Proclamation and Reaction

Biblical Text: Luke 4:31-44
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The text for the day shows people who are captured and oppressed by that unholy trinity of the devil, the world and our flesh. Simon’s mother-in-law running a high fever (flesh), the demon possessed man (devil) and the crowds (world) all are healed. They all have the release proclaimed to them. The all recognize the authority of the Word of Jesus. But they all have different reactions. They are all freed. The devil, the world and the flesh are all rebuked, but only one of the reactions is appropriate.

After three Sunday’s looking at how we see God through the sacraments, the theme this Sunday was the proclaimed word. And while we can say we see God in the Word (especially THE WORD, Jesus Christ), that seeing function is more answered by the sacraments. God has instituted and promised to be present in Water, Bread, Wine and absolution. Those are something physical that we can “see”. The proclaimed word is more about answering that second order question, how do we know we’ve seen? We know we’ve seen because someone has told us and we believe that testimony. Our belief influences what we see. We can see the sacraments because we believe, because the Holy Spirit has created eyes of faith. But the orthodox faith doesn’t just push something called fideism, or faith in faith. Out faith does not rest on an emotional desire or something we gin up in ourselves. Saving faith rests on the Word. The proclaimed word brings forth a reaction. Preachers don’t (or shouldn’t) proclaim themselves or feelings or vague movements. Preachers proclaim the Word. And THE WORD is Jesus Christ. How do we know we know? Christ told us. It all rests on him. Who do you say he is? What is your reaction to the proclamation?

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Hope abides in The Foolish Things…like the Cross

Sermon Text: Ephesians 3:14-21
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It was interesting last night watching swimmer Ryan Lochte after taking 4th in his event. Just a couple of night before he had been riding high after beating his nemesis Phelps who had take a similar 4th. This was his Olympics. The vignette before with John McEnroe has driven home the amount of work he has put into it (with the unstated but implied loafing of Phelps this time around). Now two days later his work had put him in 4th and he was left trying to say why that was OK. He had put his hopes in the power of preparation, and they didn’t get him on the podium. The same guy who had passed him in the relay passed him in the individual. He had a plan and had executed it. Just like Phelps who had had a plan and executed it and who said after that 400 IM, “I guess our plan wasn’t that good.”

We have lots of plans. They might even be to “swim all the way to London” as the commercial has it. But what they don’t tell us it that at some point, there is always someone faster. Jesus Christ frees us from putting our capital H Hope in our efforts, because he has already secured the victory and gives it freely. And it comes in the foolish things: like prayer and faith and the love. That frees us to live lives more like that teenager who is winning gold medals and putting them in her pocket. We get to do things for love, joy, peace, kindness and the whole list, because Christ has secured our hope.

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Do you have a church?

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A few remarks by people in bible class afterward were interesting feedback. This seem seemed to strike harder than I would have expected. Not that the notes that struck were not there, just that I would have expected a slightly different reaction.

Protestantism and Lutheranism in particular are very polar – either this or that. When you are talking about discipleship or responding to the call of Christ, that isn’t always helpful. Modern protestants have become very able to reduce the gospel to one dimension – believe the right thing. Faith Alone. The dramatic flattening of the gospel in many churches isn’t all Paul’s fault, because Paul is never that one dimensional, but Matthew and the gospels help. The call comes to different people in different ways. The gospel is that it is from God’s guidance and never more than we can handle. That simple faith in the right things – for me encapsulated in the creeds – is the general call given to all humanity. Repent, the Kingdom is here!

But the life of Faith may contain individual calls that go beyond that. They are part of the individuals call to follow. They are part of separating out the disciple of the Kingdom from the admirer.

That title questions – Do you have a church? – is from a story used in the sermon. It is important to ask. Do you have a community of people responding and guided by the call of Jesus, or a club of Jesus admirers?

[Another deeper point not touched on in the sermon directly, but broached in bible class and always floating in Matthew is: are the disciples the embryo church or are they the apostles? When you hear the call to be fisher’s of people, is that given to the entire church, or to the ministers? Same in Matthew 28:18-20. Is the great commission to the church as a whole, or those who normally baptize and teach? It is not as clean as we’d like it. Although I’m sure that many would not like this, how you answer that question is probably a bigger difference today between Rome and Protestants than justification. And that also has an impact on Do you have a church? Rome traditionally said Protestants didn’t. Now we are just imperfectly in communion. Is there a church structure – an ecclesiology – that acknowledges the ambiguity?]

It Looks Half Built

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Luke 14:25-35

The travel narrative in Luke, what the lectionary has been taking us through this summer, is about discipleship. It is Luke’s collections of teachings and events that the disciples learned from Jesus on His was to the cross, as He prepared them for their cross. The lesson this week was one of those “cool it down” moments. We’ve all gotten caught up in something in the past, and that new thing takes over your entire life. The younger you are the more open you are to that type of infatuation. Everything comes up roses.

The life of the disciple in this world is not roses. The grace of forgiveness and new life is heady, but there are some thorns. The biggest is probably the half completed nature of salvation. That is not the half completed nature of salvation to eyes with faith, but if you look at the cross without faith, it looks like a king who didn’t have enough troops. And that cross is the pattern of discipleship. Here, we follow the crucified one. We feel like we have 10,000 troops going against 20,000.

Maybe it is just my phlematic german coming out, but I’ve never understood shiny-happy American Christianity. Sanctuaries that hid the cross, preachers that talked about wealth and prosperity, seven biblical secrets to a great life. I really throw any form of progressive-ism in the same boat. We’ve had 100 years of amazing progress in medicine and technology and what are the stats: higher rates of suicide, huge numbers on anti-depressants, shameful rates of incarceration and long-term unemployment. I’m not against “progress”. I liked being able to get my gall-bladder taken out and my youngest having surgery without great worry. These are blessings, but hold them in their place. The reality is life under the cross. Orthodoxy speaks reality better than anything I’ve heard. The cross does not preclude joy. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross (Heb 12:2). But the joy comes through the cross, not around it. Everything else seeks to avoid the cross, or deny it, or minimize it. The disciple embraces it. Not without understanding – count the costs – with understanding the disciple embraces the cross and the only solid foundation, even if it looks half built to those perishing.