3 AM

Just when you think the bible is giving you shallow travel directions it opens up a deep picture.  The Gospel reading this week (Matthew 14:22-33) starts with those travel directions. The crowds have been fed, but as the disciples had remarked earlier, it is late in the day.  Even later after 5000 have eaten. And Jesus knows what the crowds want to do – make him king.  So, “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side.”  And, “after he dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself.” How exactly does Jesus dismiss the crowd that wants to make him King?  We don’t know.  Why does he force the disciples into the boat?  Maybe because they would have been just as much caught up in making him king, but we don’t know.  But if we stop to ponder the scene, it is quite a view of the Christian life.

First, Jesus has sent us out at night onto the chaos of the waters. And somehow this is for our good.  Even though we might end up “a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, and the wind was against them, in the fourth watch of the night.” That fourth watch is the metaphorical 3 AM. If you are a horror fan, you know everything bad happens at 3 AM. If you are a worrier or an insomniac, and you are up at 3 AM, it has not been a good day or night and neither will the fast approaching day be good. We know what this feels like.  It is dark and we are exhausted and all the creepies come out.  Why did you send me to this place alone?

But the second part is the recognition that we are never really alone. Jesus on the mountain top – with apparently Moses’ 120 year old eagle eyes – has them on his disciples. Mark’s gospel is explicit, “he saw they were making headway painfully (Mark 6:48).” The eyes of God are always upon those he loves. And his compassion – his guts being churned – are not just for the crowds.  “In the fourth watch of the night he came to them walking on the sea.”  The chaos and darkness of the sea have no power over this one.  He walks on them. What are our reactions when God acts? 

The first one, “they were terrified and said ‘it is a ghost!’”  We expect the bad.  We expect the creepies that have come out to finish us off.  This is what the world does; it finishes off the weak and exhausted. Of course lurking in the background there is that saying it is a ghost is easier than saying “our deliverance has come.” Because if what comes to us at 3 AM is God, that comes with demands, with strings attached.  Not the least being that he has witnessed our state.  Jesus answers all this with the affirmative, “Take heart; It is I.” And yes, our translators wimp out. “Take Heart, I AM.”  The Almighty has been watching and has come for you.

The second one, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Ok God, I’m not sure about this, so tell me to get out of this perfectly good boat you placed me in, and walk by myself over the chaos to you.  Yeah, we don’t think too good at 3 AM. But Jesus goes with it, maybe for the same reason he sent them in the first place. Of course we were not meant to be on the waters outside of the boat. And that is not because we can’t.  Peter does manage it for a couple of steps.  But then we always “see the wind” and the fear returns.

So what does Jesus do?  Grabs Peter, puts him back in the boat, and joins the rest, who all then worship him.  We are meant to be in the boat (please see the church). We are meant to be with each other.  And yes the boat is sent out on rough seas, but God sees it.  And Christ comes and is with us and the winds cease. When we see God at 3 AM, we know.  He has not sent us out alone, and He Is.

The Missionary Way of Jesus

Biblical Text: Matthew 10:5, 21-33

The text for this sermon is often called Jesus’ missionary discourse. The lectionary divides it into three parts, of which this is the 2nd. Although this sermon backs up a bit (as I was on vacation last week and missed part one.) It is the sermon Jesus gives to the 12 as he sends them out. There are a bunch of ways that have been dreamed up to duck this sermon. I’ve heard people say “it was only for the apostles at that time.” And there are some textual things you can point at, but given the great commission that seems odd. I’ve heard people restrict it to just clergy. And again, I there are some textual things that might support it that. Also again, laying all of missions on a special class seems wrong, especially given the general “confess me before me” that closes this section. Basically, the church in most ages just doesn’t want to here this. And that is because this is the summary of the message to me.

  1. The Word of God causes division
  2. You are called to speak it anyway and deal with the resulting division and hatred
  3. The reason you do this are because the Christian must live, walk the way, with eternity in mind.
    • There is a necessary element of fear in this. “These men fear God (more than anything in this world”.”
    • But the more important part is the love of God for all his creation.

Missions are walking the way through this world. As we walk, we show others the way. And that way is faith. We fear, love and trust in the promise of Jesus, told to us by others who did the same. That is the Missionary Way of Jesus.

Anxious Hearts

Biblical Text: John 14:1-14

What do we really want? Another way of saying that might be what are we aimed at? The fancy term here is teleology. What completes us? Such questions typically fascinated most peoples. We are strange in that we’ve ruled out thinking about ends/goals in anything other than temporal and vague ways. And it is that refusal to think seriously about such things that I think puts all kinds of anxiety on our hearts. Jesus’ words in this gospel passage are a direct balm. “Let not your hearts be troubled.” Why? Believe. The rest is in the sermon.

Needing a Sabbath

“The Lord will get his Sabbath, one way or another.”

That’s an older proverb I unexpectedly heard someone quote the other day.  I say older when I mean archaic.  Because you’d have to know what a Sabbath is first.  Then you’d have to know both who The Lord is and that he commanded one.  And it would probably help to understand that this Lord had a bunch of fights in his own day about the Sabbath.  All things which are no longer common knowledge. But it struck me that ears might be deaf to exactly the wisdom they need to hear.

The first thing I always ask when I hear a proverb is “Is it True?” In this world that is on something of a sliding scale and it often depends upon the context. There are rock solid proverbs – “A fool and his money are soon parted.”  There are marginal ones – “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” As long as you are content with marginal returns, accepting what the universe gives you, this is great advice (and holding an MBA and CFA exactly what I’d tell 98% of people), but it is terrible advice to anyone who is after excellence. Financially, you wanted all your eggs on Amazon at almost any time in the past 25 years. If you want to make the Big Leagues, that better be what you are doing all the time. In asking “Is it True?” one of the big helps I find is asking, “Is it biblical?” “Cleanliness is next to godliness” is not, neither is “God helps those who help themselves.” What about this one?

