Advent 4

There is nothing quite like the joy and the anticipation of an expectant mother. Mom's to be, sporting their little “baby bump” get stopped in public all the time to be asked questions like “when are you due?” “How are you feeling?” “is it a boy or a girl?” and many other such questions. People love babies. People love it when a young woman is getting ready to be introduced to the joys of motherhood and are eager to share in that joy with her.
We all love children. We love babies. And it's not just because they're cute. Sure their little hands and feet and pudgy little faces are indeed cute, but there's more to it than that. We love them for who they are and we are excited for who they will be. After all, each and every new parent dreams about how their child is going to make a splash and change the world with her athletic prowess or intelligence or grace. When it comes to our children, we all have hopes and dreams about who we want them to grow up to be.
But this joy and this hope and this expectation, it's all about possibility. It is all about who the child will become. Yes, we love our children regardless of their ability, but we hope for earth-shattering achievement from our children. We invest ourselves in them for who we want them to be. We want them to grow, to learn, to mature, and one day to be self sustaining and self functioning adults. Implicit in our hope is an understanding that the child who is born is not the finished product, but is the first step in becoming a finished product.
This being the case (that part of our excitement for our kids is all about who they are going to be) we have to notice just how different this is with Jesus. Yes, Mary was pregnant and she shared in that hope and joy and expectation for the life of her son who she carried in her womb. But there was also a recognition that this boy was not just about possibility, not just about future accomplishments, not just about who he would grow up to be; the growing and developing Child in Mary's womb was her God who made her and who loved her and who was going to save her and the whole world from sin.
Try wrapping your head around that. These days child psychologists have mapped out the brain function of infants even during pregnancy. They can tell you what the child is capable of knowing and understanding even while the child is still in the womb – and it's pretty minimal. They can recognize voices, and sounds but as far as knowing who that voice belongs to and why that voice is important? Not so much. And even when they are born, infants are completely dependent on their parents, on their mothers. They need their mothers for food, they make a mess of themselves and need their clothes to be changed, they can't talk, can't reason, they can barely even see.
But all of that being the case, when Mary with the Christ Child still in her womb went to visit her relative Elizabeth, to help and assist her aged kin during her pregnancy, Elizabeth acknowledged in faith that the baby developing in Mary's womb was her Lord. She said, “Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” The infant, the little developing child was worth excitement and hope and expectation, but not just because of who he would one day become. This baby was even then her Lord. He was God in the flesh, come to earth to save them from sin.
In our text this morning we have two expectant mothers, gathering together and sharing in the joys of their pregnancies. Both moms and moms-to-be love to share that joy with each other. They love to swap stories and be a part of each others' excitement. Moms (and dads) love their babies, their children. But I wonder if we don't, at times, love our children a little too much. I wonder if we don't at times love them with a love that we aught to reserve only for God.
Consider as an example the retail chain Baby's R Us. Expecting moms and dads go in to that store to register for all kinds of baby paraphernalia, much of which is expensive, more than they can afford, really, because they want their child to have what is the best.
If my child is going to have every opportunity, if my child is one day going to have to choose between the full-ride football scholarship to Ohio State or the full ride academic scholarship to Harvard, it's going to start right here with this state of the art diaper disposal system. And so parents pay the money.
Parents spend insane amounts of money on un-necessary baby products because they are convinced that they added expense is all a part of giving their child the best of every opportunity. Whether or not we have a diaper genie, how many of us have overlooked our child's obvious sins because we think of them as “little angels”. We love our children and that is good, but our love for our children often becomes a love that we aught to reserve only for God. This is sin that demands repentance.

But consider these two women discussing their pregnancies together just outside Elizabeth's home on that day. Elizabeth was old, beyond child bearing years. And even when she could have had children her body was incapable of producing a child. She was barren, unable to conceive. The child in her womb was improbable to say the least. More like unthinkable, unimaginable, or impossible! Yet here she was in her old age pregnant and preparing to deliver. Do you think Elizabeth might have been tempted to love her child too much, to hold on to him too tightly after having waited so long?
And then there was Mary. If Elizabeth's pregnancy was unlikely, Mary's was entirely impossible. Women don't just all of a sudden become pregnant. There is biology involved. There is a process that needs to occur. There needs to be a father, a seed, a man to provide the other half of the necessary ingredients. There was none. Mary was a virgin.
And so we had in these two women, life out of death in one, and life out of nothing in the other. Both were miraculous. Both were evidence of the hand of God. God had come in to his creation to do things that don't normally occur because all of this was a part of his great plan for our salvation.
As greatly as these two women would have been tempted to sins of pride and idolatry with their respective pregnancies, here in our text we don't see it. That is not to say that they didn't feel it, that they were innocent of these sins. It is to say that Luke would rather have us focus not on the mothers but on the sons; and among the two baby boys still in their mothers' womb, Luke would have us see and understand that the foremost Child is the Christ child, the baby in the womb of the virgin.
Old Testament Jews would have shown reverence when the Ark of Covenant passed by them. Not because there was anything of great importance in the Ark, itself. It was, after all, only a box. But the box was God's box. It was God's throne and where the Ark was, there God was. Just as the Ark of the Covenant was the vessel that carried the Lord, so also Mary was the vessel that carried the Lord. “Behold,” Mary had said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be to me as you have said.” And the Word of the Lord created in Mary exactly what it said, a child was conceived in her, a baby who was Christ the Lord. He had come down from heaven and made his home with Mary.
And so when Mary, the God bearer, came in to the home of Elizabeth, she understood this properly to be the entrance of the Lord, very literally, into her life. God was with her. And so she worshiped.
Our text says that she exclaimed. True enough, but not quite the whole story. An exclamation is little more than excitement. There are lots of reasons why we might be moved to exclaim. Our school children let out an exclamation after they finished their last day before Christmas break on Friday. They teachers also let out an exclamation of their own. Christmas morning might inspire an exclamation or two at your house – hopefully one from you.
Elizabeth, when she made her exclamation was not merely expressing joy or even excitement. Elizabeth was engaged in worship. The text says that Elizabeth anefwnhsen This is a worship term. A term that the Old Testament uses in connection with the liturgical ceremonies having to do with the Ark of the Covenant. Mary was the bearer of God, as God drew near, Elizabeth, being filled with the Holy Spirit began to worship.
And she was not alone. The child in her womb, the miraculously conceived prophet to be, the infant John leaped in his mother's womb; an indication of the relationship that the two of them would share as they came into adulthood. John would preach and make ready the way for Jesus to come.
But Elizabeth and John were not the only ones to worship Jesus. On the night of his birth, all of heaven would be filled with the singing of angel choirs who were celebrating and worshiping this child. They would share their song with shepherds who would run into the town of Bethlehem to see if what they said was true. The shepherds would join their voices with the angels in songs of praise to God. (We have all had songs and melodies stick in our heads so that we hum them without even realizing it – imagine if the melody stuck in your head was first heard on the tongue of an angel...)
But there were others...
At the temple, when Mary and Joseph brought their 8 day old son for circumcision they would be met by Simeon and Anna, both of whom would worship the boy. A few years past and the magi would come with kingly gifts to lay before him as they would bow down to worship him as their God and king.
But even they were not alone. Fishermen would call him Lord and God, those who doubted him would confess him as King. The blind, the lame, the sick, the sinners, the broken and despised, the lepers, the outcasts, the unclean, the demon possessed, all would fall down before him and worship him as their God and king. All would believe him to be who he said he was – the Messiah, the Son of God who came to seek and to save what was lost.
And this God, the baby carried in the womb of a virgin, born in a barn and laid in a manger, worshiped by angels and shepherds and sinners would be your Lord. He would save you from your sin so that you might also rejoice and exclaim and worship. He has come, to die, for you. He has paid for your sins, all of them, so that you might no longer call sin or Satan your lord. Jesus is God, the baby in the womb, in the manger, the man on the cross, is your Lord. Worship Him.

