These days, people think it is fun to be scared. Around this season, around the fall, as we get closer to the date of Halloween, people like to entertain themselves with feelings of fear. They wear scary costumes, go to scary movies, take tours of haunted houses or a maze or even amusement park so that people dressed in costumes can jump out at unexpected times to give them a little bit of a fright. People think it's fun, it's a diversion from the every day for the sake of pure entertainment.
While we like to dabble in fear and experience a contrived and “put on” fear, I would venture to guess that this is a far cry from real fear, from genuine terror, from actual fright. We can sit through a movie or walk through a corn maze knowing that what we are experiencing isn't real, that it will soon be over and life will be back to normal. But to know true fear, a genuine fear that we will suffer harm, destruction or even death, that is much less entertaining and much more serious.
While we dabble in fear for the fun of it, prior to the reformation, and prior to his discovery of the Gospel, Marin Luther lived with real, with actual fear. Martin Luther lived in mortal terror. And not of ghosts, not of some bogey man with a chain saw, not even of the devil. Luther lived in fear, in terror of God. Luther lived with a real genuine terror of the judgment of a righteous God who would judge all those who were unrighteous and all those who were sinners. He was afraid that God was going to judge him for his sin, and that he was going to spend not just an hour, not just an evening, but that he was going to spend an eternity in God's judgment and torment in hell. The reformation set him free from that fear and introduced him to the loving and merciful and gracious nature of God's character. Luther came to know Jesus and the forgiveness that he brings to sinners on the cross.
In some ways, Martin Luther was right to fear God. After all, Jesus even said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Jesus is telling us that it is right for us to be afraid... to be afraid of God.
These days people are afraid of lots of things. Aside from the ghosts and goblins of Halloween, people are afraid of terrorists or the economy or joblessness or ridicule or loneliness. Most people are not afraid of God. Most people don't have room in their personal theologies for God's judgment and wrath over sin. Most people think that God doesn't really care what you do or what you think, he will just love you anyways. Scripture paints a much different picture; a much different picture of you and me and our sin and a much different picture of the character of God. We are sinners. He is just and holy. We deserve his punishment. He doesn't ever overlook sin. These truths should cause us fear.
The Medieval church understood the severity of sin and the justice of God. Therefor Luther was afraid. He was terrified. When Luther looked into his heart he saw sin. When he looked into the Word he saw God's righteousness. He knew he did not measure up and so he was afraid.
What the medieval Church did not understand was God's mercy. They did not understand God's generosity. They did not understand God's kindly and forgiving heart that shows itself in the gift of God's only Son to die for the sins of the world. This message is clearly taught in our Epistle lesson for today.
Our text for today is Romans 3. Verse 21 talks about the Righteousness of God that is manifested apart from the law. The righteousness of God that is manifested apart from the law, separate from it. The law is the commandments, those things that we do and do not do that condemn us for our sin. The law points us to our disobedience and hard heartedness. We look into the ten commandments and we will see countless ways that we have not measured up to God's expectations for us. But there is another righteousness, a new righteousness that God has revealed to us.
Through the old righteousness we come to realize our sin. We realize that we and everyone else in God's creation aught to be terrified and frightened of our Lord and Creator, but... BUT!!!! But we are justified!!! This word, this “justified” is an important word. It is a glorious word. To be justified means nothing other than to be made righteous. We need to be righteous. We are not righteous. So God makes us righteous. God does the work, gives the righteousness. Accomplishes the righteousness for us, on our behalf, freely by His grace. There is a new righteousness, a righteousness apart from the law. Luther understood the old righteousness that was earned through obedience. God gave a new righteousness given by grace, given through his Son, given as a gift. Given for the sake of Jesus.
But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it – the Righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. (Rom. 3:21-25)
It all hinges on this word “propitiation”. We don't use that word much so it is good to take a moment to remember what it means.
In ancient pagan religions, when the people offended their gods they believed that there was a debt that they had to pay so that they could make things right. They thought of their gods as not too different from a mafia boss. When you cross him you owe him. And depending on how big the offense, you might owe him a greater debt. And if the debt was too big to pay, sometimes the the only way to make him happy was to pay with your life. Mafia bosses are notorious for exacting revenge. They always get their man. Pagan worshipers thought of their gods in the same way. Strict code of justice. Obey or else. Disobey and you pay up. One way or another, you will pay up. The word propitiation was the term for the payment rendered to satisfy the god's sense of justice.
But that was the remarkable thing about Paul's use of that word in connection with the true God. Because there was a strict code of justice, obey and live, disobey and die, but what happens when you disobey? God in his grace sent his own son Jesus to be that propitiation, to be that sacrifice, to be that blood offering and to die in our place.
God in his justice was angry at our sin. But God in his grace paid the debt for us. He sent Jesus to be the propitiation. To be the satisfaction of the blood debt that we owed to God, but that God didn't make us pay. We owed God but he paid the debt by himself to himself to satisfy his anger at our sin all for the sake of his grace and his joy. We are set free, given this new righteousness, manifested apart from the law and given freely as a gift for the sake of Jesus.
Luther had been living his life in fear. He saw the old righteousness that demanded his perfect life, but he hadn't yet discovered the new righteousness given by God's grace. And therefore he was afraid. He was truly, mortally and legitimately afraid of the wrath of God over his sin.
Psalm 46 identifies God as our refuge and strength, our ever present help in times of trouble. Therefore, it says, we will not fear, even though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.
Hebrews 13 says The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me.
1 John 4 says, “There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
In God's love he has made us perfect. He has paid the debt for our sin and he has given to us his son as the propitiation for our sin. Therefore there is no need to fear. The fear is gone. The question is, what remains?
What remains is God's grace. Now this in not immediately apparent in reading the English text, but if you were familiar with the Greek language you would understand that the words “grace” and “joy” share the same root. They are from the same word. If fear is gone, if the fear has been taken away, then what remain? What is left in its place? Joy. God perfect joy. God's everlasting joy. God's joy that won't ever be taken away, that can't be taken away.
Ironically, on October 31 most of the world celebrates fear by dressing up to mimic death. Today the Lutheran Church understands that fear, and specifically the fear of death has been taken away because of what God has done for us in Jesus on the cross. There is no fear, not even fear of death. There is only joy. May the joy of Christ Jesus given to you in God's grace be yours this Reformation Day.
Amen.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
October 24 2010 - Pentecost 22
People these days have become obsessed with the environment. We are constantly hearing about deadly greenhouse gases and the effect they are having on the climate. We are also hearing about how our high level of consumption is leaving behind a residue of trash and harmful substances that need to be eliminated. To curb the problem people have begun to chant the mantra, reduce, reuse recycle. And so people are recycling. They are recycling their shampoo bottles and empty cereal boxes and soup cans. They are buying their clothes at consignment shops to reuse old clothes instead of buying new. They are driving low emission hybrid vehicles, or zero emission electric vehicles. All in the hope to reverse the trend and preserve the environment.
So how did this happen? What lead to this concern for the care of the environment? A fear that our planet has become polluted, that we have filled it with deadly substances. A fear that the natural pristine order of this good world has become corrupted and corroded with our various byproducts. This environmental craze is built off of a fear that irresponsible use of the planet has polluted and poisoned the world so that it wont be a suitable place for us to live.
And so people recycle. They take shorter showers, they buy organic, they pay a little extra for a hybrid, they car pool. They buy high efficiency light bulbs. They turn off the lights, the tv, the computer all in the hope that they can help save the planet. All in the hope that they can help to return our planet to its natural, pristine and optimally habitable state. It's hip to be an environmentalist.
