Dec. 1, 2013 Advent 1

Matt. 24:36-44

36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[a] but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
   42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

“Be Ready!”

Someone has said, “When we look at the past too much we become depressed or guilty.  When we look to the future too far, we become anxious; when we live in the present, we have less guilt or anxiety.”

Our text causes us to look to the future - perhaps too far - and can give us a good case of anxiety.

It is easy to take these words as a threat; and respond with fear.  The result is that we become so caught up in trying to be ready that we cannot enjoy life.  And we may even be disappointed when that for which we are ready doesn’t happen.  Religion than becomes a negative force in life, keeping joy out.

These words are meant to give hope not fear; they are a promise to be heard with the ears of faith which dares to believe that all is in God’s hands and it is good.

Look up and rejoice for something good is about to happen.
Be ready - your lover is coming soon.  God loves you.  Be ready to be loved all the way to the better end.
To be ready is to be fully alive and in love, as Ireneaus, the ancient church father said: “The glory of God is man fully alive.”

Nov. 24, 2013, Christ The King Sunday

Luke 23:33-43

 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”[a] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
   35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”
   36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”
   38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
   39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
   40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
   42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[b]”
   43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

“A Different King”

What ever we say about Jesus and his Kingdom, however we try to understand the manifestation of power and glory which was his as the King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right; how  ever much we are moved by the powerful words of the Hallelujah Chorus which shouts “King of Kings and Lord of Lords, forever!”
We are reminded today that Jesus Kingdom is not of this world and is not like anything else in this world.  It is not made up of that which makes up our kingdoms.  it is as different as night is from day.

For it is not a matter of power politics; nor of deceptive promises.  It is not a matter of domination and manipulation.  Jesus Kingdom is made up of compassion, kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, joy, peace and is found in places of weakness and foolishness, where the power and wisdom of God is revealed in all its power  and glory.

Robert MacAfee Brown relates the following life experience.

“The story is a true one.  It takes place on the roof of one of the crematoria at Birkenau, the death camp of Auschwitz, on a gray, cheerless day in the summer of 1979.

A group of us are standing on ruins the Germans tried (unsuccessfully) to obliterate, to hide evidence that sex million Jews had been shot and gassed and burned in such places, solely because they were Jews.

I reflect: if Golgotha revealed the sense of God-forsakenness of one Jew, Birkenau multiplies that anguish at least three and a half million times.  For the rest of my life, this crematorium will represent the most powerful case against God;  the spot where one could -with justice-denounce, deny, or (worst of all) ignore God, the God who was silent.

On what use are words as such a time?  So many cried out to God at this spot and were not heard.  Human silence today seems the only appropriate response to divine silence yesterday.

We remain silent.  Our silence is deafening.

And then it comes - first from the lips of one man, Elie Wiesel (standing in the camp where thirty-fife years earlier his life and family and faith were destroyed), and then in a mounting chorus from others, mostly Jews, the great affirmation:  ‘Shema Yisroel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai echod, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.’ “

Nov. 17, 2013, 26th Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 21:5-19

5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6 “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
   7 “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”
   8 He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. 9 When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
   10 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
   12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.

 “Not A Hair Will Perish”

The American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once said:

“The test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.  One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them better.”

This certainly is the mark of faith which often has to hope against hope and act in love in spite of all the hate.  This is what this text is all about.

It is about the faith which is sure of what it hopes for and certain of what it cannot see.
It is about the love which dares to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.
It is about being witness to the truth in the face of evil and daring to believe that not a hair on our heads will perish.

As one writer put it:

“Christ risen from the dead shows that there is nothing rebellious creation can do to cause something to perish that God wants to preserve.”

It is not the evil which shall prevail; it is faith in the goodness of God which will prevail!
Indeed, not a hair will perish of what God wants to preserve!