Advent 2 - Philippian 1:2-11

He was a soldier in the Roman army, serving his tour of duty in the city of Philippi. He had been assigned to guard the prisoners in the jail and did his duty the way any other soldier would. He knew what was expected of him and he knew the penalty if he didn't obey. So he did what he had to do.
One night he was assigned to watch the prisoners during the evening hours. There had been a disturbance in town during the day, some rabble-rousers had caused problems for a fortune teller, a slave girl, so that she couldn't tell fortunes any more and the crowd turned against them. The two trouble makers were arrested, they got their due – a good beating to cool their heads. And were thrown into prison. The soldier was given orders to keep an eye on them so he put them in the stocks in the high security area.
Usually a good beating and a night in shackles is enough to break anybody down. But these prisoners were different. Their spirits weren't broken. Far from it. They didn't argue between themselves. They didn't pass blame to each other. In fact they seemed to be perfectly okay with their plight. They even started to sing. Not the drinking songs that he was used to hearing, that most of his prisoners were familiar with. They sang hymns and psalms. He was unnerved by it. It got to him.
And then it happened. By chance there was an earthquake that shook the prison to its very foundations. Enough so that the prison doors all fell off and the prisoners were set free. In the quake something must have landed on the guard's head so that he blacked out. When he came-to he saw the doors hanging off their hinges and he knew what had happened. Surely by now the prisoners were all long gone and he was going to be answerable. He knew the penalty. Any prisoner gets away and he had to pay for it with his life. Easier and probably less painful to do the job himself so he got out his sword and prepared to take his life. But just then a voice from the inner cell called out to him to stop. It was one of the singers. “Stop.” He said, “Don't hurt yourself. We are all here.”
The jailer had all he could take. He ran in to the prison, fell at the feet of his prisoner and begged him and his friend to tell him what he must do to be saved.
The prisoners were Paul and Silas. The story was no story. It's history recorded by St Luke in the book of Acts. You can read it yourself in chapter 16. Paul and Silas traveled to the city of Philippi where they preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the city. They were arrested and imprisoned and the result of their imprisonment was the conversion of this jailer.
I imagine when Paul wrote the words of our text, the letter to church in the city of Philippi, when he mentioned how he remembered them fondly in his prayers, the name of this Roman soldier must have come to his mind. I imagine, when these words were read for the first time at the church in Philippi, the soldier and his entire family must have thought back to that night when they took this prisoner into their home to bandage his wounds; how taught them about a man named Jesus who was God and who died to save them from their sins, and how he baptized them as believers in Jesus for their Salvation.
In our text, Paul mentions a “good work” that God began. That night was the beginning of the “good work” that Paul mentions here in our Epistle reading for today, the good work that was begun by the Holy Spirit in the heart and life of this soldier through the preaching of God's word and through his conversion to faith in Jesus. And Paul says that he who began that good work would be faithful, that he would see that good work through to the end, through to the end of his life and to the very last day when Jesus would return in Glory to judge the living and the dead.
And it was a good thing too, because it wasn't easy to be a soldier in the roman army. Roman soldiers were pagans. They worshiped pagan gods. They believed in luck and fortune telling. They wanted to stay alive and so they looked for help from any spirit or god they thought could give them help. They were a rough and tumble bunch. Not given to kindness and gentleness. You don't survive as a soldier by apologizing to people. They were immoral, given to prostitution and gambling and all kinds of vices. This man had his work cut out for him. But he was cut to heart by the preaching of the missionary and so he repented of his sin and he hoped to do better.
In that sense, in all those ways that we mentioned, the life of this Roman soldier isn't too different from our own, is it? It has been said that we live in a post Christian era. People used to believe in God, they used to know and respect Jesus. They used to know and respect what it means to be a follower of Jesus. These days, people don't care. They care to be spiritual, mind you, but Buddhism, mysticism, neo-paganism, is all just as good as any other kind of religion. We live in a immoral society. Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, Madonna, and now Adam Lambert have all flaunted their sexuality and dared us to condemn them. People these days are dishonest, likely to steal if given the opportunity, likely to cheat if they know they can get away with it. Likely to lash out at you if you would dare to tell them they are wrong. The more the world changes the more it stays the same. Wouldn't you agree?
So Paul gives those comforting words to the soldier and his family struggling to remain pure and blameless and excellent and praiseworthy in a world that is immoral and impure and filthy. “He who began the good work will also see it to completion.” He who called you to faith, who brought you to faith who raised you from the death of unbelief and gave you the new life of faith will keep you alive, resuscitate you if he has to, give you spiritual mouth to mouth to keep you living and breathing as a child of God until the day of Jesus.
That was good news for the Philippians. That is good news for us. God does not leave us to ourselves. He who called us to faith has promised to keep us in that faith through to the very end.
This past week we have all witnessed the melt down of Tiger Woods as evidence has come out to suggest infidelity in his marriage. One who seemed so straight and controlled seems to have a dark side. In truth, we should not be surprised. Tiger Woods is a sinner, the way any one of us is a sinner. Tiger is enormously successful. An abundance of the world's goods attracts an abundance of the world's temptations. Any one of us in the same situation might very well do the same thing.
Consider King David, a man after God's own heart, who had a similar indiscretion with Bathsheba – even going so far as to murder her husband to cover his sin. If there had been super market tabloids in his day, imagine what the headlines would have been. Imagine the news reporters who would have camped outside his home to catch a glimpse or uncover a little bit more dirt. The more the world changes, the more it stays the same.
The truth is, Roman Soldiers, Kings and Giant killers, professional golfers, and every day people like you and me all need Christ's forgiveness. We all do stupid things that we know we shouldn't do. We all are a hair's breadth away from our own scandal. We all need the forgiveness and healing and restoration that is ours only through the power of the One who is faithful, who does not abandon us, but sees us through, faithfully keeping to that good work that he began in us so long ago, promising to bring it to it's completion at the very end.
David had his scandal. God did not leave him to flounder in his sin. Instead God mercifully sent the prophet Nathan to him to convict him of his wrong, to uncover his wickedness (which is sure to have been painful) and then to restore him. The Spirit that David had denied, had refused to give up so easily. He stayed with David. He pierced his heart with his own guilt and crushed his spirit with his own shame. But, David wrote, “Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart oh God and renew a right spirit within me.”
In our text Paul mentions that he pray for the Philippians. He gives the content of that prayer. “That your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ Jesus to the glory and praise of God.”
There's a lot there. There is much that is of significance and importance. Allow me break it down for you.
It is Paul's desire that the lives of the Philippian Christians be changed. Whether you were a soldier in the Roman army, a merchant, a common laborer or a slave, life was filled with temptations. Paul did not want them to give way to those temptations – he wanted them to be pure and blameless. But that doesn't just happen – not when sinful people live in a sinful world. That only happens with Jesus. That only happens when the one who began the good work sees it through to the end. The only way to make it happen, the only way to be filled with love, to be pure and blameless, to possess that knowledge and discernment, the only way to be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, is to be where Jesus Christ is. Where he has promised to be for you.
David said, “Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean.” he was referring to the rites of temple sacrifice. The priests would sprinkle the worshipers with blood from the sacrifice with a branch from a hyssop tree. David, when he was caught in his sin, when he was guilty and shamed and broken, went to church. God restored his heart and made him new.
In the same way, Christians go where God has commanded them to go, Christians go where God has promised He will be: in church. In the means of grace. In the preaching and the reading of the Word. In the absolution. In baptism. In the Lord's Supper. Release from bondage to sin, restoration to life as God's child comes through God's forgiveness given out where he promises to give it. We come here. We confess our sins. God takes them from us and we are made whole.
This world is a minefield of temptation. Any soldier in God's army has their work cut out for them if they hope to make it through without stepping in something that will blow up in their face. So we do our best to navigate our way through the temptations, searching the Word of God for wisdom and discernment to keep us safe along the way. But we are careless. We are foolish. We fall to temptations that hurt us and would destroy us. But God heals. God restores. Through the blood of Jesus shed for us on the cross we are once again made whole. May we be, all the days of our lives, where Jesus is for us.

Amen.

Pentecost 24

And as Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings! And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
This is our text.

