Lefebvre’s group is smaller than even your little Synod.”

“You got me there Dr. Luther. Heaven doesn’t issues traveling passes lightly. What brings you to my small corner today? Why does the great man show up in this humble parish study?”

“What is that pungent phrase you just invoked? Summertime sadness?”

“Yes, well, I stole that, from the singer, Lana DelRey. It’s kinda her entire vibe. And it’s a little infectious.”

“Yes. I can understand that. All the best lines are stolen anyway. We are all just recycling the Word that went out from God originally. Although being German we never called it anything as trite as sadness. We called it anfechtung. There are so many different ways of suffering. Stealing someone else’s line, everyone you meet is engaged in a great struggle. Maybe not over half of Christendom. Maybe over a single soul. Maybe theirs. Maybe that single struggle engulfs all of the Kingdom with it.”

“Dr. Luther, you’ve never been indirect before. Is the sadness spreading, even in heaven? Make it clear, why are you here?’

“Read your Isaiah again. You know I called him the fifth evangelist.”

“Yes, who did you steal that line from?”

“That’s mine, or that’s my story. But focus now Herr Pastor. Does the Word fail?”

“No. But I know where you are going. Look at things. Does this look like success?”

“So are you now the judge? Were you there when he laid the foundations? Have you discerned all the purposes of almighty God? I remind you I’ve had 500 years in paradise and Leo and I are just starting to put some of our lives together.”

“Fine. No. I’m not. But what it your point.”

“You live by faith. God’s word goes out and it accomplishes his purposes. Whether you know them or not. You can go out and come back in in joy.”

And with that Dr. Luther must have been needed elsewhere. Although without a good bye, maybe I shall see him again.

The Continuing Works

050326 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: John 14:1-14

The text ends with what I personally think is one of the toughest sayings in the bible. “You will do greater works than these” along with the promise to ask anything and it will be given. Any fair presentation has to establish what works are being talked about such that the promise could be true. The question about prayer is a little easier and most people will accept answers like “well, if you ask for a knife, because you are going to kill someone, that isn’t likely to be answered yes by God.” But saying that those who believe will do greater works than Jesus is much tougher.

The lead up to this saying is about who exactly Jesus is and what works – or maybe I should say work – he is doing. And that work is primarily filling up his Father’s house. The work Jesus is doing is calling people back into a right relationship with God – with the Father. And that is where the sermon starts. And it builds from there through the conversation that Jesus has with Thomas and Philip. A conversation that I think is almost natural and deeply enlightening. As well as full of good news.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Maturing Faith

Biblical Text: John 20:19-31

041226 sermon Download

The 2nd Sunday of Easter always has the Gospel Text of the Apostle Thomas. There are two things that you can preach from this text. 1) The Office of the Keys. And I touch on that at the start. 2) Figure out something to say about doubt. And that is the tougher one. Mainline Protestantism – which the LCMS is both part of and not part of – for a generation plus has glorified doubt. Which is a terrible misreading of this text and what the bible consistently has to say about it. It is not that the Bible denies doubt. In fact as I’ll build in the sermon, it isn’t just Thomas. Everyone has some significant doubt. But doubt is a childish thing. If you are going to accomplish anything – if you are going to have life – you are going to have faith. They, faith and doubt, aren’t opposites. Doubt is a valid starting point that must give way when proof is offered. It could give way to knowledge. It could give way to accomplishment. It can give way to faith. Doubt is the starting childish position that matures into something real. The Introit for the day really starts off with the theme – “Like Newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation.” (In Latin that is Quasimodogenidi, the famed Hunchback was born on this Sunday and so called Quasimodo.) Jesus tells Thomas to “stop being faithless and believe.” That is a maturing faith. One that stops with childish things and believes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

A Concrete Faith

The letter of First Peter doesn’t get the respect or attention is should. It gets chosen to start on Easter 2 because it synchs up with Jesus’ words after the Thomas episode. “Though you have not seen him, you love him (1 Peter 1:8)” aligns nicely with “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (John 20:29).” But it is such a great example of the concrete nature of the gospel. We live in the era of the “word salad.” I muse sometimes that we have moved from a print age that produced high rhetoric like the Lincoln-Douglas debates to common rhetoric like the letters Civil War soldiers sent home. Sure, there might be a bit of survival fallacy, the letters that serviced were bound to be moving, but the fact that they were written by 8^th grade educated privates from the middle of nowhere and they are more meaningful than anything produced by professional wordsmiths in the past 50 years says something. That gave way to the bonhomie of radio addresses. Which themselves gave way to television. And as we adapted to television the “sound bite age” came upon us. The most complicated arguments got reduced to 10 sec clips. The Word Salad, in the sports world often called corporate banalities, summed up by Seinfeld as “Yadda, yadda, yadda” was created to avoid the sound bite. It’s a style of speaking to be seen on TV talking but saying absolutely nothing. More air than an angel food cake or a good meringue. Compare that to the concrete of Peter.