But with all this concern for the planet and pollution and the land and the environment, with all the reducing, reusing and recycling that is going in cities and urban centers all over the place, there is a pollution that is continuing unchecked. There are industries that are turning out destructive and corrosive materials and substances that will kill the planet, that will create a living environment that is utterly uninhabitable, that will be the death of all of us. And it's not smoke, its not greenhouse gases or automobile emissions, it's not oil spills or chemical spills. Instead the pollution that is destroying our planet and making unfit for people to live is the pollution of sin.
And it is a pollution. Pollution occurs when an un-natural substance is introduced into the natural environment that mixes and mingles with the natural so that it becomes corrupted and unstable. Sin does just that. Sin adds a foreign substance into God's good created order. It introduces things that do not belong. We think of chemical sludge dumped into streams and rivers and are concerned for the danger to the environment and for the health and well being of our children, but sin and the world's sin factories introduce the foreign and corrupting substances into the human experience every single day.
In our Old Testament text, this morning we see an act of pollution. We see that the actions of men interrupt the natural order of God's good world so that the environment was desecrated. Cain had become jealous of his brother Abel because the Lord accepted his sacrifice while Cain's had been rejected. And so Cain murdered Abel.
Life and death is in God's hands. It is not given to men to decide when life begins or when it ends. This is God's work. It happens according to the natural unfolding of God's creation. But then Cain took life into his own hands. In a fit of jealous rage he introduced something foreign into God's pristine world. He corrupted God's world and cursed God's world when he murdered his brother. He introduced something in to God's creation that did not belong and the result was that the ground itself was tainted.
Notice what God says, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brothers blood from your hand.”
Life is God's gift. It belong to God to give life it belongs to God to take it away. Cain interrupted the natural ecology of God's world so that the ground itself was polluted.
God says as much in Numbers 35:33-34, “You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”
Or else, consider Psalm 106. 38 they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
So sin, and specifically murder, pollutes the land and affects not just the people, but it affects all of God's creation.
But that is not all, murder is not the only sin that pollutes. In Leviticus 18 God gives commands about all kinds of sexual sins, sins that his people are not to commit. They are sins that violate and defile the nation, the people, and even the land. God says, “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. Murder and sexual sins are a pollution. These sins introduce a foreign substance into the natural order of God's world so that it becomes disordered and harmed.
Lets consider our own day and our own time. Think of the murders that continue on each and every day. There are murders that go on that are publicly sanctioned. Murders of the unborn that are legally protected and even funded. There is an increasing disdain for the life of the aged and infirm. Make no mistake, the sins of abortion and euthanasia are sins that have stained the land with the blood of our innocents.
But that is not all. The indecent and lewd acts that were condemned by the Lord in Leviticus are more and more becoming common place. These relationships, that are contrary to God's created order, and are violations of his creation are becoming also publicly sanctioned and even protected by legislative or judicial decree. Make no mistake, these acts pollute and defile the land.
In the Old Testament, this pollution of sin required that those living in the land be destroyed. God said that the land would vomit out the people who committed those acts. God judged them in their sin so that they were destroyed.
My Christian friends, we live in a land that is polluted. If God judged the Canaanites and Perizites and the Hittites and Jebusites so that they land spewed them out, than certainly our land is poised to do the same. This pollution needs to be cleaned up. The environment needs a good spring cleaning.
There's nothing you or I could do about it, to be sure. After all to say that I had to change or that you had to change and that together we could make a change would be ludicrous. It would be like trying to clean up the smog in LA with a glade plug in. We are just not up to the task. So we can't fix it. But God can. God can clean up the sin that has corrupted our world. And God can return the world to order and cleanliness.
There is kind of a weird little thing that occurs in our text this morning that you can't really see in the translation. Sometimes there are phrases or comments that are made that could be possibly understood more than one way, and we seem to have one of those instances here in our text. When Eve gave birth to Cain, our translation tells us that she said, “Behold I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” The Hebrew grammar leaves us guessing a little bit as to exactly what she intended to say; it allows us to wonder if Eve didn't think The Lord had just sent the Messiah. A few verses prior God gave the first Messianic promise, the first promise of a savior. God promised a son of hers would crush the head of the serpent. And then Eve God pregnant and had a boy and she said, “Behold I have gotten a man, the Lord.” Apparently, Eve thought that Cain was the Messiah. Eve thought that this boy would clean up the pollution and mess that she and her husband had made.
Eve was wrong. Cain was not the Messiah. In fact, he turned out to be a murderer. And a polluter of the world. A man, yes. But the man who first spilled a man's blood and thus polluted the earth with death at the hands of men. And so Abel's blood cried out from the recently polluted ground for God's vengeance.
But time went on. Adams son and Eve's daughters gave birth to generations of men. And to generations of sinners. And the pollution on God's planted continued. But the Lord kept his promise and sent that man that Eve was looking for from her womb. The Lord sent Jesus; a man and the Lord all at once. God sent Jesus, to be born of a woman, born under the law, the same law that condemns Cain and also condemns us.
What Cain was not, Jesus was. Cain coveted. Jesus loved. Cain took life from his brother. Jesus healed those who were injured and even raised the dead back to life. Cain polluted the earth with the blood of his brother, Jesus came to clean up that pollution.
The Old Testament tells us that anyone who murders another, who spills the blood of his brother on the ground, that murderer will be cursed. The Lord cursed Cain because of the blood of Abel. If Cain was cursed because of the blood of his brother, imagine the curse for murdering the very Son of God. Imagine the world wide pollution that would ensue from the death of God's own Son after his murder. Imagine the curse. Imagine the death that would swallow up those guilty of his murder.
You would think, wouldn't you?
But the blood of Jesus did not bring about a curse. It did not bring about death and destruction on the earth. It was, if you would, a counter pollution. The blood of Jesus was spilled out on the ground, but not for our curse, not for our judgment. Instead, it became our blessing. We were blessed by God because of this blood of Jesus.
The curse of the law was too great a judgment for Cain to endure so God gave him a mark, an identifier that he should not be touched. The Lord has given the same thing to us. He has marked us and identified us as His own through baptism. We have been marked and set aside and preserved from Judgment because of what God has done for us.
The world is certainly polluted, filled with sin and cursed because of it. Yet Jesus has the antidote for that pollution. He has cleaned and cleansed the world when his blood was spilled on the earth so that we could be forgiven.
Amen.
So how did this happen? What lead to this concern for the care of the environment? A fear that our planet has become polluted, that we have filled it with deadly substances. A fear that the natural pristine order of this good world has become corrupted and corroded with our various byproducts. This environmental craze is built off of a fear that irresponsible use of the planet has polluted and poisoned the world so that it wont be a suitable place for us to live.
And so people recycle. They take shorter showers, they buy organic, they pay a little extra for a hybrid, they car pool. They buy high efficiency light bulbs. They turn off the lights, the tv, the computer all in the hope that they can help save the planet. All in the hope that they can help to return our planet to its natural, pristine and optimally habitable state. It's hip to be an environmentalist.
But with all this concern for the planet and pollution and the land and the environment, with all the reducing, reusing and recycling that is going in cities and urban centers all over the place, there is a pollution that is continuing unchecked. There are industries that are turning out destructive and corrosive materials and substances that will kill the planet, that will create a living environment that is utterly uninhabitable, that will be the death of all of us. And it's not smoke, its not greenhouse gases or automobile emissions, it's not oil spills or chemical spills. Instead the pollution that is destroying our planet and making unfit for people to live is the pollution of sin.
And it is a pollution. Pollution occurs when an un-natural substance is introduced into the natural environment that mixes and mingles with the natural so that it becomes corrupted and unstable. Sin does just that. Sin adds a foreign substance into God's good created order. It introduces things that do not belong. We think of chemical sludge dumped into streams and rivers and are concerned for the danger to the environment and for the health and well being of our children, but sin and the world's sin factories introduce the foreign and corrupting substances into the human experience every single day.