“What great stones” remarked one of the disciples, as they made their way out of the Jerusalem temple. They had just come from the temple, a structure that began construction under King Herod the Great about 20 years before the birth of Christ and took about 80 years to complete. As Jesus and his disciples were there for their visit on that day, the temple would have still been in the midst of construction. But the stones were magnificent – some of them as large as 37 feet long, 18 feet wide, 12 feet high. Polished smooth and then decorated with gold. They would have been a site to behold. Beautiful and impressive. They were taken by the beauty of the construction.
Surely you have had that experience before. Perhaps you were visiting a friend, attending church with them on a Sunday after a brand new construction – and they were walking you through, giving you the guided tour. Explaining the long process of coming up with a building plan, describing the construction phases and then proudly displaying the finished product. The experience must have been similar yet perhaps on a lesser scale for those disciples on that day.
Typically you and I are impressed with new constrictions, with brick and mortar, plaster and stone. Jesus was not. He acknowledged their beauty and the fine craftsmanship. Indeed they were impressive. But they would not stand. Not forever. The day was soon to come when those magnificent stones were thrown down and the temple would stand in ruins.
Jesus was speaking as a prophet. The Jerusalem temple would be destroyed. The Romans would pull it apart only about 40 years after Jesus stood there on that day. Perhaps the disciple who asked the question would have been there to witness it. But that was not the point. Nor is it the point for us. The thing that gives beauty to the walls of a house of worship is not the skill of the craftsman who assembled them. Nor is it the stones, the windows, these days we might even add the technology. Rather what gives God's house its beauty is the Word of God that is spoken inside it. Temples, cathedrals, basilicas and churches rise and fall, they come and go. But it is the Word of the Lord that stands forever.
Many of you surely recall the old church building that used to stand just down the way. Is was nice in its time. It served its function and purpose but needed to be replaced. And so our current building was constructed. But there was much in that old building worthy of remembering. Even the stained glass window has been preserved here for us to look at and remember. And now we have our current facility. Every time I have the pleasure of guiding someone through it for the first time, to a person they remark at how beautiful it is.
This is good. A house of worship should be beautiful. After all, remember what happens here. Remember whose house this is. This is not a tool shed, nor is it simply an assembly hall. This is sacred space where God comes to deliver his gifts of forgiveness to us. When we gather together here it is for “Divine Service” - the Divine, serving us. God comes to serve us in His Word and Sacraments. God comes to wash away our sins and to bless us with eternal life. This is, as we pray, a “foretaste of the feast to come”. That is to say, Christian worship is the appetizer for the feast of heaven.
Perhaps you do that for your family feasts. In a few weeks you will sit down with your family around your thanksgiving table. Some times the family chef allows some of the goodies to be served before hand to stave off the hunger pains and whet the appetites for the feast to come. This is what God does in true Christian worship. He serves us from His table. It's not about what we do – our singing, our praising, our praying. Not what the pastor does: how good he is at writing or making public presentations. It's what God does. We might perform these activities, but it is because they are His that he commands; things that we do, but as we do them He is in them working through them to serve us and forgive us. Every Sunday, God, our serving god, our giving god, ties on his apron and assembles his collection of serving utensils so that he can give us a feast of forgiveness.
The thing that makes this happen, that brings all of this about, is not the building, it is not the people, it is not our singing or our praying or our sincerity or excitement. What makes this house a house of worship, what makes these people God's people, what makes us the Church, is best said by the Augsburg Confession: “The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.”
It's the Word of God. His Gospel taught according to how it is given in His Word. His sacraments according to how they are commanded in his word. We teach the Word of God, We preach the Word of God and as a result these walls are beautiful.
But we often get confused. How tempting it is to lay these truths aside. How tempted we are to believe that its the shine and the polish on the stones that makes this house God's house. How tempted we are to think that if we want our church to be successful in its mission we need something other than the pure and true Word of God.
I have been to churches with impressive buildings. Brand new, polished and shined. Top of the line fixtures and technology, lighting and chairs. The aesthetic experience was as good as any theater you would attend for a show or a concert.
I have been to churches where the members were intentionally friendly – there was a team of people coached to look for visitors. They walk right up to you, shake your hand, introduce you to people, give you information, point you to the bathrooms, the coat rooms, invite you to the upcoming church activities. All good things.
I have been to churches where there is a high level of enthusiasm among the members. They are pumped up and excited and happy to be there and eager to see their church advance and grow. The are enthusiastic in their worship and in their singing.
I have been to churches where their news and notes are thick with pages and announcements for all the activities and programs that they have going on during the week. There are programs for men, for women for youth for children, for singles, for couples, for couples with kids, for everything you could imagine.
All these things are good things. They are worthwhile things. It is good for churches to have shiny new buildings. This can be a great blessing. It is good when church members are zealous and eager and excited. It can be good when churches offer many actives and programs for people to be involved in. But while these things are good, they are not the church. Why is it that we so often think that they are the church? Why is it that when we visit a church we come away impressed by all these extras? Why do we come away from church and the thing that sticks in our minds is all that other stuff. The extra stuff, the un important stuff. Why don't we focus on the Word of God?
God's Word does two things. It tells us about our sin. It tells us about our savior. When we go to church, those are things we should be looking for, eager to hear, celebrating.
Consider this, when you go to church, listen for the Word of God. Listen for God's word of Law that points out your sin. In our worship we often begin with a confession of sin. We tell God that we have sinned against him in our thoughts in our words and in our actions. We confess our guilt before him and ask him for forgiveness.
There are many who will tell you that if you want your church to grow, if you want to attract new members you should throw that part of the service away – it makes people feel bad about themselves. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that it really only tells us what we already know. We have sinned. We have sinned against each other and we have sinned against God. The Word of God tells us this and we know it in our hearts. When we come to church, when we come to meet God, we tell him what He already knows and what he has told us in His Word. We tell him that we have sinned.
But our sin is not the focus of our worship. We don't come simply to admit that we have messed things up. We come to hear about God's forgiveness. Remember, God's word does two things. Telling us about our sin is only the first thing. It is that second thing that is really amazing.
God's Word tells us about our Savior. God's Word tells us about what God has done for us to erase that problem of sin. God's Word tells us that God has not held that sin against us. He has chosen to deal with us in mercy and compassion. He has given to us His promise that He loves us and that he will bring us to heaven, that he has reserved us for eternal life. We come to church to receive from God the fruits, the results of that promise.
God did not leave us to manage our sin by ourselves. That's what the government does: they tell you that you have broken the law, that you owe taxes, and then you have to fix the problem yourself. You have to fix what you have broken and set right what you have done wrong. That's not what God does. God takes your wrong and he does it right. He makes it right. He sent Jesus to do what is right for you. To live the right and righteous life in your place. And then, all of that wrong that you have done, all those sins that you confessed at the beginning, even the ones you forgot to confess or perhaps didn't care to confess, he has taken care of them too.
This place. These walls, the house, this is the place where God has invited you to come. We built the building, we keep it up and running with our work and our effort, but God has set it aside as His house, his forgiveness place. This house is the location where God has said, I will be here for you every time you come. Ever sin that you carry through the doors will be piled up on Jesus. He died to pay for it. In exchange, say the Lord, the God of Heaven, I will give you forgiveness and eternal life and salvation.
This house is a forgiveness house. This house is God's house. This house is the place where the Word of God is in full operation.
You want to talk beauty? You want to talk magnificence? You want to talk glory and splendor? Don't get dazzled by shiny rocks flickering lights. Look to the Word of God; the Word of God that diagnoses your sin and then in the next moment scoops it up to forgive you for all of it. Look for the Word of God that delivers to your ears the forgiveness of Jesus and the Eternal life that we have in his name.
Amen.

Pentecost 23

Truly I say to you that this poor widow put in more than all the others who were contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed from their abundance. But she from her poverty contributed all she had, the whole of her life.

So how much do you give? When you put your offering in the plate on Sunday morning, how much have you put in? Is it a lot? A little? Have you given freely and willingly? Have you held something back? How much do you put in?
And don't think I am talking about currency. Our coins and dollar bills have numbers on them to rank them in order of their value. Pennies and nickels and dimes. 5's, 10's and 20's. We count them up. We collect them. We store them away for when we think we might need them. We keep careful track of them – where we spend them, how much of them we have spent and how many of them we have left over. We compare how many of them we have versus how many of them we think we may need. And then comes Sunday morning. Time to put some of those hard earned and easily spent dollars into the offering plate. How many do we put in? How many can we afford to do without? How many have you put in?
When we begin to think about our offerings to God and to the church we always ask the wrong question. We think that the amount has to do with the little numbers in the corner of the bill – is it a 5, a 20, a 50 or even a 100? God doesn't care about those numbers. While those numbers mean everything to us, they mean nothing to God. God, after all doesn't have a buget. He doesn't need to save up for things. He doesn't need to earn things. Everything is already his to begin with. Our currency and the numbers we put on it don't impress God at all. Rather what impresses God is what is found in your heart. When you count up those dollar bills and place a few of them in the offering plate how much of your heart, how much of yourself have you placed into that envelope. That is the real question. That is the question that God is interested to answer.
In our Gospel reading for today Jesus and his disciples were witnessing the contributions given to the temple treasury. There were receptacle placed around the temple where people could come and deposit their gifts. Many, in a show of their abundant means and their great wealth, not to mention their supposed religious devotion, placed large sums into the treasury. (How impressive must that have been?) Yet Jesus was unmoved by their giving. Yes he saw what they gave, but more than that, Jesus saw what they did not give, Jesus saw what they held back in their hearts. And then a poor widow came to the temple treasury. She had two small copper coins in her hand. The sum total of her subsistence. She placed both in the temple treasury. Both of her coins. Every last penny she had to her name, the whole lot of it, she gave into the temple treasury.
We might pause to ask ourselves why. What was the point of giving those coins? Their value was small. Two pennies wouldn't do the temple much good, they wouldn't cover the cost of maintaining its building and structure. They wouldn't pay the wage for the priests. They would likely get lost in the shuffle. And for that matter, why give both of them? She had two. Why not give one and keep the second to buy a piece of bread?
Jesus knew. He understood her motive. He understood the reason for her gift. Again, Jesus was not impressed with the amounts, with the numbers, with the accounting of the coins. This woman was not giving her coins to God. She was not counting up the dollars and sense the way that we do. She gave herself. Everything she had. She held nothing back. She gave her gift to God and she gave it all. While everyone else at the temple was impressed with the numbers, Jesus was impressed with the heart.
So how about you? How much do you give? Today in our Stewardship Sunday, our pledge Sunday. Our board of Stewardship is interestd to encourage you to think about your gift to God – not just the amount. Not just the number printed on the paper that you put into the envelope. What is the condition of your heart? How much of your self have you put in to that envelope or offering plate? Have you given your all?
Let's be honest – with ourselves and with God. We haven't even come close. And I am not talking about the numbers on the bills or on the checks that you have put in. I am here talking about our hearts. We haven't even come close to giving our selves, our hearts, to God. We have held back.
These are lean economic times. I saw in the news paper that unemployment is up to 10%. That makes us nervous. That makes us feel like we have to
Stewardship sermons are always offensive to people. The pastor is going to tell me I have to give more money. Maybe we are paying him too much. Maybe we are paying too much for the school, for the teachers, to the district and synod. We might not have raised our hand either way at the voters meeting, but we still cast our ballot with our dollars.