Nov. 10, 2013, 25th Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 20.27-38

20:27 Some of the Sadducees came to him, those who deny that there is a resurrection. 20:28 They asked him, “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies having a wife, and he is childless, his brother should take the wife, and raise up children for his brother. 20:29 There were therefore seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died childless. 20:30 The second took her as wife, and he died childless. 20:31 The third took her, and likewise the seven all left no children, and died. 20:32 Afterward the woman also died. 20:33 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them will she be? For the seven had her as a wife.”
20:34 Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry, and are given in marriage. 20:35 But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage. 20:36 For they can’t die any more, for they are like the angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 20:37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’* 20:38 Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.”

 “God Of the Living”  

It is dwarfed minds which want answers rather then vision; specifics rather then promise.

The Sadducees trap question reveals how small of mind they are.  They want to know in human terms what cannot be put in human terms - it is too big to be made so small.

When we try to put the mysteries of heaven in human terms  - trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together in logical sequence, or throwing up our hands and saying it can’t be done so it doesn’t exist - we end up with nothing worth anything.

If we try live too much for heaven we will not live for today.  If we live only for today we have no hope for tomorrow.

The key is to live with a loving God today letting tomorrow be in God’s loving hands.  This is the source of our sure and certain hope.

Eternal life cannot be reduced to conditions of temporal life.  We are in God’s loving hands.
God of the living and of the dead; God of yesterday, today and forever.  We live in love and with love waiting for the day when all things will be new and only love will remain

“God Of The Living“(Part 2)

Jesus is running up against - again - the religious who were of a different kingdom.  They didn’t want him to be the final answer;  they wanted to be the final answer.  They wanted to keep God in the box of their own making, so God would not ask of them more than they were willing to give.  Jesus didn’t fit in their Kingdom!

Just as Mother Teresa didn’t fit for the ‘religious’ man who spoke these words when confronted with the possibility that Mother Teresa was close to what Jesus taught.
“Someone should tell Mother Teresa about triage.  In battle the medics don’t work on what they judge to be hopeless cases.  They work on the ones who have a chance to make it.  Mother Teresa is impractical.   Think how much better it would be if she helped people who were going to live and taught them a skill that would enable them to earn a living and maybe even help others.  She needs some business training.”

The Kingdom of God as seen in Jesus (and those who follow him) is impractical.  Yet it is what Jesus was all about and what we are to be all about - being  merciful as our God is merciful!

Do we dare believe that who we are, what we do, say, give, and how we live and treat even the least can be a part of God’s impractical, unexpected, and creative acts at work in our world through which God’s Kingdom does come on earth a small bit as it is in heaven?  Then we will be impractical, yet loving as we have been loved!
Our religion will not be in our rituals, but in our living!

Nov. 4, 2013, All Saints Sunday

Luke 6:20-31

 20 Looking at his disciples, he said:
   “Blessed are you who are poor,
   for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
   for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
   for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you,
   when they exclude you and insult you
   and reject your name as evil,
      because of the Son of Man.
   23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
   24 “But woe to you who are rich,
   for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now,
   for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
   for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
   for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.


“Good Hearts”

“Blessed are the pure of heart, (those who have opened their hearts to the redeeming goodness of God’s love) for they will see God.”(Matt. 5:8)
And they will be a blessing.  It will be said of them “He/she had a good heart!”

All Saints Sunday has to do with our hearts.  The Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20-49)) and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) both speak to issues of the heart.

Heart.  The word appears 872 times in the Bible.
It is an all inclusive word which captures all that we are -body, mind, spirit and means everything we are, the very center our our being, the very soul of our existence.  In the O.T. as well as new and even today, “the ‘heart’ is at the center of a person’s motivations and actions.  It is the deepest fiber and sinew of the human willpower”
John S. McClure

As Jesus says a bit further in the sermon on the Plain:
“The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”  Lk. 6:45

How is it with your heart?
Believe it or not, want it or not,  God would, through Word and Sacrament search us, cleanse us, call us, equip us, change us, enrich us, forgive us, so that from the heart we might “be merciful, just as (our God) is merciful.”  Mt. 6:36

Jesus words to his disciples and to us call us to be open to having our hearts touched by the grace which blesses us and challenges us to live as those who, rich or poor, know we are blessed beyond human understanding.