In our Old Testament text, this morning we see an act of pollution. We see that the actions of men interrupt the natural order of God's good world so that the environment was desecrated. Cain had become jealous of his brother Abel because the Lord accepted his sacrifice while Cain's had been rejected. And so Cain murdered Abel.
Life and death is in God's hands. It is not given to men to decide when life begins or when it ends. This is God's work. It happens according to the natural unfolding of God's creation. But then Cain took life into his own hands. In a fit of jealous rage he introduced something foreign into God's pristine world. He corrupted God's world and cursed God's world when he murdered his brother. He introduced something in to God's creation that did not belong and the result was that the ground itself was tainted.
Notice what God says, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brothers blood from your hand.”
Life is God's gift. It belong to God to give life it belongs to God to take it away. Cain interrupted the natural ecology of God's world so that the ground itself was polluted.
God says as much in Numbers 35:33-34, “You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”
Or else, consider Psalm 106. 38 they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
So sin, and specifically murder, pollutes the land and affects not just the people, but it affects all of God's creation.
But that is not all, murder is not the only sin that pollutes. In Leviticus 18 God gives commands about all kinds of sexual sins, sins that his people are not to commit. They are sins that violate and defile the nation, the people, and even the land. God says, “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. Murder and sexual sins are a pollution. These sins introduce a foreign substance into the natural order of God's world so that it becomes disordered and harmed.
Lets consider our own day and our own time. Think of the murders that continue on each and every day. There are murders that go on that are publicly sanctioned. Murders of the unborn that are legally protected and even funded. There is an increasing disdain for the life of the aged and infirm. Make no mistake, the sins of abortion and euthanasia are sins that have stained the land with the blood of our innocents.
But that is not all. The indecent and lewd acts that were condemned by the Lord in Leviticus are more and more becoming common place. These relationships, that are contrary to God's created order, and are violations of his creation are becoming also publicly sanctioned and even protected by legislative or judicial decree. Make no mistake, these acts pollute and defile the land.
In the Old Testament, this pollution of sin required that those living in the land be destroyed. God said that the land would vomit out the people who committed those acts. God judged them in their sin so that they were destroyed.
My Christian friends, we live in a land that is polluted. If God judged the Canaanites and Perizites and the Hittites and Jebusites so that they land spewed them out, than certainly our land is poised to do the same. This pollution needs to be cleaned up. The environment needs a good spring cleaning.
There's nothing you or I could do about it, to be sure. After all to say that I had to change or that you had to change and that together we could make a change would be ludicrous. It would be like trying to clean up the smog in LA with a glade plug in. We are just not up to the task. So we can't fix it. But God can. God can clean up the sin that has corrupted our world. And God can return the world to order and cleanliness.
There is kind of a weird little thing that occurs in our text this morning that you can't really see in the translation. Sometimes there are phrases or comments that are made that could be possibly understood more than one way, and we seem to have one of those instances here in our text. When Eve gave birth to Cain, our translation tells us that she said, “Behold I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” The Hebrew grammar leaves us guessing a little bit as to exactly what she intended to say; it allows us to wonder if Eve didn't think The Lord had just sent the Messiah. A few verses prior God gave the first Messianic promise, the first promise of a savior. God promised a son of hers would crush the head of the serpent. And then Eve God pregnant and had a boy and she said, “Behold I have gotten a man, the Lord.” Apparently, Eve thought that Cain was the Messiah. Eve thought that this boy would clean up the pollution and mess that she and her husband had made.
Eve was wrong. Cain was not the Messiah. In fact, he turned out to be a murderer. And a polluter of the world. A man, yes. But the man who first spilled a man's blood and thus polluted the earth with death at the hands of men. And so Abel's blood cried out from the recently polluted ground for God's vengeance.
But time went on. Adams son and Eve's daughters gave birth to generations of men. And to generations of sinners. And the pollution on God's planted continued. But the Lord kept his promise and sent that man that Eve was looking for from her womb. The Lord sent Jesus; a man and the Lord all at once. God sent Jesus, to be born of a woman, born under the law, the same law that condemns Cain and also condemns us.
What Cain was not, Jesus was. Cain coveted. Jesus loved. Cain took life from his brother. Jesus healed those who were injured and even raised the dead back to life. Cain polluted the earth with the blood of his brother, Jesus came to clean up that pollution.
The Old Testament tells us that anyone who murders another, who spills the blood of his brother on the ground, that murderer will be cursed. The Lord cursed Cain because of the blood of Abel. If Cain was cursed because of the blood of his brother, imagine the curse for murdering the very Son of God. Imagine the world wide pollution that would ensue from the death of God's own Son after his murder. Imagine the curse. Imagine the death that would swallow up those guilty of his murder.
You would think, wouldn't you?
But the blood of Jesus did not bring about a curse. It did not bring about death and destruction on the earth. It was, if you would, a counter pollution. The blood of Jesus was spilled out on the ground, but not for our curse, not for our judgment. Instead, it became our blessing. We were blessed by God because of this blood of Jesus.
The curse of the law was too great a judgment for Cain to endure so God gave him a mark, an identifier that he should not be touched. The Lord has given the same thing to us. He has marked us and identified us as His own through baptism. We have been marked and set aside and preserved from Judgment because of what God has done for us.
The world is certainly polluted, filled with sin and cursed because of it. Yet Jesus has the antidote for that pollution. He has cleaned and cleansed the world when his blood was spilled on the earth so that we could be forgiven.
Amen.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
October 17, 2010 - Luke 18:1-8
A group of Christians had gathered together to pray recently in a school in New Delhi, in India when a radical Hindu group broke into the school and began to beat the pastors who were leading the prayer service. When the local authorities arrived, the attacks were permitted to continue. When arrests were finally made, it was the Christians who were taken to jail while their attackers were set free.
A Lutheran pastor in Africa decided to break off from his church's ties to a more liberal world wide Lutheran church body. When he purposed to ordain a pastor without the support of this liberal church organization he was told that there would be an attempt on his life. He performed the ordination in a private and unpublicized church service.
God will give justice, but there are certainly times when it seems like he is taking his time in administering it. And as it seems to us like we are up to our necks with injustice, that can be a real challenge.
We don't always stop to take notice. After all, in our corner of the world Christians have a lot of freedom to practice our faith. We look around us and sure, we can see evidence of sin. It's not always easy for us to express our faith and come right out and say what we believe. Our way of life is different and our priorities and lifestyle are different. But we no one is threatening to kill us or harm us. Not like they do in other places around the world.
But Corinthians says that when one member of the body of Christ suffers, all suffer together with him. Those Christians in New Delhi, those Christians in Africa, not to mention, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, and Indonesia, and elsewhere around the world, they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. As they suffer the brunt of this persecution, we suffer with them. We mourn with them. We pray for them and we cry out with them, How Long O Lord.
Psalm 13, this prayer of David sums it up pretty well:
“13:1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
As a believer in Christ, you don't have to live in some remote corner of the world to suffer at the hands of sin and evil in the world. You might suffer in some way or some means in your own neighborhood, in your own life and right here where you live. You might find yourself praying that same prayer and asking yourself that same question. Where is God? Is He still there? Is He concerned about what is happening to us down here on this planet? Or has he forgotten?
Dear friends, he has not forgotten. Jesus would have us to know that He is here with us. He is not far away, distant, or removed from our problems and our struggles, but he is right here in the middle of them. He is close beside us and he will not leave us. He sees what his people are enduring and he wouldn't have us despair. No. He does not want us to loose heart. Instead he wants us to stand up and stand tall and be confident that he hears us and that he is with us. He wants us to know that he is close beside us and here, in our text, in this parable, he urges us to pray.
Jesus tells a parable. Of an unjust judge. And judge who is unrighteous and who doesn't care what people think or what God thinks. And a widow. A poor, helpless woman who has no husband and few rights, if any at all. And this judge, who doesn't care about anyone, isn't really all that interested in hearing this widow's problems. He's too busy, too preoccupied and would really rather that she just went away.