Our currency
Every Five? Ten? Fifty? One Hundred dollars a week? Have you given enough? Could you or perhaps should you give more?
The widow in our text today gave everything. If only we could say the same...
Today is our pledge Sunday. Our Board of Stewardship has made it its intention to assist our members in planing for their gifts to God and to the Church. We do that by means of a pledge Sunday. You get a card. You fill it out and put it in an envelope. We store it away for you here at the church and send it back so you can test yourself against your pledge. Some of you will participate. Some will not. Either is fine; God does not command us to pledge. He does not even command an offering from us at all. It is up to your freedom as a Christian to decide if you will give, let alone to decide what you will give. And so we pledge. Whether you have written it down on a card to place in a box or whether you have just determined in your own heart what you will give, what have you pledged? Have you given enough?
Usually when we consider that question, we think in incremental terms. We measure out our gifts by counting coins and percentage points. We think if we give up to and including these certain amounts than we can say that we have given enough. We think that we can claim that we have done our part. Usually what we really mean, usually what we are too ashamed to say, is that I don't have to do or give any more. I have done my part, now you do yours.
Faith doesn't talk that way.
Faith doesn't count and measure. Faith doesn't weigh and compare. Faith simply receives from an empty hand and then responds with thanks. Faith says to God, “I have nothing. You have given everything.” Faith says to the neighbor, “God has given to me. Therefor I will give of myself to you.”
Notice the example of the widow. She made her way to the temple and placed her offering into the temple treasury. She was not the only one who came that day. There were others. Many bringing large gifts and ostentatiously placing them into the receptacle, wanting to attract attention for their large sums that they were giving. Jesus was not impressed with large their amounts and their outward demonstrations. The widow came with everything she had – two small copper coins. A few pennies, a she put them both in the temple treasury. Jesus took note of her gift. Because Jesus knew that while her gift was small compared to the large sums given by the wealthy, her gift was greater because she gave everything she had.
The question I would like to put before you today is this; why? Why did she give? It certainly wasn't because the temple couldn't do without her gift. After all, how much can you do with a few pennies. They weren't going to use the money to hire another priest or add a new wing. It probably wouldn't have even have paid for a loaf of the show bread that they used in their offerings. What good would her offering do for the temple? No, that wasn't why she gave. She didn't give because she thought her gift was necessary for the temple.
Also notice the amount that she gave. Mark distinctly tells us that she had 2 pennies. Not just one. She had 2. She gave them both. Surely she could have gotten by with given only one. Surely she would have had good reason to with hold one of her pennies – she needed it for her next meal. But she didn't. She was poor – had 2 pennies to her name. She went to the temple and gave both to the treasury, offered both to God. Why?
Jesus tells us why. You and I are limited in our understanding and in our knowledge. We could not determine why. But Jesus was able and he tells us. She gave her whole life.
Our translation tells us that she gave all she had to live on. This is true, but this is not the most literal translation – the text literally says that she gave “the whole of her life”. She held nothing back and she gave everything.
Oh yes, we might be tempted to say but that was easy for her. She didn't have that much to part with in the first place. I have a church worker friend who sat through a congregational budget meeting with a man who worked as an executive in a large corporation. The executive told my friend that it was easier for him to tithe since he didn't earn that much. He had a smaller check to write – True. But he also had less left over.
In a sense the man was right, however. It is easier to part with your money when you are poor. It's like Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Rich people have more stuff, more baggage that they feel compelled to carry with them. They have worked too hard collecting it all to let it slip away so quickly. You and I fall into that same category. When we consider our offering we spend too much time worrying about what we have left when we are done. God takes his cut. Uncle Sam takes his. Everything else gets divvied up between the banks and the credit card companies.
So Jesus commends the woman for her gift, meager though it was, of two small coins. She gave more than all the other because she gave from her poverty while they gave from their abundance.
The difference is faith. When you are rich it is easy to put your faith in your bank account. It is easy to believe that you are safe and secure because you have enough money to bail you out of trouble. When you are poor all you have is faith. All you have is God. All you have is God's promise that He is good. That he will feed you, that he will clothe you, that he will shelter you. This woman believed God's promise and she put her life, the whole of it, securely into God's hands. How about you?
While we might be impressed with the example of the widow, how she gave everything and held nothing back, while she completely put her life in the hands of God, lets consider the greater example of Jesus. If the widow was completely in the hands of God, Jesus was and more so.
Jesus placed himself in the hands of his father – completely and totally. Jesus was raised in the house of a carpenter. His father taught him the trade of wood work and surely Jesus could have a career of this. He could have earned a living wage and had a house and food and family. But he did not. Jesus did not come to earn a living for himself, he came to earn life for you. So instead of a house, a business, a job, Jesus lived his life completely in the hands of His Father.
Setting aside his hammer and saw and lathe Jesus took up the vocation of Messiah. Not a well paying occupation – infact not even a paying vocation. Surely there were supporters and donors who provided him with food to eat and a place to stay when he had need. But day to day, Jesus had no home, no steady income, no promise of a meal for today let alone tomorrow. Jesus was completely dependent upon the mercy and goodness of God. And God provided for him what he needed. Likewise will God provide for you.
But Jesus is far more than merely an example of faithful living and the goodness of God. Jesus is our Saviour. The reason why Jesus placed himself into God's hands and set aside all possessions and income was so that he might be the one who earns for us the forgiveness of sins.
Again, Jesus placed himself comletely and totally in God's hands. And look where that got him. It was God's will that Jesus, not only do without earthly comforts, not only suffer from hunger and thirst and cold. But that he suffer the very wrath and anger of God. Jesus felt the full force of God's anger for sin. Jesus stood in our place to face the anger of God at a world of sin so that we could be set free.
Jesus died on the cross for you.
We hold things back. We keep things for ourselves. We horde and guard. We foolishly think this hording and guarding preserves us and our life, that it provides our security. Jesus set all o these things and he suffered what we fear the most – being completely hung out to dry being completely helpless and alone. But he did it for you.
God's promise to you is this. Follow Jesus into his selflessness, follow him into his willingness to place hiimself entirely into the hands of the heavenly Father and he will care for you.

He will provide for you. He will not allow you to go hungry. He will provide for you moer than
For those times that you are selfish, for those times that you are too tied to your job, for those times that you have held back parts of your self and your income, for those times that you have



You and I are guilty of placing our confidence in our possessions and income. Jesus did not. He could not. After all, being the Messiah was not exactly a well paying vocation. Jesus was poor. As he said, he didn't even have his own bed to sleep in. He didn't own a pillow for his head, let alone a house, a horse, a business. He owned the clothes on his back and was at the mercy of others for their generosity to provide him with meals and a place to stay.
Yes, you might say, but Jesus was God. Whenever he wanted he could feed thousands with only a few loaves. Surely he could feed himself in a pinch. Yet when presented with that very opportunity, when tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread, he could have but he did not. Jesus chose to go hungry and to suffer rather than use his divine power to serve himself. Jesus was not, nor was he ever concerned to use his power, his authority, his glory for his own comfort or advantage. Jesus was always and ever a servant.
Consider also his clothing. God in his goodness has given to you and to me closets filled with clothes of many styles and colors and textures. Jesus had the clothes on his back


Amen.

Reformation Sunday 2009

Modern businesses understand the benefit of a good marketing. They will spend millions of dollars to find a way to get their product stuck in your head so that when you go to the grocery store you are remembering their commercial or singing their song. And it works. We are apparently a people easy to manipulate and their ad slogans and jingles get us to spend our money on their products influenced by their marketing.

These advertising methods and slogans, while popular today, are far from being new. Salesmen from past generations have also understood the value a good slogan. One such salesman was a man commissioned by the Romans Catholic church to sell Indulgences, certificates that were supposed to offer forgiveness and a reduced stay in purgatory.

And being a good salesman, John Tetzel came up with a slogan, a sales pitch that would make his product stick out in the minds of his customers.

“When the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

Pretty “catchy” - don't you think?

But here's the problem. Forgiveness is not for sale. It is not a commodity. It is not available for purchase. It does not come with a price tag. Forgiveness is for free.

Tetzel did a banner business. His sales were good. If he could have been a publicly traded corporation, his stock value would have soared. After all, who doesn't want forgiveness? Who doesn't want to go to heaven? For the cost of a few small coins, God's favor could be yours as well. Things were looking up. At least until an upstart monk from Wittenberg caught wind of his operation. A monk and theology professor from a nearby town, a man named Martin Luther, heard what was happening and began teaching and preaching against John Tetzel. Cutting in to his profits and diminishing his bottom line by preaching that God gives his forgiveness away free of charge, with no strings (or for that matter no coins) attached all for the sake of Jesus.