It is not directly a biblical Proverb. You won’t find it attributed to Solomon. Neither does Peter, James or Paul mouth it.  But there is a deep way in which “The Lord will get his Sabbath, one way or another” is biblical.  When the Israelites took the land of Canaan, God gave them larger Sabbath commands. Every 7 years they were to allow the land to lie fallow. Every 50 years, the completion of seven sevens, was the Jubilee year. All slaves were manumitted, all debts forgiven, any land sold reverted to the family who owned it originally. The Jubilee turned everything Israel thought they owned into a stewardship arrangement. You never actually bought a field, you stewarded it for at most 49 years. Of course there is no actual record of a Jubilee ever actually happening. The Sabbath of Sabbaths was not taken.  And no farmer let his field go fallow every seven years, are you crazy!?! What is God going to do, send manna? 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 tells us the 70 years of exile were 1 year for each missed Sabbath.  The Lord would get his Sabbath, one way or another.

The second thing I ask when I hear a proverb is “how is it used?” When would someone quote this proverb. The most logical time to quote this is to the work-a-holic. The point being that you should take a rest.  The implied threat being that if you don’t willingly take a rest, your body will probably fail in some way forcing a rest. But there is a second time it might be quoted.  When someone has put all their eggs in the basket of the world, you might quote this to them.  The intention being something like “don’t forget the sacred or the spiritual.” It would be akin to “man does not live by bread alone.” And that is where I wonder if we have become deaf.

Luther’s explanation of the Sabbath commandment is nothing about a seventh day, but about the deeper recognition of the Sabbath.  As the Lord of the Sabbath said, “it was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” And that deeper recognition is that we should not despise preaching and the Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Keeping the Sabbath day is about maintaining a proper reverence for the Word of God.  It is by the Word we were created.  It is by the Word that we have been saved. And it is by that same Word that we live in the promise of the resurrection. That day is coming when “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess (Isa 45:23).” The Lord will have his Sabbath, one way or another.  The question is: Is your Sabbath one of grace or compulsion and exile? Today we are invited to a Sabbath of grace made for us, but the Lord will have his Sabbath.

Remembrance and Proclamation

Text: Catechism Christian Questions and Answers 13-16

This is the 4th Lenten Midweek service. We have been working our way through the Christian Questions and their answer from the Small Catechism. These Questions and Answers are a model of “fitting preparation” to receive the Lord’s Supper. To me they run in expanding cycles. The first cycle is the simple proclamation of sin and salvation. The second cycle expands on that from the creed. This third cycle is very Lutheran. It always goes back to faith, but it also is not afraid to ask the question “why should or do I believe this?” The Lutheran understanding of the faith has an answer. That answer might not be satisfactory to all, but it has the advantage of being how the Bible talks about the origins of faith. And it has the advantage of being grounded in the cross. We remember and proclaim the cross as the ground of our faith. This sermon meditates on that.

Two Smoldering Stumps

Biblical Text: Isaiah 7:10-17

Matthew asserts that the Virgin birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of this passage in Isaiah. Now, when a New Testament author points at an Old Testament text, he’s pointing at the larger story. The larger story that this sermon tries to preach is the story of three generations of Judah’s kings – Uzziah, Jotham and Ahaz. How do we get to the prophet Isaiah telling Ahaz to ask for a sign? The story has surprisingly deep resonance for our situation today. Ahaz’s abominations and his refusal to see the signs are very similar to ours.

Mid-Wit Meme Wedding?

Biblical Text: Ruth 1:1-19

This text used to be a standard wedding text. It is also one of the texts that people use in a certain way that gets under the skin of a certain type of minister – bringing up the mid-wit meme. For my money, Ruth is the best book in all of scripture to really get the gospel. This sermon using that mid-wit meme as a start, attempts to see how Christ is in Ruth, and in so far as our marriages are icons or images or Christ and the church, Ruth’s pledge of faith is exactly right for a wedding.

Why?

Biblical Text: Habakkuk 1:1-2:4

We are ask “Why?” occasionally. The honest answer from the bible is that God just doesn’t answer “why” that often, at least not in words. He does provide an answer in the cross. But the Old Testament text for the Day from the prophet Habakkuk is one of the places where God stoops to give an answer to “Why?” This sermon is a proclamation of both the question and God’s answer. It might not satisfy all, but I find it a deep well.

Seeing What is There

Biblical Text: Luke 16: 19-31

I’m not sure a recording happened this week, and I don’t have my good mike yet to record it after the fact. The trouble with moving.

This sermon reflects on two facts of the text. Father Abraham tells the Rich man in suffering that “Moses and Prophets” are enough to be heard. It should not take a miracle to see. The second fact is that Dives (“The Rich Man”) obviously never heard Moses and the Prophets, and so he never saw Lazarus sitting at his gate. His dogs did, but he never did. The first time Dives notices Lazarus is when he “lifts up his eyes” while in Hades. In the Spiritual life, hearing is important because it creates faith. And what you believe changes what you see. And these two things have eternal consequences. The sermon develops those ideas

Counting the Cost

Biblical Text: Luke 14: 25-35

In the text we have one of the notices of “great crowds”. The fame of Jesus’ ministry can be gaged by the modifier to the crowds. And when they get to “great” he always says something like he says in the text today. It’s always a warning about discipleship. Discipleship isn’t about numbers. It’s about the heart. The disciple of Jesus has to know that The Way is The Way of the Cross. And they have to reckon that way the way of life. Also a way that we have no ability to follow in and of ourselves. This sermon is about how the way of grace is absolutely free and terribly costly.