Don't we sometimes feel like that is how God treats us, like he is preoccupied or busy or distant or unconcerned. Don't we feel like we at times have to work extra hard just to get an audience with our Lord when he should be on top of those problems that we are having.
Lord, how could you let this happen? How could you allow something like this to go on? Where were you when I needed you? Why didn't you step in to save me? Why didn't you stop this from happening? And we think we've got a pretty legitimate complaint.
But notice what this poor, helpless woman does, this woman in need of justice, this woman who has no where else to turn. Notice what she does. She doesn't quit. She doesn't allow herself to be ignored. She keeps coming. Keeps asking. Keeps urging. The squeaky wheel gets the oil and this woman made herself a nuisance in the ears of this wicked and lazy judge. The woman was tarnishing his reputation and making him look bad so he gave in. He heard the widow's case and he gave her the justice she demanded.
So is this God? Would Jesus have us understand God to be like this wicked judge? Unjust? Preoccupied? Only willing to dole out justice when we pester him to it? No! This parable is a study in contrast. God is good. He hears your prayers. He knows your needs even before you know them. He knows what you have suffered and how you have suffered. He knows how severely you have been wronged and he will give you justice.
Will not God give justice to the elect? Says Jesus. To those who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.
The Lord will provide justice. He will give you what you need. He hears your prayer. He knows your need and He will respond. He will not leave you to suffer. Instead he will answer the prayers of His faithful people. Take heart and keep praying.
In this sin-filled world Christians will suffer. With our enemy the Devil such an ever present foe, we can count on the fact that he will target God's people to test them and to see if he can have some success in drawing them away from their faith. And God permits him to do so. But when this happens God wants you to pray. That is the whole reason Jesus told this parable. Our text said that Jesus told the parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not loose heart.
Our Lord knew what we would suffer. He knew what we would endure. He knew that there would be evil and sin in the world. He knew that this sin would affect us and harm us. He knew that we would struggle against temptation and sin. He knew that we would battle with the lies of the Devil. So our Lord gave a parable to encourage us always to pray.
My friends, God wants you to pray. Always.
When you are in your car. When you are riding the bus to school. When you are about to eat a meal. When you are sitting at your desk. When you are facing some challenge. When you are about to undergo surgery. When someone has sinned against you. When you are afraid, nervous, joyful, glad, overwhelmed, grieved, excited, terrified, any time and every time. God wants you to pray. Always.
Our Sunday Morning adult Bible study has just begun a study on a book entitled Grace Upon Grace, Spirituality for Today by John Kleinig. In this book, Dr Kleinig likens prayer to being included in God's cabinet. It is like God is a ruler or king and his plan and agenda for His kingdom is laid out for us. When we pray, it's like we are participating in the work that God is doing on earth.
Dr Kleinig also talks about prayer as guard duty. We are soldiers in the army of the Lord, but we are not offensive soldiers. Jesus has already won the war. We are like sentries, manning our look out posts. Watching for the attacks of the devil on our children, our brothers or sisters, our friends, our parents. And this is an important point. Sometimes we can be self-centered in our prayers; we pray for our own needs or when we feel our own attacks. But we can pray for each other. If Satan is leaving you alone for a time, that means he is spending that time harassing someone else. Pray for that person. Whoever it may be. If you can't think of someone to pray for or someone who is suffering pray for Christians around the world. Join with them in their suffering by lifting them up in prayer before your Heavenly Father. Call in for support for them from Jesus who has defeated Satan and who has sent him running.
Jesus will help. He is far from preoccupied, He is ready and waiting. Willing and eager to help. And help he does. Because of his great love for us. He does not delay. He comes to chase away our adversary.
So don't despair. God is with you. He has not left you, indeed he is near by. Take heart. Take courage and pray to the God who has promised to hear. Who has promised to save. Who has promised to deliver you from whatever you might be suffering. In His Name.
Amen.
A Lutheran pastor in Africa decided to break off from his church's ties to a more liberal world wide Lutheran church body. When he purposed to ordain a pastor without the support of this liberal church organization he was told that there would be an attempt on his life. He performed the ordination in a private and unpublicized church service.
God will give justice, but there are certainly times when it seems like he is taking his time in administering it. And as it seems to us like we are up to our necks with injustice, that can be a real challenge.
We don't always stop to take notice. After all, in our corner of the world Christians have a lot of freedom to practice our faith. We look around us and sure, we can see evidence of sin. It's not always easy for us to express our faith and come right out and say what we believe. Our way of life is different and our priorities and lifestyle are different. But we no one is threatening to kill us or harm us. Not like they do in other places around the world.
But Corinthians says that when one member of the body of Christ suffers, all suffer together with him. Those Christians in New Delhi, those Christians in Africa, not to mention, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, and Indonesia, and elsewhere around the world, they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. As they suffer the brunt of this persecution, we suffer with them. We mourn with them. We pray for them and we cry out with them, How Long O Lord.
Psalm 13, this prayer of David sums it up pretty well:
“13:1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
As a believer in Christ, you don't have to live in some remote corner of the world to suffer at the hands of sin and evil in the world. You might suffer in some way or some means in your own neighborhood, in your own life and right here where you live. You might find yourself praying that same prayer and asking yourself that same question. Where is God? Is He still there? Is He concerned about what is happening to us down here on this planet? Or has he forgotten?
Dear friends, he has not forgotten. Jesus would have us to know that He is here with us. He is not far away, distant, or removed from our problems and our struggles, but he is right here in the middle of them. He is close beside us and he will not leave us. He sees what his people are enduring and he wouldn't have us despair. No. He does not want us to loose heart. Instead he wants us to stand up and stand tall and be confident that he hears us and that he is with us. He wants us to know that he is close beside us and here, in our text, in this parable, he urges us to pray.
Jesus tells a parable. Of an unjust judge. And judge who is unrighteous and who doesn't care what people think or what God thinks. And a widow. A poor, helpless woman who has no husband and few rights, if any at all. And this judge, who doesn't care about anyone, isn't really all that interested in hearing this widow's problems. He's too busy, too preoccupied and would really rather that she just went away.
Don't we sometimes feel like that is how God treats us, like he is preoccupied or busy or distant or unconcerned. Don't we feel like we at times have to work extra hard just to get an audience with our Lord when he should be on top of those problems that we are having.
Lord, how could you let this happen? How could you allow something like this to go on? Where were you when I needed you? Why didn't you step in to save me? Why didn't you stop this from happening? And we think we've got a pretty legitimate complaint.
But notice what this poor, helpless woman does, this woman in need of justice, this woman who has no where else to turn. Notice what she does. She doesn't quit. She doesn't allow herself to be ignored. She keeps coming. Keeps asking. Keeps urging. The squeaky wheel gets the oil and this woman made herself a nuisance in the ears of this wicked and lazy judge. The woman was tarnishing his reputation and making him look bad so he gave in. He heard the widow's case and he gave her the justice she demanded.
So is this God? Would Jesus have us understand God to be like this wicked judge? Unjust? Preoccupied? Only willing to dole out justice when we pester him to it? No! This parable is a study in contrast. God is good. He hears your prayers. He knows your needs even before you know them. He knows what you have suffered and how you have suffered. He knows how severely you have been wronged and he will give you justice.
Will not God give justice to the elect? Says Jesus. To those who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.
The Lord will provide justice. He will give you what you need. He hears your prayer. He knows your need and He will respond. He will not leave you to suffer. Instead he will answer the prayers of His faithful people. Take heart and keep praying.
In this sin-filled world Christians will suffer. With our enemy the Devil such an ever present foe, we can count on the fact that he will target God's people to test them and to see if he can have some success in drawing them away from their faith. And God permits him to do so. But when this happens God wants you to pray. That is the whole reason Jesus told this parable. Our text said that Jesus told the parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not loose heart.