It all stands or falls on the words of our text. Doesn't it? “There is no difference,” writes Paul, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Being “made right” with God, being made righteous and have all that sin wiped away is something that God gives for free because of Jesus. Because Jesus died for it, because Jesus paid for it. Because Jesus offers this forgiveness and salvation to us free of charge because of His great love for us. Ultimately the dispute that broke out between a salesman and a theology professor was not about business and filling the coffers. It was about faith and salvation. (And so the reformation began. An event that we recall today.)

As for us, we're all the same. Aren't we? As our text says, there truly is no difference. It does not matter if you have the few coins to buy the indulgence or if you have the where-with-all to buy a thousand of them. There is no difference. We are sinners. To sin means literally to miss the mark. And not in a horseshoes or hand grenades sort of way. Getting close doesn't cut it. You are in or you are out. It's more like jumping between skyscrapers – either you clear the distance and make it to the other side or you don't and you fall to the bottom. There is no middle ground, no consolation trophy, no good, better, best. You make it and you live. You miss the target and you die.

Tetzel was selling incremental forgiveness for incremental sinners. Mostly, but not all the way bad. Mostly but not all the way forgiven. Neither one was true and worse, neither one would do you any good. Not in an all or nothing kind of world with an all or nothing kind of God. And as Paul tells us in our text there is no difference. We have all missed the mark. We have all missed the target. We are all plummeting to our demise as the just fruit for our behavior. We are all on our way to hell.

But that is what makes the second half of that phrase so valuable. It's like gold. Better... it is life itself. “We are justified by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

We are justified. We are made right. The missed target is suddenly a bulls eye. The empty space beneath our feet is suddenly rock solid. We are standing firmly placed on the merits, the works, the righteousness of Jesus himself.

All because, as our text says, Jesus was “put forward as the propitiation for our sin.” That is a phrase that bears some explaining...

Luther had it ½ right. At least at first. Before he figured it all out. He was right about God by ½ . Luther saw God as a wrathful and vengeful God. He saw God as righteous and that righteousness terrified him.

These days we have a very soft view of God's righteousness – we think of God more as a kindly old grandfather who loves us just because and overlooks our faults just because. But not Luther. Luther saw God rightly, again by ½, because he was willing to look into the Bible to see the seriousness of sin. God is pure, intensely pure. There is and can be nothing that stands before God that is anything other than perfect and pure and sinless. Those things that come before God that are less than perfect find themselves beholding to God's justice.

To put it bluntly – sinners must be punished. Justice demands that they be punished. God is perfectly just, he allows no exceptions. Sinners in the hands of an angry God find themselves precariously balanced on the brink of damnation. Luther felt God's wrath like the hot breath of his foe breathing down the back of his neck. He was terrified. He knew he couldn't escape it. He knew he was doomed.

But again, remember, Luther was only right by half. And that's where this idea of propitiation comes in.

You see, propitiation acknowledges God wrath. There is a debt that we owe to God that needs to be paid. It is a debt that is greater than we are, it is a debt that we could never pay. That we could never fully pay off. Again, it doesn't matter if you have the bank account of a billionaire or the pennies of a pauper, there is no difference we are all sinners and fall short of God's glory.) But then, in his great mercy, God the almighty and just judge does not hold us accountable for the price for our sin, instead he pays the price himself for us. God covers the debt. He pays the price in full.

Think about that for a moment. You have sinned against God. You owe God a debt. But he doesn't make you pay it. Instead, He pays the price for your sin.

And the cost is high. Sin, sin against God, sin against a just God is expensive. And that is why Luther was only ½ right. Yes, God's justice is great. God's wrath over sin is great. But God's love and his mercy are even greater. God fulfills his great wrath and his justice for sin when he paid the price in full by sending his only Son to die for that sin on the cross. Jesus completely covered the cost for your sin when he gave up his own life and offered his own blood to be shed on the cross for you.

Eventually Luther found that out. He was reading the book of Romans, he discovered that the blood of Jesus was shed for him to cover his sin and to save him from his sin. He realized that this forgiveness was his free of charge because of the grace and mercy of God.

When John Tetzel began selling forgiveness for a fee, when he began selling certificates to cover the cost of something that God handed out with no strings attached, Martin Luther challenged this great evil. God doesn't forgive us only when we can afford to pay for it. God forgives us because he is a giving God. A forgiving God. He gives us His only Son to pay the price for sin by sending him to suffer in our place and to take all of his just wrath for our sin into himself.

God's gift is amazing, incredible. God's generosity is overwhelming. Martin Luther challenged those who diminished that gift. The reformation Christians restored to us a full understanding of what God has given to us.

This day we recall the reformation, the rediscovery of the goodness and mercy and generosity of God, the restoration of the confidence in God's forgiveness for sinners. Today we are confident of the love of God, but not because we have deserved it, not because we have the ability to pay for it, the goodness and love of God is ours only for the sake of Jesus.

Amen.

Pentecost 21

People who make their living as inspirational speakers will tell you that if you want to be successful you have to be goal oriented. You have to set your sights on one thing and then devote yourself to accomplishing it. No matter what gets in your way, no matter what you have to sacrifice. Set your goal, put your mind to accomplishing it, and do whatever it takes to get it done.

Jesus takes this to a whole other level. Jesus was single focused. Jesus had his purpose, his goal in mind. He knew what he had to do and he was willing to sacrifice, to pay whatever the cost so that he could get the job done. Jesus came with the intention that he save sinners from hell. His plan for accomplishing this single minded goal was to get the job done through his own death and resurrection on the cross. Jesus would let nothing stand in his way of accomplishing this goal for you.

The Gospel writer who penned the book of Mark tells us as much in chapter 8 when he records for us that Jesus took his disciples to the side and informed them that he would be handed over to the Jewish authorities to suffer and to be killed and then on the 3^rd day to rise. From then on, as you read through to the end of the Gospel, you should take note of Jesus' focus and read the remaining chapters, the things that Jesus does, the thing that Jesus says, with that in mind. Jesus has a purpose in mind, a goal that he has set. He is on his way to die. And he will stop at nothing until his task is complete.

Our text for today, is from Mark 10. Jesus is right in the middle of his trek to Jerusalem to suffer and die. His face is set, he is resolute, he is determined. He is going to complete his mission, yet even in his determination he takes time to listen to the cries of this one single blind man who cries out to him for mercy.

This Jesus who has come to accomplish his mission has come on a mission of mercy, a mission of love, and Jesus in his compassion for his creation stops, takes time from his purpose of the salvation of the entire human race so that he can save this one. A blind man, named Bartimaeus who was crying out to him to be heard. “Jesus. Son of David. Have mercy on me.”

How many times do you suppose Jesus has heard that cry? Here in our text, the voice belongs to a beggar, blind Bartimaeus. If we read the same account from the other gospels we find out that Bartimaeus had a friend with him, a second blind man. Both requested mercy. Both were healed. Mark only tells us of one. But there must have been hundreds, thousands, crowds and crowds of people who had some illness, some affliction, a disease, a disorder, a demon. They all needed mercy. How many do you suppose there were? The gospel writers only have so much paper and ink to spend. They can only tell of a few examples, but these few represent the rest. How many do you think there were?

How many have there been? From the beginning of time, from the time of Adam and Eve up till now, how many do you suppose there have been who have cried out in their suffering to God. “Lord, Have Mercy!” There are thousands, millions, beyond billions – a countless host. Perhaps your voice has been among them. “Jesus, Son of David, Have mercy on me.” I know mine has been.

And although his face was set, although he was firm and resolute in his purpose, Jesus heard the cries of the blind man. He stopped along the way. He ignored the voices of the crowds who wanted to silence the needy. He reached out to the man in mercy and he saved him.

How often is that single little word lost on us? Our text doesn't even translate the word, it simply says that Jesus made him well. Yes. But... the text literally says that Jesus saved him. In Greek it's se,swke,n from swzw “to save”. Jesus saved him. The man needed, not just healing for his blindness, these days any old ophthalmologist with the right training and the right equipment could give him that. No, this man needed something no doctor could provide. He needed to be saved. The man asked to be healed and Jesus gave him that, but not just that. Jesus saved him. For all those voices calling out to him for mercy, begging him for help with their afflictions, Jesus comes not just to take away blindness, not just to take away afflictions – he comes to save.

So often we don't even fully understand how severe our problems really are. We ask for help when we need to be saved.

The man was blind. He couldn't see, couldn't work, needed help to get around, had to beg for food. His blindness was a problem.

The same could be said of those who were (or are) crippled. They're handicapped, they're kept from living and leading the life that people do, most people who have all of their arms and legs working in good order.

