This is my first sermon at Mt. Zion. I think the text hovers around something quite important but rarely talked about. “Will many be saved?” is the question that kicks it off. That question plays on the fears of our loved ones and the doctrine of election. The all too easy answer is universalism. It also plays on our prejudice. Just our people, right? But Jesus’ answer is “the east and the west, the north and the south.” Anytime we become too concerned – taking responsibility for – the salvation of others Jesus and the apostles but the onus back on ourselves. “You strive to enter through the narrow door.” The election of God is God’s business. And the way he has chosen to work it out in time is our witness to our hope in how we live and faith in the work of Jesus Christ. Today is the day of grace for those who would here by those means.
It is always a bit melancholy seeing your house in the listings. 41 Coneflower Dr, West Henrietta, NY 14586 | realtor.com® . We lived here 12 years. Really, we raised three babies there. Yes, the youngest two aren’t fully baked, and the oldest has already boomeranged, but that was home. And it was a really good one.
But when you think about homes you are really thinking about the people and the activities that were centered around that place. When you’ve moved you are in that liminal space living off hope. You have left behind something good that was completely known. You are looking for a new hub. You are meeting new people. You are living on the promise that God intends good for his people, hoping that you haven’t made a big mistake just because you felt an itch. Or because you felt a call to someplace new.
My story isn’t perfectly like that of Abraham setting out from Ur. He was leaving family. We are living with my parents for the time being. But every move should have the Christian reflecting upon Abraham. While we are now looking for our “permanent” home, none of our homes here are permanent. Every move is an intimation of our final move to the promised land. Every liminal time of living on hope is an image of the Christian life of seeing that promised land from a distance while being sojourners here. Every move is an act of faith, that God is the same God everywhere, and there is no other. And He keeps his promises.
The Apostle Paul says “he forgets what lies behind and strains forward to what lies ahead.” Although if you read the rest of Paul, I don’t think the man forgot anything. It’s a spiritual statement. If one holds onto things past too tightly, the warning is Lot’s wife, turned into that bitter pillar of salt. That does not mean that one can’t take the good things. Paul soon follows that statement with “only let us hold true to what we have attained.” You get to keep the good stuff. Your life is hidden with Christ. Things that are built here alone are all destined for the fire. But the good stuff is treasure in heaven. The good stuff is what has formed our souls on our journey.
It has been a crazy week personally. In the midst of taking a call to another congregation and moving across the country my father-in-law passed away. He was a very dear man and a wonderful Christian witness. This was my attempt to do right by him. (The Black and Gold colors are for his beloved Pittsburgh teams.)
This was my final sermon at the call at St. Mark’s Lutheran in West Henrietta, NY. A wonderful church. A great part of the body of Christ. We were there for just over 14 years. Leaving was a hard decision, but I believe the right one. Both for the call I am heading towards, and for the good of St. Mark’s. Some problems are bigger than just one congregation, and nothing happens on those problems in the LCMS until there is a vacancy. But that is not the sermon. The lectionary texts of the day (proper 13, year C, Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2: 18-26 and Luke 12:13-21) were tough texts for the purpose of a final sermon, but worth pondering. They challenge you about how you take stock. The way the Kingdom of God takes stock is completely different. In reality it doesn’t. Because the needful things are assured in Christ. The work we have to do is from the hand of God, and to recognize it as such is an enjoyable toil.
Ok, I start off with something a bit hokey – Tony Stark/Iron Man – but this is about Fathers and Sons. (And yes it includes daughters, but the language we are given in Father.) The Lord’s prayer in Luke is a revelation of the Father of Jesus Christ. The Father of Jesus Christ is good, compared to all of us earthly fathers who are by nature sinful. This sermon is a meditation on what that means. The biggest hurdle is what Luther’s catechism emphasizes about it – believe it. The Father of Jesus Christ has been made Our Father in Christ, and he gives us good gifts.
The text is Mary and Martha which is usually taken as a compare and contrast of two symbols. Martha representing the active life and Mary the contemplative life. But I think that is a bit facile. And I’m basing that on both the immediate context – largely Luke 9-10 – and the life situation that is being displayed. Martha and Mary are not simple cut outs. Both are making choices about actions. And Martha’s request and Jesus’ words are not directed at action, but disordered action. Mary is acting. She is just acting after contemplating the good of the Kingdom. Not what her own anxieties and troubles desired, but what Jesus desired. As a sermon, it is probably a bit subtle. But the take away if I were to force one would simply be ordered action. A gift of the spirit is self-control. In the spirit we have the ability to act with kingdom purpose, not out of our anxiety.
The Text is the Good Samaritan. When you are preaching on such a story you really have to be content with telling the old old story. And as a Lutheran that Old Old story is captured in this incredibly compact story of law and gospel. The law story is clear and is the direct text. You have a lawyer, arguing points of the law, and a command to go and do likewise. The gospel? The gospel is the subtext of the story. Because you eventually realize that the text is impossible. Something or someone must deliver us from this narrative that we have been living. That someone is Jesus the Good Samaritan.
The text is Jesus sending out the 70, or is it the 72? That is one of the few textual questions of the New Testament. Which like all textual questions is ultimately unanswerable. It becomes a matter of faith. But if you side with the King James Version and the manuscript that usually “wins”, 70 opens up a bunch of old testament references that could see their fulfillment in these 70. There is a tie in with Moses’ 70 elders who received a part of his Spirit. The fulfillment being the Priesthood of All Believers where Moses’ wish that all would have the Spirit becomes true. There is a tie in with the teaching authority of the 70 members of the Sanhedrin. The called and ordained ministry sent out with the authority of the Word. And there is a fulfillment of the 70 nations from the table of nations in Genesis 10. The proclamation of Jesus being sent to all the world.
The Gerasene Demoniac is one of those stories that is so vivid for me it stands a proof of the rest of the biblical story. Nobody could make it up. And it is such a perfect living symbol that only God could be behind it. This sermon ponders the demonic for a bit and how at least compared to my childhood, it is so much more apparent today. We live among the tombs, in Phillip Rieff’s word, among the deathworks. But you Christian have been cleansed and put in your right mind. Which causes its own problems. We know the trouble of demons. We know we have enemies. And that our very existence reminds them that they have been defeated and their time grows very short. Yet Jesus bids us “go home and tell what God has done.” The right mind knows what kind of request that is. It also knows that our Lord is with us and does not ask more than he has given.