Our Lord knew what we would suffer. He knew what we would endure. He knew that there would be evil and sin in the world. He knew that this sin would affect us and harm us. He knew that we would struggle against temptation and sin. He knew that we would battle with the lies of the Devil. So our Lord gave a parable to encourage us always to pray.
My friends, God wants you to pray. Always.
When you are in your car. When you are riding the bus to school. When you are about to eat a meal. When you are sitting at your desk. When you are facing some challenge. When you are about to undergo surgery. When someone has sinned against you. When you are afraid, nervous, joyful, glad, overwhelmed, grieved, excited, terrified, any time and every time. God wants you to pray. Always.
Our Sunday Morning adult Bible study has just begun a study on a book entitled Grace Upon Grace, Spirituality for Today by John Kleinig. In this book, Dr Kleinig likens prayer to being included in God's cabinet. It is like God is a ruler or king and his plan and agenda for His kingdom is laid out for us. When we pray, it's like we are participating in the work that God is doing on earth.
Dr Kleinig also talks about prayer as guard duty. We are soldiers in the army of the Lord, but we are not offensive soldiers. Jesus has already won the war. We are like sentries, manning our look out posts. Watching for the attacks of the devil on our children, our brothers or sisters, our friends, our parents. And this is an important point. Sometimes we can be self-centered in our prayers; we pray for our own needs or when we feel our own attacks. But we can pray for each other. If Satan is leaving you alone for a time, that means he is spending that time harassing someone else. Pray for that person. Whoever it may be. If you can't think of someone to pray for or someone who is suffering pray for Christians around the world. Join with them in their suffering by lifting them up in prayer before your Heavenly Father. Call in for support for them from Jesus who has defeated Satan and who has sent him running.
Jesus will help. He is far from preoccupied, He is ready and waiting. Willing and eager to help. And help he does. Because of his great love for us. He does not delay. He comes to chase away our adversary.
So don't despair. God is with you. He has not left you, indeed he is near by. Take heart. Take courage and pray to the God who has promised to hear. Who has promised to save. Who has promised to deliver you from whatever you might be suffering. In His Name.
Amen.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Pentecost 20 - Ruth 1:1-19
In our Epistle text for today, the Apostle Paul encouraged young Pastor Timothy to work hard at his charge as the pastor over the church in Ephesus. He wrote to his young protege “An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard working farmer who should have the first share of the crops.” In other words, “do your work. Do your best. Be honest, play by the rules, and trust the Lord to bless your efforts.”
That same advice could apply to us, here at St Paul Chuckery.
Over this past week, in the Confirmation class that I teach here at the day school, we have been talking about the Kingdoms of God. Lutheran Theology talks about 3 Kingdoms, 2 on earth and one in eternity; the two on earth are the Kingdom of Power and the Kingdom of Grace, and then, God's heavenly kingdom where he will reign supreme for all eternity is the Kingdom of Glory. If you have the time and the opportunity, I would encourage you to take one of them aside and have them define each of those kingdoms for you. See what they come up with.
For our discussion this morning, those first two kingdoms, those Kingdoms where Christ is Lord and King here on earth are important, the Kingdom of Power and the Kingdom of Grace, we also refer to them as the “Right Hand Kingdom” and the “Left Hand Kingdom”. The kingdom of Grace (The Right Hand Kingdom) is the church, where Christ rules with love and forgiveness, where he gives out salvation for free and where the only thing we have to offer is our sin. The second kingdom, the Left Hand Kingdom is the Kingdom of Power. It is where God rules on earth through the earthly authorities, through our parents, but also through presidents and governors and teachers and employers. Here we have obligations and deadlines to fulfill and we also have work to do. According to the Kingdom of Grace, God has done everything for us. According to the Kingdom of Power, there is work that God wants us to do. And when we do our work and when we apply ourselves, we are rewarded.
In the Epistle Text for today, Paul was telling Timothy, as a pastor in the Church to get to work and get the job done. In the Church, in the Right Hand Kingdom, Christ had done everything. But that Church, you and I, we find ourselves living in the Left Hand Kingdom where there is work for us to do, where God blesses our work and our effort. We can't earn a spot in the church, We can't earn a spot in God's heart, that is done for us by Jesus. But by our own work, we can earn a spot in men's hearts, we can play according the man's rules, we can build up this spot in the Left Hand Kingdom and then use it for Christ to build up His Church.
Our Old Testament Lesson brings these two things together for us this morning. The Book of Ruth is an example for us of one who applied herself in the kingdom of the left, and one who was then blessed by the Lord, and because of her work and through her work, the Lord accomplished our salvation.
Ruth was a Moabite girl. A pagan and an unbeliever. She grew up with parents and friends who prayed to false gods and who did not know the true God. She happened into the Scriptures and into the people of God and the community of faith almost what might seem by accident. There was a famine in Israel and the Israelites went where the food was. You might compare her situation to our own. These days the economy is bad, people are out of work so they go where the jobs are. The same thing happened with Ruth's husband. His family moved to Moab in the midst of a down economy in Israel. They got married and all of a sudden Ruth's story coincided with God's salvation story.
It wasn't too long after, that Ruth's father in law died. Her Mother In Law, Naomi, stayed in Moab, however, because her sons where there. Their jobs where there. But soon her sons died also. And Naomi was left with no husband, no sons, and no relatives, a stranger in a strange land. She heard the local economy back home was better, she figured there were better chances for her with her family so she set off to move back home. We could probably read that same story or one a lot like it in the Columbus Dispatch, couldn't we?
So here's Ruth. Her husband is dead, her mother in law is moving away, to only God knows where, but she decided to go. She had nothing in Israel, no-one familiar waiting for her, no friends, no relatives, no house, no employment, not a whole lot to look forward to, but she devoted herself to the care of her mother in law. They both lost everything, she would make sure they didn't loose each other.
Now there was another sister in law in the picture, Orpah. Orpah, like Ruth, had married one of Naomi's sons. Orpah, like Ruth and Naomi had her husband die. When Naomi set about returning home Orpah went with her. But Naomi protested. The girls should stay with their families and with what was familiar. Orpah consented and stayed. She went back to the home of her family. Could you blame her? Isn’t' that what you would have done? I know I would have. But not Ruth. She stayed with Naomi. To put this back into our previous conversation, she saw work to be done in the Kingdom of the Left, to help and to serve her mother in law, she devoted herself to that work, and the Lord blessed her.
What work has the Lord placed before you? Are you like Ruth, one who has been challenged with service to your neighbor, to someone that you certainly are not obliged to serve, you aren't required to help, but still, if you did The Lord might work through your efforts for good.
Consider the work of the LWML. Today is LWML Sunday, for those of you not familiar with our Lutheran Acronyms, that stands for the Lutheran Women's Missionary League. The LWML does Ruth's work, of finding those who have needs and supporting them, and caring for them, and providing for them. They support the seminaries and the training of future pastors, here in the United States but also around the world. They provide clothing for the needy, humanitarian aid for the destitute, the support missionaries in countries all over the world. Between 2009 and 2011 they have plans to distribute $1.8 million to all of these projects, one mite box at a time.
And guess what, through their hard work and their willing service doing projects few people even bother to notice, God works for the good of his Kingdom. The LWML works hard in the Kingdom of the Left to take care of those who have need and through that work God builds up the Kingdom of the Right, the Church on earth. It grows, it is fed, it is encouraged, it continues its fight and its battle with sin death and the devil through little card board boxes filled with pennies and dimes and quarters.
God does the same through you. You, people of St Paul Chuckery, God works through you. As you do your work and dedicate yourself like Ruth did, like the LWML does, as you do your work in the Kingdom of the Left, God blesses that work and He works through those efforts to build up his church. You might not think about it, you might not realize it, but God makes things happen, God continues to write chapters in his salvation story.