The same can be said of those who have lost jobs in this economy, those who have cancer, those who suffer from allergies, those who suffer from chronic back pain, those who suffer from old age, those who suffer from abusive spouses or parents, those who suffer from all kinds of handicaps, those who suffer under the burden of caring for another, all kinds of suffering, all kinds of pain, all kinds of needs, all kinds of reason to cry out to God for mercy.

But guess what. The thing that moved you to cry out to God, the thing that moved you to pray, the thing that brought you to your knees, with nowhere else to turn... that is not even your problem. That is not thing that you need to be saved from. That is not the thing that is causing you your big problem.

You see, we so very regularly forget that our big problem is sin.

In modern warfare, when generals and commanders decide to take out a military target they go in with a bomb that is big enough to do all the necessary damage to render the target neutralized. Even though our modern weapons are equipped with laser guidance systems and can strike a target with pinpoint accuracy, there are always those things around the target that wind up receiving damage in the explosion. We cal lit “collateral damage”. Stuff that you weren't aiming at that got blown up anyways.

All those things we mentioned, the sicknesses, the injuries, the griefs, the abuse, the pain, the loss: all that stuff is “collateral damage”. Those things that cause you pain and drive you to cry out for mercy, they were not the original target, they were not the original aim, but they have been affected. Your health and wellbeing, your peace, your sanity, your prosperity, all these things crumbled to pieces when your world got blown apart by sin.

Adam and Eve, living in God's good created perfection chose the route of disobedience. The explosion of sin went off and all of the suffering in the world is its collateral damage. Sin results in suffering.

The child crying herself to sleep after the beatings from her father is collateral damage for sin.

The husband and father pouring over his monthly budget trying to figure out what else to cut so that the family can stay afloat until he can find work is collateral damage from sin.

The soldier looking on in horror as his brother in arms is pulverized by a grenade is collateral damage for sin.

The young mother weeping beside the hospital bed as her husband succumbs to cancer is collateral damage for sin.

Yes, my friends, this world is filled with suffering. It is filled with beggars, just like Bartimaeus who sit beside the road and cry out to God, “Lord, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

And Jesus hears their cries. Their cries for mercy and their cries for help.

With Bartimaeus he stopped. In the midst of fulfilling his purpose, his plan, in the midst of his single minded goal, he stopped. Even with the crowds shushing the blind man. He stopped. He stopped to hear what Bartimaeus needed. He asked. Bartimaeus answered. He wanted to see. You might include your petition, your request. Jesus granted Bartimaeus his. Bartimaeus went home with vision. He could see.

But that was nothing special. Again, any doctor could probably do the same. If all we needed was to be healed from the collateral damage then we wouldn't have much need for Jesus. We could depend on science and medicine and technology to perform all the miracles we would need. But Bartimaeus had bigger problems. Problems he wasn't even wise enough to understand. So Jesus healed that one.

Remember where Jesus was going. To Jerusalem. And not to be Jerusalem's king. Not to be a Jewish king. Jesus came to be Heaven's King. He came to be your King.

So that he might be your king, he had to die.

If sin is a bomb and suffering is its collateral damage, then the cross is nuclear holocaust. The bigger bomb of forgiveness went off when Jesus died on the cross. In that instant all of your sin was vaporized, obliterated, completely destroyed.

Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sin. All of the suffering in your life, that occupies your time and your attention and eats away at the thoughts in your mind. That is all peripheral, incidental, marginal. It is the stuff off to the side that is not even the real issue. Jesus knows that issue. He died to save you from that issue. He died to save you from sin.

Jesus came to be a man and to walk His creation as one of us. He did this so that he might die for all of us, so that he might die to do away with sin. Sin causes so much evil, so much suffering, and Jesus permits the suffering to occur. But suffering is not our biggest problem. Sin is. And sin has been destroyed.

You very well may suffer. You very well may experience grief and sadness and pain. Your life might see hard times. But don't be afraid. Those things are not the big thing. The big thing... sin... has been removed.

When Bartimaeus requested that Jesus heal him, Jesus did not just meet his request, he did not just give him sight. Jesus saved him. Jesus saved him from sin. Likewise, Jesus has saved you. Your sin has been washed away, blown apart, done away with. You are forgiven. Heaven awaits.

Amen.

Pentecost 20

Brothers and sisters in Christ.
We could all use a little rest. Could we not?
With all the busyness and hustle and bustle of life. With all the things there are to be done. With all the commitments and requirements that are attached to our lives, we could all use a little rest. We are busy people.
And we're right in the middle of it, aren't we? This is the busy season (as though there is a season that isn't busy)! We have work to be done. Farmers are out in the fields working long hours harvesting. The kids are in school, which carries lots of obligations, such as class, homework, sports schedules, fund raisers, extra curricular activities - throw them all in the mix. Work has deadlines, stress, possibilities of being laid off or downsized. Home has it's usual to-do list of fixing and cleaning and managing. There is lots to do. So much so that we could all use a little rest. I know I could. I am sure you could too.
And so into all of our busyness and stress and into all of our desire; no, our need for rest comes God's promise of our reading from the Epistle of Hebrews. “For we who have believed have entered (that very thing that we so need) REST!”
Most of the time when we think “rest” we think vacation. We think “go somewhere”. Get away. Relax. Kick back. Enjoy life. We think travel. Somewhere south. The beech. A good book. A golf course. Some warm air. Some time to do nothing.
When God presents for us what his rest entails it looks a bit different. What God has in mind for us is less about leisure. Not that leisure is bad. Vacations, time away, a trip with the family. All of these are good things. Blessings! Gifts from God, even. And while these leisurely trips are good things they are not the rest that God has to give, that God really wants to give and that you need to receive.
God's rest is time for worship.
Remember the 3rd Commandment? “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Sabbath is a Hebrew word that means “rest”. It literally means “to stop”. It is rooted in the creation narrative where God did his work of creating and then on the 7 day he took his Sabbath – he rested. The 3rd Commandment is God's command that we do the same. And so the Catechism asks the question: “What does this mean?” It provides the answer. “We should fear and love God that we may not despise preaching and his Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.
God's rest involves going to church. Preaching. The Bible (God's Word). Hearing it. Gladly learning it. Listening. Studying, even.
How can that be rest? There is far too much brain activity, far too much work involved in all of those things for that to be rest. We all know what it means to go to church. You have to get up early on a Sunday morning, get the kids up out of bed, get everyone cleaned up, dressed up, and straightened up so that you can go and sit for an hour. Not exactly what we would call rest. Is it? What about sleeping in? What about relaxing? What about catching up on our personal to do lists? That's what we need, isn't it?
Not according to God. God's commandment, the God who made you from nothing, who brought you into this world, who is the architect of your very existence seems to think that this is exactly what you need. This is the very rest that you require. All that other rest is fine. It has its place. It is worth while every now and then if you can get it. But that is not the rest that you need, that you really need, that your very life is depending on. The rest that you need is the rest that God offers you today, here at church. Here in the preaching of His Word.
Why? Perhaps you already know. The reason we need rest is because we are sinners. Yes. We are sinners. Sinful people, living in a sinful world. We live through every day of our lives with the temptations to fulfill the desires of our sinful flesh – to be selfish, greedy, to get angry, to hate and despise, to lust, to covet, to be jealous, to disrespect, to steal. We carry the weight of this ever present burden every day of our lives.
Even when you go on vacation to get away from it all, your sinful nature follows you. You can struggle and fight with your sinful nature on a golf course or on a beech or a cruise-ship or at a theme park just as much as you can sitting at your desk, on your combine, or in your living room sofa. Sometimes even more so – leisure time just means your sinful nature doesn't have the distractions of work to keep itself from cooking up new ways to sin. (Perhaps that is why what happens in Vegas stay there!) We are sinners! The real rest that we really need is the rest that God offer here at church.
But look at how our text describes that rest. This might throw you for a real loop. It might even make you uncomfortable.
“Let us strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of sword and spirit, of joints and marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
That's it. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like rest to me. That doesn't even sound pleasant or desirable, let alone restful. It sounds worrisome, concerning, frightful even.
Being cut apart and dissected by a two edged sword. No thank you. Being naked and exposed, laid bare for all to see. I think I'll pass – there have been too many of those “what happens in Vegas” sort of experiences to want to have to relive them, to draw them all back into the open and have to think about them again. That surely does not sound like rest.
But it is exactly the kind of rest that we need.
In the movie The Shawshank Redemption Morgan Freeman's character, a seasoned prisoner in the Shawshank prison relayed the following quip to Tim Robbins. “We're all innocent in here.” Indeed psychologists tell us that murders and those who have committed violent crimes often construct different memories for themselves with different events and different details so that they don't have to remember the truth of the crime they committed. They convince themselves that this alternate memory is exactly the way things happened. It's true. And you do the very same thing every time you tell yourself “It's not my fault.” Every time you pass the blame for your sin along to somebody else, every time you defend yourself and your own innocence for some sin that you have committed, every time you deny your guilt and act like you haven't done anything wrong you have done the exact same thing. You have constructed for yourself a memory of the event that is more convenient for you, a memory that lets you off the hook.
The Word of God doesn't let you get away with that. Does it? God's Word sees through your lies. It sees beneath the layers of excuses that you have made. It unravels the tales you have spun to justify your actions and explain away your guilt. God's Word can't be so easily fooled. And your conscience knows it. Perhaps that's why people stay away from church. Perhaps that's why you have skipped from time to time. You feel guilty. You know your sin. And you haven't wanted to be reminded of it. It makes you too uncomfortable.
That's what God's Word does. No one can hide before the piercing, laser focused stare of God's Word. It opens you up, lays you naked and exposed so that you can no longer lie to yourself, so that you can no longer lie to God.
How can that be rest?
“Come to Me,” says Jesus, “all you who are weary and heavy laden...” All you who are weighed down with not just the cares of the world, but weighed down with guilt and sin. Weighed down with the failures of your life, with your misuse of your time and energy, with the faults, with the missteps, with the impulsive sins, with your scars from the many sins you have done with all those things that you have done, those things that you are trying to leave behind you, those sins that haunt you from your youth, from your past, from only yesterday, those things that are too painful to bring up and that you have tried so hard to bury so deeply but that just won't go away. “Come to me” says Jesus, “and I will give you rest.”
This rest is rest that only Jesus can give. Because once all of those sins are dragged back out into the open and we are naked and bare and exposed for all the world to see, we find ourselves in an uncomfortable spot. We find ourselves frightened and scared, we find that we deserve punishment and ridicule and hatred – not just from each other, from our spouse, our children, and so on – after all, how much can they condemn anyway? They are just as sinful as you are. Where we really need forgiveness is from God.
And the God who slices into your soul and spirit to lay bare all your sins, past and preset is the same one who himself was naked and exposed, who was laid bare for all to see and to ridicule and slander as he hung for you on the cross. Jesus was pierced, but not for his own transgressions. When he was divided and dissected there were no sins to be found. The blood that flowed from his hands and feet, from his side was pure – sinless, not deserving of the punishment he received. But he did it for you.
And this Jesus who died, who was pierced, who hung naked and exposed on the cross – he hung there in your place, for your sin so that when you come here to church, when you come here with your guilty conscience and your painful memories he speaks his word of pardon and forgiveness. I know what you did. I was there with you... yesterday. Last week, last month, last year, in your youth, in your anger, in your sin. I saw it all. I know it all. And I do not hold it against you. I paid for that sin with my own suffering and the shedding of my blood. I do not condemn you. Instead I forgive you.
“When I kept silent my bones wasted away within me” writes David in the Psalms (32) “through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of the summer. I acknowledged my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgression to the Lord”, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”
Your God is merciful. He lays his word of law on you to convict you of your sin and then he takes that sin from you . He pays for it himself and he restores you. He restores your soul. So that you don't have to hide, so that you don't have to run, so that you can stop the internal wrestling that goes on with your heart, so that finally you can rest. And that is where our Worship comes in to the picture. It is here at church that we have come for a meeting with God. Jesus Christ himself is here with us this morning to pardon you from your sins. He is here in his word. He has commissioned me to proclaim to you pardon and peace for your sin. He has commanded that this word of forgiveness be preached and proclaimed to you so that you may have forgiveness, so that you may have rest.
Today God offer to you rest. Not leisure. Not vacation. Not time away. But Rest. From sin. From guilt, from the past that haunts you. Real rest in the confidence that comes from the forgiveness of Jesus who died for you on the cross.

