Missing the Obvious

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Texts: Luke 16:19-31 and Amos 6:1-7

Many heirs of the reformation can get tangled in a web of worry about legalism and works righteousness. But it is not works righteousness to encourage Kingdom values. And that is what Jesus is warning about. Decisions we make today solidify in eternity. Nobody sets out for hell, but we can end there anyway.

We all have a Lazarus at our gates wanting mercy. Can we see him? Can we discern who or what he is? If you can’t maybe its time to listen to Moses and the prophets.

One the one hand there are two big tempting fallacies: 1) history is one long decline, the past was more righteous and 2) to let the law overwhelm the gospel. They both reinforce the other. We never live up to the law. And if we become too disappointed in that, everything looks bad in comparison to the heroic saints who have gone on to their reward. I walked the line here. I’m sure some would say I walked over the line and then some. But this parable is the end of Jesus’ two chapters of parables of how the kingdom works and his great warning for those who don’t get with the program. It is the law in service to the gospel. The law is suppose to show us our sin, and chase us to the Word for grace.

From a very this worldly practical standpoint, we become what we practice. We are creatures of habit. If we practice virtue, it becomes easier. (Never easy, its a fallen world.) If we practice telling ourselves and our kids that the Word of God is meaningless, then we quickly find that we can’t hear it at all. And when you can’t hear the Word, you miss the Lazarus sitting at your gate. Luke 15-16 is a very this worldly section. Its about how the Kingdom works right now. What you choose hardens. Gates become chasms. We are all being forced into the Kingdom, the question is which side of the gate/chasm?

Kingdom Values

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The unjust manager is a confusing parable primarily because is isn’t a parable in the Sunday School “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning” way. It is more an argument from lessor to greater. Jesus is teaching his disciples, look at the people of the world (this generation). They know how it works and they know what to do to get what they want. The manager wanted a cushy existence and he did what was necessary. Why don’t the children of light act that way? Starting with Jesus Christ there is a new generation. The old one is passing away. Why don’t the children of the light act with Kingdom values and goals?

And that is a practical holiness or sanctification question. Know which generation you are part of and act appropriately, act shrewdly according to its rules. And the rules of the Kingdom? The King wants to call sinners. The king wants the banquet hall to be full. Are our lives, both personally and as a congregation aligned around Kingdom values. If we can’t be trusted in little – this stuff which is passing away – how will we be trusted with the greater?

The core of Lutheran preaching is Law and Gospel. Jokingly it is to make you feel really really bad and then make you feel really really good. It is also supposed to be a little thing called scriptural. And by that I mean taking its general outline and shape from the text. Instead of using the text as a pretext to talk about what you want, the text itself is proclaimed anew to a new generation. This text is very law centered. There is a first use of the law (civil) is the parable itself. Look at how the world works. That is law. And unsurprising in a fallen world, law leads to unrighteousness. There is the third use of the law (a rule for life), Jesus’ exhortation about being faithful in little. That third use can also be a second use (a mirror to show us our sins). How one hears that depends upon how one thinks of themselves. The gospel is less evident.

This sermon takes the whole structure of Jesus’ argument to be the gospel. This unrighteous generation is passing away. With Christ the new one starts. That is the gospel. The proclamation of a new order directed as the poor, the blind, the lame, the prisoners. If you are part of that new generation, if you are part of the kingdom, how then should we live?

Two things you might not associate…

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This Sunday there were two things going on. In our community, we had a baptism. In the larger world – the disaster in Haiti. We might not link such things, but the biblical answer is actually very close. The Bible talks about Baptism as being a dying and a rising. In Baptism we are burried with Christ so that we will also rise with Him.

There are some common refrains when looking at disasters – what did they do (a la Pat Robertson), why would god allow this (the agony of theodicy), or just how do I avoid them. Jesus is pretty clear in Luke 13:1-5. Sorry Pat Robertson, but disasters are not special judgement. That does not mean we don’t deserve them. Jesus’ answer is that it is only grace theat the whole world doesn’t get them. The entire world is that sinful. That response really answers the second – why would God allow if he was good? The answer is that a non-loving and graceful God would have destroyed everything long ago. Both of those answers are heavy on the law. They are good and true, but hard words for sinners.

The gospel is the answer to the last question – how to I avoid disaster? In this world, you really can’t. It is a fallen world that is groaning under that curse. But God came to share it with us and to redeem it. We pass through the disaster. In baptism, God pulls us through the disaster.
Putting on eternal eyes, this world is one big Haiti to God. It is one big disaster operation. And Baptism is the rescue operation. The hopeless, poor and defeated of this world, find the cure in the waters of Baptism. We die to this world, but we rise to the next through the promises of Baptism.

Reformation Day Sermon – Law & Gospel: Living in the Tension

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One of the things ministers (at least Lutheran ministers) talk about all the time is what do you lead with. What I mean by that is this. The proclamation of the Lutheran is Law and Gospel. The law, in all its fierceness, says repent you poor miserable sinner. The Gospel announces the grace of God on all who do repent. The problem with that is followed to its human logical conclusion means being the human sandwhich-board walking down main street with ‘Repent-The Kingdom of God is Near’ painted on it. That may be the reductio ad absurdam of the the law proclamation, but it is rarely effective. It is my impression today, to get someone to hear the law rightly, that you almost have to sneak up on them. I think the culture assumes that the Gospel applies to them universally – we are all universalists when it comes to heaven. Jesus was anything but a universalist (Matt 7:13-14) and the entry gate on that narrow way is repentance. Stealing a line from a fellow circuit minister – “people know about Jesus, they don’t know Jesus.” Where is Martin Luther’s day the public perception about Jesus was a cruel tyrant (I think Luther actual used that term to descibe Him in Martin’s days in the cloister), and hence the society was ready to hear the gospel as it was already cowering under the law, today the public perception is one of the ever accepting Jesus – so accepting that he’s ok if you worship him under anygiven name, as long as you are true to yourself. Fostering a true encounter with Jesus means getting people to have a healthy fear of God first.

Good Things – Mark 10:17-22

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Text: Mark 10:17-22

As one congregant said – “reading a little Plato were you?” The presenting question was what do I do to inherit eternal life. In our culture today I don’t think that is even a question people ask. Eternal and the man’s address of Jesus as Good Teacher imply something that our culture denies. That concept of the good which is the intuitive way we are drawn to things that are true or that are beautiful and not in our culture’s highest goods of utility or aesthetic pleasingness, is what is denied. There are no eternal or good things in our culture. We have so much and settle for so little.

In a Lutheran law and gospel structure the man’s question is one of a second use of the law. It shows us our sin or a mirror to our soul. But it also implies a first use of the law – a simple description of the way things were made. We were made with eternity in mind. There are things that are beautiful – even though they may not be aesthetically pleasing or pass the culture poobah’s 5 star ratings. There are things that are true, even if you don’t believe them. In many ways talking to our culture is more like talking to the Sadducees than the Pharisees. The pharisees inhabited the same mental world as Jesus. When Jesus talked to the Sadducees he would say things like “you are badly mistaken.” (Mark 12:27) With Pharisees Jesus called them to see that they couldn’t carry the law. He was so visibly upset with them because they were close to the kingdom. He looked at them and loved them. With the Sadducees it was a call to something more fundamental, a call to examine presuppositions about the world.

Don’t settle for happiness – or the things that wealth can buy temporarily. Seek the Kingdom, the good things, the things eternal. Then you will have treasure in heaven.