That's what he did through Ruth. Like we said, her story was pretty common, one we might read in our own newspapers, tragic? Yes. Special or out of the ordinary? Not terribly. But God worked through her.
If you skip ahead to Matthew chapter 1 we are given a genealogy, a family history of Jesus. Where he came from and who his ancestors were. In that list is mentioned one, Ruth, a girl who grew up a pagan, an unbeliever, but one who He called to faith, one who he called to be his own, one who willingly received the gifts that God gave and then set about using those gifts to serve her mother-in-law when she was needed. And the Lord worked through her efforts and her faithfulness. She became a piece of the story of Salvation that God wrote for you and me. Jesus was born to be our King, the King of the Jews and the King of the heavens and the earth. He earned that crown and that throne when He died and paid for our sin and when His Heavenly Father accepted his sacrifice and raised him from the dead and seated him as King over every king and Lord over every lord. Jesus is Lord of Heaven and Earth, in the Kingdom of Power, but also and especially in the Kingdom of Grace.
And as he was writing that story, as he was making that happen, God used Ruth. And maybe God will use you as well. When all of His Salvation history has been written at the end of time and we are together in Eternity, perhaps your name will be mentioned as one God worked through to call someone else to faith. Maybe a word that you spoke encouraged someone to go to church, to pick up their Bible, to get to know Jesus, maybe that little work you did, that little mite that you donated had a profound and eternal impact on the life of another person. You might never know. Ruth probably didn't, at least not at the time, but here she is in our Scriptures as an ancestor of Jesus.
The Lord worked through her. Through Ruth and because of Ruth, Jesus was born.
Ruth worked. She did her part in the left hand kingdom, and God used it for good in his Right hand Kingdom. God's ultimate purpose is heaven and salvation and eternal glory in the new heaven and the new earth. And He made that happen through Jesus. Jesus is lord and Jesus is king. And Jesus is powerful. He uses that power over this world and he uses that power in you.
May you, like Ruth and like the LWML be a willing servant in the Kingdom of God.
Amen.
That same advice could apply to us, here at St Paul Chuckery.
Over this past week, in the Confirmation class that I teach here at the day school, we have been talking about the Kingdoms of God. Lutheran Theology talks about 3 Kingdoms, 2 on earth and one in eternity; the two on earth are the Kingdom of Power and the Kingdom of Grace, and then, God's heavenly kingdom where he will reign supreme for all eternity is the Kingdom of Glory. If you have the time and the opportunity, I would encourage you to take one of them aside and have them define each of those kingdoms for you. See what they come up with.
For our discussion this morning, those first two kingdoms, those Kingdoms where Christ is Lord and King here on earth are important, the Kingdom of Power and the Kingdom of Grace, we also refer to them as the “Right Hand Kingdom” and the “Left Hand Kingdom”. The kingdom of Grace (The Right Hand Kingdom) is the church, where Christ rules with love and forgiveness, where he gives out salvation for free and where the only thing we have to offer is our sin. The second kingdom, the Left Hand Kingdom is the Kingdom of Power. It is where God rules on earth through the earthly authorities, through our parents, but also through presidents and governors and teachers and employers. Here we have obligations and deadlines to fulfill and we also have work to do. According to the Kingdom of Grace, God has done everything for us. According to the Kingdom of Power, there is work that God wants us to do. And when we do our work and when we apply ourselves, we are rewarded.
In the Epistle Text for today, Paul was telling Timothy, as a pastor in the Church to get to work and get the job done. In the Church, in the Right Hand Kingdom, Christ had done everything. But that Church, you and I, we find ourselves living in the Left Hand Kingdom where there is work for us to do, where God blesses our work and our effort. We can't earn a spot in the church, We can't earn a spot in God's heart, that is done for us by Jesus. But by our own work, we can earn a spot in men's hearts, we can play according the man's rules, we can build up this spot in the Left Hand Kingdom and then use it for Christ to build up His Church.
Our Old Testament Lesson brings these two things together for us this morning. The Book of Ruth is an example for us of one who applied herself in the kingdom of the left, and one who was then blessed by the Lord, and because of her work and through her work, the Lord accomplished our salvation.
Ruth was a Moabite girl. A pagan and an unbeliever. She grew up with parents and friends who prayed to false gods and who did not know the true God. She happened into the Scriptures and into the people of God and the community of faith almost what might seem by accident. There was a famine in Israel and the Israelites went where the food was. You might compare her situation to our own. These days the economy is bad, people are out of work so they go where the jobs are. The same thing happened with Ruth's husband. His family moved to Moab in the midst of a down economy in Israel. They got married and all of a sudden Ruth's story coincided with God's salvation story.
It wasn't too long after, that Ruth's father in law died. Her Mother In Law, Naomi, stayed in Moab, however, because her sons where there. Their jobs where there. But soon her sons died also. And Naomi was left with no husband, no sons, and no relatives, a stranger in a strange land. She heard the local economy back home was better, she figured there were better chances for her with her family so she set off to move back home. We could probably read that same story or one a lot like it in the Columbus Dispatch, couldn't we?
So here's Ruth. Her husband is dead, her mother in law is moving away, to only God knows where, but she decided to go. She had nothing in Israel, no-one familiar waiting for her, no friends, no relatives, no house, no employment, not a whole lot to look forward to, but she devoted herself to the care of her mother in law. They both lost everything, she would make sure they didn't loose each other.
Now there was another sister in law in the picture, Orpah. Orpah, like Ruth, had married one of Naomi's sons. Orpah, like Ruth and Naomi had her husband die. When Naomi set about returning home Orpah went with her. But Naomi protested. The girls should stay with their families and with what was familiar. Orpah consented and stayed. She went back to the home of her family. Could you blame her? Isn’t' that what you would have done? I know I would have. But not Ruth. She stayed with Naomi. To put this back into our previous conversation, she saw work to be done in the Kingdom of the Left, to help and to serve her mother in law, she devoted herself to that work, and the Lord blessed her.
What work has the Lord placed before you? Are you like Ruth, one who has been challenged with service to your neighbor, to someone that you certainly are not obliged to serve, you aren't required to help, but still, if you did The Lord might work through your efforts for good.
Consider the work of the LWML. Today is LWML Sunday, for those of you not familiar with our Lutheran Acronyms, that stands for the Lutheran Women's Missionary League. The LWML does Ruth's work, of finding those who have needs and supporting them, and caring for them, and providing for them. They support the seminaries and the training of future pastors, here in the United States but also around the world. They provide clothing for the needy, humanitarian aid for the destitute, the support missionaries in countries all over the world. Between 2009 and 2011 they have plans to distribute $1.8 million to all of these projects, one mite box at a time.
And guess what, through their hard work and their willing service doing projects few people even bother to notice, God works for the good of his Kingdom. The LWML works hard in the Kingdom of the Left to take care of those who have need and through that work God builds up the Kingdom of the Right, the Church on earth. It grows, it is fed, it is encouraged, it continues its fight and its battle with sin death and the devil through little card board boxes filled with pennies and dimes and quarters.
God does the same through you. You, people of St Paul Chuckery, God works through you. As you do your work and dedicate yourself like Ruth did, like the LWML does, as you do your work in the Kingdom of the Left, God blesses that work and He works through those efforts to build up his church. You might not think about it, you might not realize it, but God makes things happen, God continues to write chapters in his salvation story.
That's what he did through Ruth. Like we said, her story was pretty common, one we might read in our own newspapers, tragic? Yes. Special or out of the ordinary? Not terribly. But God worked through her.