Pentecost 19

Suppose you are Jesus. How would you have handled this situation?
A man runs up to you as you are on your way out of town and he wants to come with you. He is well dressed, apparently wealthy. He kneels down in front of you and tells you he wants to be a disciple. His way of asking is a bit unorthodox. “What must I do to be saved?” says the man. He wants to do something. Salvation doesn't come by doing, not by your doing anyways. So the man has some lessons to learn. How would you have handled the situation?
I would do exactly the way Jesus did? Isn't that the obvious answer?
Look at what Jesus did and do that. He was Jesus. He always did the right thing so all we have to do is what He did. Right?
But look what Jesus did. Jesus turned the man away. Ironically, he looked at him, loved him, and then made choose. Jesus and only Jesus. Not Jesus and loving myself. Not Jesus and loving my money. Jesus and only Jesus. The man chose himself and his money and he went away sad.
Is that what you would have done?
Our modern sensitivities tell us there can never be just one way. There always has to be a choice. There always has to be a middle of the road. We don't ever want to say somebody is out, that they are wrong, that there is only one way. Jesus has no problems with it. He pulls no punches. Allows no middle ground. Accepts no substitutes. It is Jesus and only Jesus. Nothing else will do.
The man was wealthy. Jesus did not have to be told that he was rich. We usually assume Jesus knew the man was rich because he was Jesus. He always knew the whole story; he could tell you what you were thinking (as in the case of the Pharisees), what you were doing before he saw you (Bartholomew), what you were going to do after he saw you (Peter)... We figure this was another one of those situations. But the man was rich. If a rich man walks comes to church, usually we can size him up pretty quickly. We know the difference. We can tell the difference between Wal-Mart and Abercrombie. Between Kia and Cadillac. Between Ford and John Deer. We are all very in touch with labels and their status. We know, and so did they. It was apparent to everyone in the crowd that this young man bending Jesus' ear was wealthy. He wore it on his back.
Not only was the man rich, he was religiously devoted. He was committed. These days we would say that He was on fire for the Lord. He committed himself to obeying the commandments. He honored his parents. He did not kill. Did not covet. Never had an affair. Never even stole – which is unusual for a business man these days. He had held up under the pressures of the busy and stressful corporate lifestyle. He was a winner at business. He was a winner at life. He was a winner at church.
Funny, isn't that usually what we are looking for? Isn't that usually what we look up to? These are the guys who write books about the right way to live. And we go out and buy them. We put them on our bookshelves, on our coffee tables. We even go to the seminar and buy the dvd. This guy did life the right way! He did it God's way! And he's rich! Maybe I can be too.
But that wasn't enough for Jesus. Jesus wouldn't accept any self made men. There was no room among the followers of Jesus for any do-it-yourself disciples. Jesus didn't come to build a winning team. Jesus didn't come to attract life's winners. Jesus came to save sinners. Jesus came to heal the sick, care for the poor, bind up the broken hearted. Jesus came, not for the healthy, not for life's winners. Jesus came for the loosers.
So the man came to Jesus, wanting to join his team, wanting to sign up and climb on board. He came with all his success and his long and impressive list of credentials. He won at life. He won at religion. He was ready to conquer the next challenge. He was ready to be one of Jesus' disciples. And his attitude was reflected in his question. “Good teacher. What must I do to be saved?” What must I do... Salvation doesn't come by doing. Not your anyway. Oh it does come by doing. It doesn't' just happen. But it is not, it is never, it could never be your doing. It is God's doing. God's doing for you!
Jesus' answer was appropriate to the question. If you want to get to heaven by doing, then there is a way. You can get to heaven by good works. (That sounds off to us. Doesn't it? We believe we are saved by grace.) But the man asks the question – what must I do to be saved. Jesus gives the answer to the question that he asked. If you want run your salvation according to doing, according to achievement, then here it is – obey the commandments. If you want a religion of good works God has given a list of things for you to accomplish. 10 things, 10 commands follow those and you will be saved. The man asked the question, Jesus gave the answer.
The man should have heard the answer and understood that the game was up, it was over before it started. He didn't have a chance. That was too tall an order. He had already broken the commandments. He was already guilty.
But he didn't. He kept going. He didn't understand the point.
“I have kept the commandments, all of them, from my youth.”
And that is what so often gets us into trouble. The man was convinced that he had already accomplished God's list of commands. He thought he was already doing all those things. He thought that because he had worked hard and disciplined himself and succeeded at everything he had ever done that salvation was going to work the exact same way.
He was wrong.
Jesus looked at him and Jesus loved him. And because Jesus loved him he showed him just how wrong he was.
“There is one thing you lack.” said Jesus. “Go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then come and follow me.”
The man couldn't do it. His money, all that he had worked for, the symbol of his success, give it all away? What would you do?
What is that thing that you hold on to? That you prize above all else? Is it your money? Your reputation? Your place in the community? Your intelligence? Your independence? Your will? We all have something... what's yours?
Whatever it is, lay it at the feet of Jesus. Whatever it is take it and use it not for your own glory – that is nothing but vanity. Use it instead for the service of your neighbor. Use it to show the love of Jesus to the world.
Because that is what Jesus has done for us.
Jesus has seen all of our accomplishment and he has seen the sin that lies behind each one of them. He has seen the sickness of sin that lives beneath the surface. And Jesus has come to die for that sin.
For all the accomplishments, for all the things that people have done, there is only one thing that matters, there is only one accomplishment that is worth anything and that is the one thing that Jesus accomplished on the cross. What Jesus accomplished for you.
Jesus was the only one who has truly obeyed the commandments. When the man went away sad he revealed the true condition of his heart. He couldn't give up his wealth. We all have similar idols that we insist on holding on to. Jesus did not have any idols, no other gods that he had hidden away in his heart. He had kept the commandment perfectly.
And then Jesus, the only true commandment achiever not just before men, but before God died for our lack of achievement. For our failures. For the times that we have not lived up to the mark, that we have fallen short. Jesus has taken all of our sin and he has died for it on the cross. He has even paid for that sin of pride that wants so badly to be convinced that we have actually pulled it off.
The only way to salvation is the gospel. The only way to salvation is forgiveness, not by your own merit, not by your won hard work, not by your own bootstraps, not by the purity of your own heart. It's by Jesus. Jesus on the cross for you and only Jesus. There is no other way.
Jesus sent the man away sad, poured out and dejected because he couldn't' do it. There is another way. There is Jesus. Confess yours sin to him, lay your treasures at his feet. Serve him serve your neighbor. Be forgiven.
Amen.