Why has God acted? “According to his great mercy.” As God repeated said about himself he is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Who God is has lead him to act.

What is the act of God that comes from this mercy? “He has caused us to be born again to a living hope.” We were dead in our sins and God’s mercy has caused us to be born again. We are born again not by re-entering our mother’s womb as Nicodemus quipped, but in hope. Where we did not have hope, we now have hope.

Why do we now have hope? “Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” If there is one thing we knew it was that dead people are dead. They don’t come back. Until one did. The fact that one did – Jesus Christ – gives hope.

What is the concrete nature of this hope? You have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the proof that the sacrifice of the cross stands. Heaven has been opened for you. This life may pass away, but your life is in the resurrection. And death no longer has any hold over it.

When do we come into this inheritance? It is “guarded through faith…to be revealed in the last time.” It is yours right now in faith. You can choose to live right now as if this is just the beginning of eternal life. Which it is. And it will be revealed as such at the last time when all the sons of God are revealed (Romans 8:19). So this inheritance is now and not yet. Nothing stops us from living it now by faith. The fullness has not yet been revealed.

Why do we live in this now and not yet? “You have been grieved by various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith…may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” The Christian living by faith, even thought they have not seen, is the highest praise that one can give to God. God has testified and revealed himself. The devil’s first move is to call God a liar. Faith is simply believing what God has said and revealed about himself. He is not liar, but a good and gracious Lord. All creation is meant to render unto God his glory. The Christian who lives by faith does this.

What again is the outcome of this? You “obtain the outcomes of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” Now souls in our day and age might sound like an airy word, but to avoid the idea of cherubs floating on clouds, maybe we should simply gloss soul as self. The outcome of you faith is the salvation of your self, your person, your consciousness, who you are. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you, what makes you you, has been saved.

We tend to think of faith lightly. To Peter, that faith is very concrete. And as we read this letter over the Easter season we will learn more.

Are You Born Again?

030126 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: John 3:1-17

I’m sorry, we had audio problems this morning. The audio recording of the sermon wasn’t good enough for me to really use. If I have a little time tomorrow I might do an after the fact recording. Which sometimes I hate Satan, because this one felt on fire with good material. The manuscript is never 100%. There is always something in the moment that is better. And a re-recording is never the same. An actual congregation just makes things live. The text has John 3:16, but the sermon and in my reading the text is really about the interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus. John 3:16 is a conclusion only earned in a very specific conversation. “Are you born again?”

And that question takes in baptism, faith and just who you think God is. Nicodemus’s last words in the middle of the story are “how can these things be?” As the sermon would develop, he’s got a very specific concept of God. A concept tied to the fleshy existence of the children of Abraham. Jesus challenges him and through him us to believe in the Spiritual God. The God who so loved the world.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You Are Blessed

020126 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 5:1-11

The main text for the day is the Beatitudes, which are the opening lines of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The follow a rhetorical pattern common in the day: Blessed are a certain people, for they will get some reward. The rhetorical pattern was a way to introduce poetically what the good life entailed. The patter would often extol certain virtues. The problem with Jesus’ beatitudes is that absolutely nobody would base the good life on what he blesses. And since the entire sermon on the mount is something of a constitution for the Kingdom of Heaven or the People of God, when you hear the Beatitudes you really need to think about how they apply.

That is what this sermon does. As it moves into proclamation. I’d argue that only a Lutheran can honestly read them. Or someone who can rightly hear law and gospel. Because you can only hear the beatitudes and the rest of the sermon if you hear “the kingdom of heaven is yours.” It does not come to you by works. It comes to you in the poverty of your spirit. When you have nothing to offer, Christ gives it to you. The promises, the second half of each beatitude, are yours already. You are blessed to be able to do the first parts, because Christ has given you the second. Christ has given you the Kingdom

Podcast: Play in new window | Download