If you skip ahead to Matthew chapter 1 we are given a genealogy, a family history of Jesus. Where he came from and who his ancestors were. In that list is mentioned one, Ruth, a girl who grew up a pagan, an unbeliever, but one who He called to faith, one who he called to be his own, one who willingly received the gifts that God gave and then set about using those gifts to serve her mother-in-law when she was needed. And the Lord worked through her efforts and her faithfulness. She became a piece of the story of Salvation that God wrote for you and me. Jesus was born to be our King, the King of the Jews and the King of the heavens and the earth. He earned that crown and that throne when He died and paid for our sin and when His Heavenly Father accepted his sacrifice and raised him from the dead and seated him as King over every king and Lord over every lord. Jesus is Lord of Heaven and Earth, in the Kingdom of Power, but also and especially in the Kingdom of Grace.
And as he was writing that story, as he was making that happen, God used Ruth. And maybe God will use you as well. When all of His Salvation history has been written at the end of time and we are together in Eternity, perhaps your name will be mentioned as one God worked through to call someone else to faith. Maybe a word that you spoke encouraged someone to go to church, to pick up their Bible, to get to know Jesus, maybe that little work you did, that little mite that you donated had a profound and eternal impact on the life of another person. You might never know. Ruth probably didn't, at least not at the time, but here she is in our Scriptures as an ancestor of Jesus.
The Lord worked through her. Through Ruth and because of Ruth, Jesus was born.
Ruth worked. She did her part in the left hand kingdom, and God used it for good in his Right hand Kingdom. God's ultimate purpose is heaven and salvation and eternal glory in the new heaven and the new earth. And He made that happen through Jesus. Jesus is lord and Jesus is king. And Jesus is powerful. He uses that power over this world and he uses that power in you.
May you, like Ruth and like the LWML be a willing servant in the Kingdom of God.
Amen.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Pentecost 19, October 3
A young man was recently interning at a major corporation and noticed that he had been assigned a heavy work load. He asked around to the other interns to see if they were experiencing a similar amount of work and discovered that he had been assigned more than double the average work given to the other interns. Concerned about the discrepancy he went to his boss and let him know that he was struggling to get his work done, hoping for some relief. “Looks like you are going to have to learn to manage your time a little better.” was the reply.
There are times when the Christian life can seem to be a burden. There are times when we feel that we need help and strength and relief. There are times when we feel, just like that intern, that God has piled up on our shoulders more than what we can handle.
Fortunately, for the Christian, our Lord is merciful. He strengthens our weak knees, he binds up our hands, he provides for us the strength that we need to complete the tasks that he sets out in front of us.
The task Jesus set out before his disciples, on this day, was the work of forgiveness. “Rebuke the sinner, restore those who repent. If someone sins against you repeatedly, over and over and over again, forgive the sinner over and over and over again. You must forgive him.”
There are times when that seems to be an overwhelming task. When something as simple as forgiveness seems as though it is more than we can handle, a bigger task than what we can perform.
If the work of forgiving someone who has sinned against you seems like a daunting task to you, then know that you are not alone. It is common to the human experience that we struggle with the sins of others. We struggle when others sin against us and we struggle with forgiveness. When Jesus gave this command even to his disciples, it was more than they thought they could handle, so they went to our Lord with a request, much like that overworked intern, and asked for some relief. “Increase our faith.” they said.
Perhaps you have felt the same way.
Forgiveness is not an easy thing. I was reading a story told by a woman whose child had been abducted. And the abductor found her phone number and would call her home and talk to her, meanwhile holding her daughter captive. The woman was a Christian woman and her biggest struggle was learning to forgive this man for all he had taken from her. It was not easy to do.
And that is forgiving for one offense. For us, it makes a difference the number of times we have been offended. Jesus says, forgive not just once, not just twice, he says if someone sins against you seven times in one day, each and every time forgive him. The number seven is one of those biblical numbers that hints at completeness, the total/the whole thing. What Jesus is saying is that if your brother sins against you repeatedly, all day long, forgive him repeatedly as many times as he sins against you.
And so the response of the disciples. Probably about the same as any one of us, once we have finally understood what our Lord meant...
“Increase our faith.” “Add to us faith.” “Lord you are asking more of me than what I think I can handle. You are going to have to help me through this one. I am not equipped to do it. I am going to need a little bit, no scratch that, I am going to need a lot more faith.”
Lord, have mercy.
That's the place to start. When you find yourself in a position to give out forgiveness, when you find yourself sinned against, hurt and offended, dragged through the mud and dishonored, the place to begin is with that simple prayer, “Lord, have mercy.” “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.”
It seems that the biggest obstacle to forgiveness is pride. “I don't deserve this. I should be treated better than this. I have been wronged.” And so, as we are holding on to and holding out for our own rights and our own righteousness we are tempted to with hold forgiveness. We are tempted to place ourselves in God’s place as the one who judges and condemns this sinner. But that is not for us to decide. Jesus is the one who forgives, who has forgiven us, who has released us from our debt to him, and now he commands us to release one another.
And so we begin with a prayer that acknowledges our own sin. We are all sinners, we are all in the same boat. We have all received the forgiveness of Christ and He would have us pass that forgiveness along to each other. Why? Because that is the work that God has given Christians to do.
We are His priests, his servants in the world. We are those who are given the privilege of passing out his gifts of forgiveness. It is our job, the duty of our faith. We are here to forgive.
Or didn't you catch that last part of the text.
7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
Our text comes to us in three parts; a section on forgiveness and restoration for the sinner, a section on faith, and this last section on serving. But they are all three drawn together. In the first section, Jesus commands us to forgive. In the second section, after the disciples realize what a daunting and overwhelming task this forgiveness can be they ask the Lord for faith so that they can complete the task, and then in the third, Jesus reminds us that when we have forgiven we are only doing our duty as his servants. The bottom line? Forgive because it is your duty as a Christian.
But that is a tall order. Isn't it?
The disciples were right to request faith. Not one of us could do the job without it. Wounds we have received at the hands of others can sting us still years into the future. And those wounds can be hard to heal. Years later, we can still hold on to these sins that have been committed against us. And so we pray with the disciples, “Lord, increase our faith.”
“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” says Jesus, “you could tell a tree to go plant itself in the ocean and it would obey you.”
These days with cgi animation and computer generated graphics we aren't surprised to see anything on screen any more. The limits of what directors can show on film are all but gone. So when Jesus says, a tree will be uprooted and go plant itself in the ocean we don't bat an eye. Those who have gone to the movies and have seen Prince Caspian or The Two Towers have already seen it happen. But Jesus isn't talking cgi graphics. Jesus isn't talking fantasy. Jesus is talking faith. Jesus is saying that even that thing you believe to be impossible is possible through even the smallest of faiths.
Faith, you understand, is only as powerful and as strong as its object. Christian faith holds on to Jesus and for Jesus nothing is impossible. Everything is possible. Everything including forgiveness.
You see, the one who believes and has faith in Jesus has received His gift of His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in your heart. And the Holy Spirit sanctifies you through the Word of God and prayer. That is to say, the Holy Spirit makes you Holy and overcomes sin in you through the Word of God and prayer. Perhaps you already know what this is like, perhaps you already know how this happens. You find yourself sitting alone with you Bible open on your lap. You are reading it and praying. And as you read, you come across a verse that suddenly opens your eyes to see something you have seen before. A particular aspect of God’s law or sin comes to mind, or perhaps an aspect of God’s forgiveness you had previously overlooked is revealed to you. That is the Holy Spirit. Comforting you, encouraging you, or convicting you of some sin. This is how the Spirit works to overcome sin in us. This is how the Spirit works to move us to forgiveness, even to forgive those sins and those sinners who especially have wronged us.
But there is more that God does for us. To say that the Spirit works to overcome sin in us means that somewhere along the way we have sinned. We are guilty and we need forgiveness. Jesus compares the disciple tasked with the duty of forgiving “a slave”. When a slave goes out into the field and does his job, he doesn't get special treatment; he is only doing his duty. He comes in and gets himself dressed to serve dinner.
