This is a sermon on a parable, and it is a parable that is unique to the Gospel according to Mark. And parables are way trickier that you think. But this one is pure gospel. In my reading it is not about the reception of the word. All the things about the reception of the word are guaranteed. The seed will be planted. There will be growth. There will be a harvest. It is a parable about the church – or the individual – in between those two great givens of planting and harvesting. There will be growth, “but we know not how.” It’s the middle. It’s a mess. But what you get to witness is the mysterious will of God. That’s what this sermon contemplates. It’s a little different than what I typically preach, but I think it stands.
This sermon treats the Genesis text, which is the Adam and Eve fall into sin, and the gospel lesson, which contains two of Jesus’ most interesting phrases (“Binding the strong man” and “the sin against the Holy Spirit”), as something of problem and solution. There is a popular cynical way of reading the fall that my personal taste for farce and dark humor easily fall prey to. And I am in no way a good enough person to completely say it is trash. But a better person than I took me to task. Yes, the pass the buck. But the situation is the first sin. Everything prior, every experience to that point, everybody was completely trustworthy. Everything worked for the good of the neighbor. Imagine the shock the first time it doesn’t. There is no way Adam and Eve fully comprehended what had happened. At best they had some intuition. And part of that intuition would be some type of accountability. Who is most to blame? My fellow human? The serpent? God?
The Gospel Text is the explanation of the proof that God is and always has been trustworthy – the friend of sinners. Jesus has come to bind the strong man. Long bound in the serpent’s forged chains of sin, Jesus has come to be the man that crushed his head. The one that plunders his house. But it is a strange plundering. Because forgiven everything, we can be Stockholm syndrome captives of sin. The door out of the strong man’s house is wide open. But many choose to stay.
Biblical Text: Mark 2:23-3:6 (and Deuteronomy 5:12-15)
So this Sunday in the Church year is the one that starts the Long Green season. The festival season, which stretched from Advent through Trinity Sunday (Christmas to Pentecost), is over and another word for this is Ordinary Time. And the first lessons given are interesting as they are on the Sabbath Day. By this time the Easter attendance bump is long past, and most pastors are hoping the Summer lows are not too low. The Festival season gives people extra reasons to attend. The long green season – made longer this year because the moveable feast of Easter was so early – is more like the Christian life. It has its high moments, but most of it is lived in the plain. Which is why I think starting it with a reminder of what the Sabbath is, is a sharp choice.
And as Lutherans we also have a sharp law-gospel distinction to proclaim – completely in tune with Jesus in the gospel lesson – about the Sabbath. In the law the Sabbath is simply about rest. It only demands that nobody in your authority do any normal work. The gospel purpose of that law is that we might draw near to the Lord. And in the promises of Jesus there are a multitude of ways that we can so draw near. The law itself is good and wise, but it doesn’t save. You could spend you day of rest just sitting and check the box. Salvation rests in drawing near to God.
The sermon develops those thoughts through a reflection on how work expands to fill the time, old blue laws, and a meditation about what I think is the Spiritual sickness of the day. It is not that we don’t want a Sabbath, but that our people collectively don’t want this Lord of the Sabbath. And so we get the heavy yoke of the work of the Devil, the World and our own flesh.
Recording note: I usually include the reading of the biblical text, but the microphone wasn’t on at the beginning, so the recording is just the sermon this week.
On the secular calendar it is Memorial Day weekend, but on the Church Calendar is was Trinity Sunday. As I think has become a mantra this year “this is the worst calendar.” Christmas on a Monday, Early Easter, Pentecost and Trinity around graduations and secular holidays. I’m a “called servant of the word” so in church I try to give pride of place to the church’s calendar and the reading. Memorial Day was recognized in announcements and prayers. But My 2nd son graduated this past week, so my mind was in that space, and the text is the call of Isaiah. It is perfectly designed to contemplate vocation. And the modern window into that contemplation is a mantra of Coach Bill Belichick, “Do Your Job.” Call it a law and gospel reading of Doing Your Job. Only one of them though can join with Isaiah – “Here I am, send me.”
Recording Note: Sorry about the voice, might be a little scratchy, especially early. A member was nice enough to get me a bottle of water shortly in. Thought the minor cold had past, but it caught me in the pulpit.
That said, if you can put aside the voice, I think the message is a good one. It is Pentecost day – which is Feast Day of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the world. But I chose the OT lesson. Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Which I think is a timely message for the church of today. We spend a good amount of time talking like Israel. We might feel like Israel in exile. And God does not deny the diagnosis. What he does deny is their vision. Because God is not a God of medical therapy or incremental improvement. God works by death and resurrection. A field of dry bones is exactly what God will work with. This sermon expands on that hope. That God will raise us from our graves and give us our own land. He has promised, He will do it.
The texts for Easter 7B (the Sunday between Ascension Day and Pentecost), which often happens to be Mother’s Day as well, are just terrible for that. The general feel in both I would say is one of abandonment. Jesus is ascended and the Spirit is not yet present. Or in the Gospel, it is late Maundy Thursday and Jesus will be taken from them soon and is contemplating very Ascension Day thoughts. On top of that, you’ve got Judas. But it is Judas that gives the Apostles the chance to reflect on what Jesus tells them and to act on it. In real life those “what do we do now” moments often start with a call to mom. This sermon is a meditation on how we are given to act when the world seems to be falling apart.
The text comes from the long Maundy Thursday section of John’s gospel where Jesus issues a new command – “love one another as I have loved you.” And like all things John he turns it over and over. Our particular turning focuses on the direction of that love. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” And it is a meditation of what abiding in the love of God means, what it looks like and what the ends of it are. The sermon develops each of those ideas. It also has an opening meditation on what a sermon is supposed to be.
For a second week we have one of the “I AM” sayings in the Gospel according to John – “I AM the vine”. And I think this saying invites us to ponder a couple of things. First what it reveals about God which is central to the mystery of suffering or in this case spiritual struggle. The Father as the vinedresser and the son as the vine with the point being greater fruitfulness invites meditation on pruning coded as struggle and how God prunes or limits himself in some ways. The second revelation is what it says about fruitfulness. Vines and branches are made to bear fruit. It will happen. The deeper question is if the branches stay connected to the vine. Measuring fruitfulness is usually fruitless, because it is aimed the wrong way. If there is fruit you will see it. The main concern of the branch is to stay connected – to abide – in the vine.
This was “Good Shepherd Sunday”. The Gospel text is from John 10 which includes one of Jesus’ “I Am” statements – “I Am the Good Shepherd.” He says it twice and after each saying expands a bit on what it means. At least that is my read of what John/Jesus is doing with these I Am statements. For me the core of the passage comes from Jesus saying, “I know my own and my own know me.” The I Am statements reveal to us something about God. In this case that God treats his creation and especially his “sheep” like an owner of something precious. The sheep are life and death things to God. The core of the Good Shepherd is that we have a God who knows, but He wouldn’t be much of a God if he didn’t. Although this one went to the extreme of becoming one of the sheep. But we also have a God who has chosen to be known. He has revealed himself. And his sheep harken to his voice. This is a God for whom this relationship with the sheep – his creation – is not some minor thing, but his engrossing mission, life and death.
There are lots of things that can cause anxiety or fear or doubt. WW3 might be up there this week. This sermon addresses that, but not in the way everyone that will get attention would do so. The gospel text for the weeks addresses 4 big things:
The Resurrection of the body
The Role of the OT and Scripture
The call to witness
These things are spiritually discerned
Those 4 things should go a long way to helping our anxiety. And turn our hearts toward the proper requests of God.