Pentecost 18

Dear People of St Paul,
You are a strange bunch of people.
You might think I am kidding. You might think that I am making a joke, or taking a crack at your affinity for the local sport team or just going for the shock value.
None of these are the case. You are strange! You're weird! An odd bunch of people who are completely outside of the mainstream! Your thoughts, your beliefs, your values are far and away different from the rest of the world.
And let me tell you why – as a people, as a group, as a classification you value the institution of marriage. You think it's important, worthy of protecting and preserving. You consider it to be precious, a gift even. And that makes you weird!
Yes, it is true – you're view of marriage makes you weird. But, let it be said, that is a good thing.
Consider the view of marriage in the world around us today.
Most (if not all) of your coworkers, the parents of the other kids on your ball team, the people you see in the grocery store, while they are likely to think marriage is good, they are likely to believe that it is a man made, a social institution made up by people. That it is something that has come to be a part of our society and the way we order ourselves as a people only because of a humanly devised value. A psychological construct – if you will. It's a contract, a piece of paper, a legal document that ultimately doesn't mean anything.
Some of your friends and coworkers might even believe marriage is unnecessary, outdated, old, and even useless. There is no point to it, no value to it, there is nothing positive that it has to offer. Truly modern people, evolved people (if you will) can just simply love each other sufficiently without it, some might even go so far as to say that they can love each other better without it.
But you? Not you. You see marriage – not as a piece of paper, not as a social contract, not as a means for stamping your mark of ownership on another person – you see marriage as a gift from God. You see marriage as God's blessing and you cherish this gift and desire to see it flourish for yourself and in your own family. Marriage is a part, a piece of God's own creation, established by him even before his first week of creating was done.
You after all, believe to be true our text from Genesis. In Genesis chapter 1 we get the cliff notes version of the six days of creation. But then in Chapter 2 we are taken back into the week of creation. Back to day 6. God wants us to know more. You see, the creation of the man and the woman was important, significant – the brief version offered in the first chapter is not enough so we are treated to a second look.
God made the man. He formed him from a lump of clay and breathed into him the breath of life – with every other living thing God simply spoke and it came to be, but with the man God took greater care and more deliberate intention. A lump of clay and His own Breath. Man was alive with body and soul. Of the same stuff as earth, sharing the same matter with the rest of it, but with a spiritual dimension added in that was not given to the dogs and cats and rocks and trees.
But the man was alone. There was nothing else in all creation that was like him. The creation was good but the man was alone and God said that this was “not good”. So the Lord God brought to the man all these other creatures so that he might name them, but among all the other created things in God's good world there was not one thing found that was like Adam in his uniqueness from the rest of creation. So God put him to sleep and performed a surgery on him – He took from the man a rib that was of his flesh and bone, built from the same raw materials and then God constructed a new creature: like the man but different. Of the same flesh, but unique in her construction. One who made God's creation (and therefore the man) complete. What was “not good” had all of a sudden become not just good – now, with the creation of the woman God's work was done and it was “very good”.
A man and a woman made to be “one flesh”. Two made to be one. A single unit. Two parts united together so that they make a new thing. A marriage – a one flesh union that God has joined together. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they shall be one flesh.”
This creation; this gift of marriage is such a blessing. In spite of the dishonor that this good creation and gift of God has received, those who have received this gift can attest to its goodness. Marriage completes you. When a man and woman are joined together the two parts together become better than the individuals were apart. The two help each other.
The man loves and cares for his wife so that she feels the safety and security of his love. Rather than being restrained by being “possessed” by another she knows she belongs the way she is created to be.
And the man is better with his wife than he would otherwise be alone. He is turned outside himself to the care of another and his wife turns his attention to where God would have him to serve not just her, but his neighbor.
And then God blesses this union, this joining not just with a personal union, not just with a relationship, not just with a shared space and shared emotion – God makes this union of the flesh of a man and the flesh of a woman into a new flesh when God creates from this union a life, a new person, a child that is literally the flesh of the man and the flesh of the woman joined together into a new flesh. This is a profound and beautiful mystery that we can only begin to understand. And God has given this as a good gift and a blessing for the benefit and the joy of the man and the woman, of the husband and the wife.
Dear Christians, you see and understand this mysterious and this beautiful gift. You appreciate this gift. You cherish this gift.
And how sad it is to say that this makes you weird.
You live in a world where this beautiful gift has been tarnished and stained. You live in a world where this gift is cast aside as “outdated”, as a “relic of a bygone and primitive era”. You live in a world that wants to throw this gift away and trample it underfoot by allowing and even encouraging the gift to be despised. The bride who completes you has become your “ball and chain”. The husband who you cherish and is cherished by you has become “the idiot father of your children”.
You live in a world where the mysterious joining together of a man and a woman by God has become a “contract” that we can extend to any two people who feel like having sex with each other. Marriage is more than emotion. It is more than sex. It is more than a social or a civil arrangement. It is much more.
Out of two God makes one. That is what our text says. That was the way of the original creation. No one was separate. No one was alone. God made the man and the woman to be one with each other. And this, as God said, was “very good”.
But then look what happen. Adam sinned. His wife Eve sinned. And instead of being one, instead of being joined to each other we see them pitted against each other. Notice Adam's words. “That woman you gave me”. Notice how his view had changed – the one who he had rejoiced over because she was of his flesh and bone had all of a sudden become “that woman”. Husbands, how many of you have ever thought this way of your wife?
And then notice God's word to Eve – “your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you”. Wives, how many of you have ever resented your husband? Who he is, what he has done or has not done? Why couldn't he be more romantic? Responsible? In tune with your needs?
Instead of enjoying the one flesh union, the sameness, the togetherness, the unity that God has designed and intended we so often become little more than two people occupying the same space. Our joining of one flesh as a gift from God turns into that “contract”, that “social institution”, that we hear so much about. May the Lord God forgive us for our sin.
But then consider Paul's word in Ephesians. “This is a profound mystery.” he writes. But he is talking about Christ and the Church. Christ gave himself up for us and offered himself so that he might sanctify us, cleansing us by the washing of water with the Word so that He might present us to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle so that we might be holy and without blemish.
Those of you who are married, consider your wedding day. Husbands, the day that you took your wife to yourself and pledged yourself to her. She was beautifully dressed. When you saw her she took your breath away. You pledged yourself to her to be faithful to her and to cherish her above all else. Wives, you walked down the aisle of the church to be given to your husband so that he might be the one that you love and that you cherish and who is also loved and cherished by you.
Christ has done that for you. But let us understand. Just as a bride is dressed from head to toe elegantly and beautifully and fittingly, you too were dressed. But not in clothes that you made, that you even purchased. Christ your bridegroom clothed you. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed because they had not sinned. But you? You were exposed. You were naked and your nakedness was the result of your unfaithfulness. When Christ came to you and found you, you were like a prostitute lying in the gutter offering yourself to all manner of uncleanness and vileness. But Christ your bridegroom came to you and found you and he loved you and he cherished you in spite of the fact that you were wholly unlovable. He chose you, against all odds that anyone would even have you. He made you to be his very own. And he washed you with water and the Word, that is to say, He baptized you and in so doing he clothed you with a garment that he himself purchased for you.
When he found you, you were filthy and dirty and diseased – covered in the muck and mire of your sin. But he washed you. He cleansed you. He healed your diseases. He purified you from your sin. You have received a spiritual makeover. It's hard to recognize that you are even the same person. You have been dressed with all the wealth of heaven, dressed in the garments of righteousness made for you by God himself. Jesus Christ is your eternal bridegroom and he has chosen you for the eternal wedding feast of heaven.
So God restored you to himself. He re-joined you to him. The rift, the rupture in the relationship has been repaired and you and God are once again in communion with each other. But the same can be said for you and your husband, or your wife. Your sin tears you apart. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, you run off and hide from God and from each other to cover your shame and to cover your nakedness. But God has covered you. He has clothed you. He has washed you clean and He has restored you. In so doing he has restored you, husbands and wives, to each other.
So be weird. Cherish your wife. Honor your husband. Rejoice in your marriage.

Amen.