See what kind of a Lord we have. Even as he calls on us to do our duty and to forgiven and to love, he has done this very thing for us. Even while we were still sinners he came to us to be our slave, to be our servant. Just as he calls us to dress ourselves to serve, he set the stage for this when he got up from dinner to wash the feet of his disciples. He didn't hold it over their heads, he didn't ask them for any more than what he was willing to do himself. He even went above and beyond. He did greater and more. He made himself the servant and the slave of us and of all people when he even died for our sins on the cross. Your Lord, Jesus, died for you on the cross and you are forgiven.
We are challenged and even overwhelmed by the task of forgiveness. It is over our heads and more than we can accomplish. But still God calls us to do it. We struggle at it, we do our best but even then our own sin gets the better of us. We deny forgiveness. We withhold forgiveness. We hold back and hold out. But not Jesus. He gives the whole thing. Every time. He makes himself our servant so that we can serve each other.
Amen.
There are times when the Christian life can seem to be a burden. There are times when we feel that we need help and strength and relief. There are times when we feel, just like that intern, that God has piled up on our shoulders more than what we can handle.
Fortunately, for the Christian, our Lord is merciful. He strengthens our weak knees, he binds up our hands, he provides for us the strength that we need to complete the tasks that he sets out in front of us.
The task Jesus set out before his disciples, on this day, was the work of forgiveness. “Rebuke the sinner, restore those who repent. If someone sins against you repeatedly, over and over and over again, forgive the sinner over and over and over again. You must forgive him.”
There are times when that seems to be an overwhelming task. When something as simple as forgiveness seems as though it is more than we can handle, a bigger task than what we can perform.
If the work of forgiving someone who has sinned against you seems like a daunting task to you, then know that you are not alone. It is common to the human experience that we struggle with the sins of others. We struggle when others sin against us and we struggle with forgiveness. When Jesus gave this command even to his disciples, it was more than they thought they could handle, so they went to our Lord with a request, much like that overworked intern, and asked for some relief. “Increase our faith.” they said.
Perhaps you have felt the same way.
Forgiveness is not an easy thing. I was reading a story told by a woman whose child had been abducted. And the abductor found her phone number and would call her home and talk to her, meanwhile holding her daughter captive. The woman was a Christian woman and her biggest struggle was learning to forgive this man for all he had taken from her. It was not easy to do.
And that is forgiving for one offense. For us, it makes a difference the number of times we have been offended. Jesus says, forgive not just once, not just twice, he says if someone sins against you seven times in one day, each and every time forgive him. The number seven is one of those biblical numbers that hints at completeness, the total/the whole thing. What Jesus is saying is that if your brother sins against you repeatedly, all day long, forgive him repeatedly as many times as he sins against you.
And so the response of the disciples. Probably about the same as any one of us, once we have finally understood what our Lord meant...
“Increase our faith.” “Add to us faith.” “Lord you are asking more of me than what I think I can handle. You are going to have to help me through this one. I am not equipped to do it. I am going to need a little bit, no scratch that, I am going to need a lot more faith.”
Lord, have mercy.
That's the place to start. When you find yourself in a position to give out forgiveness, when you find yourself sinned against, hurt and offended, dragged through the mud and dishonored, the place to begin is with that simple prayer, “Lord, have mercy.” “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.”
It seems that the biggest obstacle to forgiveness is pride. “I don't deserve this. I should be treated better than this. I have been wronged.” And so, as we are holding on to and holding out for our own rights and our own righteousness we are tempted to with hold forgiveness. We are tempted to place ourselves in God’s place as the one who judges and condemns this sinner. But that is not for us to decide. Jesus is the one who forgives, who has forgiven us, who has released us from our debt to him, and now he commands us to release one another.
And so we begin with a prayer that acknowledges our own sin. We are all sinners, we are all in the same boat. We have all received the forgiveness of Christ and He would have us pass that forgiveness along to each other. Why? Because that is the work that God has given Christians to do.
We are His priests, his servants in the world. We are those who are given the privilege of passing out his gifts of forgiveness. It is our job, the duty of our faith. We are here to forgive.
Or didn't you catch that last part of the text.
7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
Our text comes to us in three parts; a section on forgiveness and restoration for the sinner, a section on faith, and this last section on serving. But they are all three drawn together. In the first section, Jesus commands us to forgive. In the second section, after the disciples realize what a daunting and overwhelming task this forgiveness can be they ask the Lord for faith so that they can complete the task, and then in the third, Jesus reminds us that when we have forgiven we are only doing our duty as his servants. The bottom line? Forgive because it is your duty as a Christian.
But that is a tall order. Isn't it?
The disciples were right to request faith. Not one of us could do the job without it. Wounds we have received at the hands of others can sting us still years into the future. And those wounds can be hard to heal. Years later, we can still hold on to these sins that have been committed against us. And so we pray with the disciples, “Lord, increase our faith.”
“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” says Jesus, “you could tell a tree to go plant itself in the ocean and it would obey you.”
These days with cgi animation and computer generated graphics we aren't surprised to see anything on screen any more. The limits of what directors can show on film are all but gone. So when Jesus says, a tree will be uprooted and go plant itself in the ocean we don't bat an eye. Those who have gone to the movies and have seen Prince Caspian or The Two Towers have already seen it happen. But Jesus isn't talking cgi graphics. Jesus isn't talking fantasy. Jesus is talking faith. Jesus is saying that even that thing you believe to be impossible is possible through even the smallest of faiths.
Faith, you understand, is only as powerful and as strong as its object. Christian faith holds on to Jesus and for Jesus nothing is impossible. Everything is possible. Everything including forgiveness.
You see, the one who believes and has faith in Jesus has received His gift of His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in your heart. And the Holy Spirit sanctifies you through the Word of God and prayer. That is to say, the Holy Spirit makes you Holy and overcomes sin in you through the Word of God and prayer. Perhaps you already know what this is like, perhaps you already know how this happens. You find yourself sitting alone with you Bible open on your lap. You are reading it and praying. And as you read, you come across a verse that suddenly opens your eyes to see something you have seen before. A particular aspect of God’s law or sin comes to mind, or perhaps an aspect of God’s forgiveness you had previously overlooked is revealed to you. That is the Holy Spirit. Comforting you, encouraging you, or convicting you of some sin. This is how the Spirit works to overcome sin in us. This is how the Spirit works to move us to forgiveness, even to forgive those sins and those sinners who especially have wronged us.
But there is more that God does for us. To say that the Spirit works to overcome sin in us means that somewhere along the way we have sinned. We are guilty and we need forgiveness. Jesus compares the disciple tasked with the duty of forgiving “a slave”. When a slave goes out into the field and does his job, he doesn't get special treatment; he is only doing his duty. He comes in and gets himself dressed to serve dinner.
See what kind of a Lord we have. Even as he calls on us to do our duty and to forgiven and to love, he has done this very thing for us. Even while we were still sinners he came to us to be our slave, to be our servant. Just as he calls us to dress ourselves to serve, he set the stage for this when he got up from dinner to wash the feet of his disciples. He didn't hold it over their heads, he didn't ask them for any more than what he was willing to do himself. He even went above and beyond. He did greater and more. He made himself the servant and the slave of us and of all people when he even died for our sins on the cross. Your Lord, Jesus, died for you on the cross and you are forgiven.
We are challenged and even overwhelmed by the task of forgiveness. It is over our heads and more than we can accomplish. But still God calls us to do it. We struggle at it, we do our best but even then our own sin gets the better of us. We deny forgiveness. We withhold forgiveness. We hold back and hold out. But not Jesus. He gives the whole thing. Every time. He makes himself our servant so that we can serve each other.
Amen.
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