The irony of life is that the deepest blessings sometimes come out of the deepest hurts - for the hurts open our eyes to see what is really important in life and if we will let them,  they tenderize our hearts so that we become more alive and more sensitive to the grace of God at work in our world.

It makes all the difference in the world when our hearts are turned towards God and God’s grace is at work in our hearts and lives, taking the worst which happens to us and making it a blessing; and taking the best that happens to us and making that a blessing too - for others who need to know they too are loved by God.

Then we too are numbered with the Saints for a Saint is someone with a “good heart”;  a heart which has been captured by the awesome love of God!

Oct. 27, 2013, 23rd Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 18:9-14

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10" Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about[a] himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
    13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
    14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

“IT’S ALL GRACE!”

This parable seems to be simple, black or white, right or wrong.
But it isn’t.  And we have to see ourselves in both men; take the good with the bad.

For there is good and bad in both.  The pharisee is everything we might wish to be in terms of religious commitment and dedication.  But it carries him to self righteousness, the last thing we want to be.  The Publican is everything we don’t want to be in terms of life style yet his prayer of the heart is the best he or we can pray.

Both need God’s grace; neither deserve it; both get it.

The parable is to wake us up to the truth that “nothing, nothing, nothing I can bring can earn, deserve, be worthy of, or pay off my debt, - it is all grace.”

Grace is not reserved for those who are close to God; grace is for all and those who admit they need it are the first to receive it.

Grace is not about a nice God being nice to nice people.  It is about a loving God being gracious to hurting people, no matter who. It’s about receiving what I do not deserve and never can deserve no matter how holy I become.

To live in God’s grace is to never stop praying the prayer of the tax collector even as I live with the zeal of the pharisee - knowing that a God of grace will never let me down, never let me go, nor never let me off.

Oct. 20, 2013, 22nd Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 18:1-8

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'
    4"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "
    6 And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

“Always Pray And Do Not Lose Heart”

This parable is not about God and how God answers prayer.  It is about us and how we pray.  It is not about God and what God will do for us if we beg him long and hard enough;  it is about us and what we can do to not lose heart, when all around us goes smash.

We can pray!  And keep on praying until something good happens!  And it will!

It may not be a healing: it may be the strength and faith to match the burden.
It may not be a solution to a problem, solving it for us; it may be the strength and insight and determination to solve the problem ourselves.
It may not be a bolt of lighting, like Martin Luther; but it may be a gradual awareness of a pull and tug towards God’s will for our lives which will not stop until we go with it.

Something happens when we pray.  Our faith is strengthened, our hope is encouraged, and we do not loose heart.  It gives a sense of balance and perspective to our lives.


 “Will He Find Faith?”

This parable is about the faith which is behind persistent praying.  The faith which will not give up, give in, throw in the towel no matter how impossible things seem to be.

The faith which is able to hang in there, persisting in God’s goodness, justice, fairness, love, mercy and kindness even when there seems to be no evidence that God even exists!

As it was for Elie Wiesel and many other Jews in Nazi Germany.

“There were many periods in our past when we had every right in the world to turn to God and say, ‘Enough.  Since You seem to approve of all these persecutions, all these outrages, have it Your way: let Your world go on without Jews. Either You are our partner in history, or You are not.  If you are, do Your share; if You are not, we consider ourselves free of past commitments.  Since You choose to break the Covenant, so be it.”

“And yet, and yet...We went on believing, hoping, invoking His name...We did not give up on Him...For this is the essence of being Jewish; never to give up--never to yield to despair.”  A Jew Today, p. 164

This is also the essence of being a Christian!  To never give up no matter how bad it gets, to confess with the unknown person in a cellar in Cologne during the bombing of WW II,

“I believe in the Sun even when it is not shining;
I believe in love even when I feel it not,
I believe in God even when He is silent.”

The point of this parable is that God is much more then the unjust judge.
(It is, in the Hebrew way of thinking, an argument from the lesser to the greater.)

If this unrighteous judge can be moved to act, how much more will God respond to our persistent prayers with not just justice, but grace and mercy as well.
For God is a God of grace whose steadfast love endures forever!
This we can count on no matter what!