Sea of Stars

(Note, in the past I did not post my weekly “newsletter” articles. I don’t know why. I used to tell myself they seemed more congregation specific. But more specific than the sermons which I do post? So, I’m going to start posting them. In the newsletter they are called “Pastor’s Corner” and so that is the category you will find them under. They often, although not always, are reflections on one of the other lectionary texts of the week.)

Did you catch the first images from the James Webb satellite telescope? The one that basically replaces the Hubble that was deployed over the summer? Here is a link: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages. I know people have alternate responses to such things. The militant atheists took the photo of that stella maris, the now much bigger sea of stars, and quipped “imagine thinking that you are in any way consequential.” And if I am staring at those photos as a pure expression the holiness of God, yeah, I get it. A holy unknown god should cause stark raving terror at the vast gulf between it and us. There is something mischievously funny that every step we seem to make in knowledge of the universe, it reveals that the universe is both infinitely bigger and more strange than we thought. It is almost like God chuckling, “oh, you think you have plumbed my depths and now comprehend the foundations, that you could answer my question to Job “were you there (Job 38:4)” with a yes? Well now, take a look at this.” That vastness of space stares back at us as a metaphor for the unknown god. And if god was simply unknown I think my conclusion would run along the lines of H.P. Lovecraft. But God has not remained unknown. God has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ.

When I think of the last Sunday of the Church Year, sometimes called Christ the King Sunday, my mind takes me to those cosmic images. That is where our Epistle reading for the day (Colossians 1:13-20) goes. The first thing that the Apostle Paul wants us to know is that “The Father has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of his beloved Son.” We have been removed from staring at that vast dark cold sea of stars and been placed in Christ. The impersonal has been replaced with the named. The second thing Paul wants us to know is that this is good news. You could (or at least I could) image a deity where that unknowing and uncaring space was better. You don’t have to think too hard. Any of the idols or the old pagan gods would be such. The pagans didn’t seek the gods so much as give their sacrifices to keep them away, to ensure they continued to slumber. Because being on a first name with a pagan god usually ended poorly. But what Paul wants us to know is that in the Kingdom of Christ we are not insignificant slaves. In Christ, “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

And in Christ we are far from inconsequential. In some of that cosmic language Paul wants us to know exactly who this Christ is. “All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” That entire sea of stars – “the visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities” – is his. Yet in Jesus “the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” God was pleased to reveal himself in Jesus. And He revealed himself for this purpose, “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” God revealed himself to make peace. God revealed himself by putting His “skin in the game.” And more than just skin, His blood. God left that vast sea of stars to dwell in fullness with us, to save us.

The God who hides behind that sea of stars has come to us. The God who has the power to make the stella maris, placed all that power in Jesus to save us. Far from inconsequential, you have been invited into that divine life. You have been transferred from the darkness to the Kingdom.

He Came to Make Us Holy

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Biblical Text: Luke 4:31-44

The text details a Sabbath Day for Jesus in Capernaum. It is a day full of demons and healing. And what it makes completely clear is that the cosmic battle has come to earth. Christ has come to make us holy. The confrontation in the Synagogue with the demon sets the conflict. The demon thinks that “us” is mankind and the demons. The Holy One of God has nothing to do with that us. But Jesus rejects the demon’s definition of “us”. To Jesus us is God and man, God with us. And Jesus intends to make us holy. And he does this by His word. The sermon examines the authority of that word and what it calls us to be and do.

Good and Wise

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Biblical Text: Matthew 5: 21-37

This sermon is slightly longer than I normally go, which yes, I realized that means nobody will listen. Way to lead with the glass jaw parson. But more seriously, I think I use the extra 10 mins or so for good effect. I promise you that this is not the typical sermon you will hear on Sunday. In short it is a defense of the law. It is an encouragement to holiness. But Christian holiness should not be something based in fear, because the law has lost its sting. Give it a listen.

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A Holy Grace and Truth

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My Christmas Day sermons are a little more contemplative. This one is from the texts of the day, primarily Isaiah 52:7-10 and John 1:1-14, but it also leans heavily on the hymn A Great and Mighty Wonder – LSB 383. It is a contemplation of the Holy set against the normal wisdom of the middle way. Merry Christmas

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Desiring Mercy and Ripping out the Mulberry Tree

Biblical Text: Luke 17:1-10
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Most of the commentators on these verses take them as a disconnected jumble of aphorisms. The equivalent of Luke saying, “hey, I’ve got these sayings I’ve got to include somewhere, might as well throw them together here”. Not that this might never happen, but I think that reflects the strengths and weakness of our age. As far as strengths I think due to the scholarship on the last century we know a lot more about how we got the bible we got (and its fundamental reliability) than probably any generation since the death of the apostles. The weaknesses are that to get that information we atomized our understanding and neutered what I’ll call our story imagination. We know a whole lot about trees, and we can’t see the forest.

In 10 verses, as Jesus gets toward the end of the walk to Jerusalem, he turns to the disciples and gives something of a summary of the Christian life. Jesus affirms that divine justice is sure. The stumbling blocks that must come will get their punishment. But that shouldn’t be the disciple’s focus or hope. The disciples watch themselves and live law and gospel or repentance and forgiveness. The disciple’s joy is found in repentance and forgiveness, not in justice.

And this is where I think it takes the story imagination to keep it all together. Disciples of every time and place eventually get to that point where they want justice. The world lives by the Chicago rules – “they put one of yours into the hospital, you put one of theirs into the ground”. Moses brought the law which said an eye for an eye. Jesus is telling the disciples in the Kingdom of God – if the sinner repents when warned – let it go, forgive. If they don’t repent – leave the justice to God. And they reply to Jesus – “increase our faith”. We can’t do that. And Jesus gives one of those mysterious replies about trees being uprooted and planted in the ocean. This is core message from the sermon…this is what I take Jesus answer as. How did that work for you? Following the world’s advice you end up in the kingdom of the dead. Following the law’s advice you end up in the kingdom of the blind. Follow me – and crazy things will happen. Small things loom large, like mustard seeds. Things that are rooted yards deep and immoveable – mulberry trees, bitter hatred, generational grudges…sin…these things will come up and fly away. Imagine if you can…its easy if you try.

The disciple’s heart, the heart that is being made right, desires mercy. Along the way, turning all justice over to God and desiring Mercy, we find those things so deeply rooted in us that we don’t know who we are without them, are pulled up and we are changed. This is the point of the kingdom. This is the basic nature of the kingdom in this world. And if we are disciples, servants of Jesus, we can’t dodge this.

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Where to sit?

Biblical Text: Luke 10:38-42
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Mary and Martha. That used to be the jumping off point for a bunch of buddy stories. But the text is not about a conflict of personality. The revisionist and womanist (or is it womynist) preacher makes great hay out of this text. Martha is the enforcer of accepted patriarchal social scripts which Mary chooses to ignore. Jesus backs up her choice securing her already grasped freedom. (Just to be clear, Mary moves first, Jesus just gives moral support). But that would seem to be majoring in minors – although there is enough truth you can’t just scoff.

The context is the help. Last week was the good Samaritan and in previous weeks the 70 were sent out and great things are happening. The whole contingent is on the move. They are doing great things. The disciples, and us the reader, could be forgiven for taking the point of the Christian life as being a heroic do-gooder. And then we see the ultimate do gooder. Martha is serving everyone…and Mary just sits. Jesus, do you mean what you’ve been saying?

Like Martha, the church is full of care and distracted by all the things that need taken care of. And there will be plenty of opportunity to serve. Nobody ever gets in your way when you don the role of the servant. But the world, the devil and our own flesh will labor mightily to keep us from the Word. Service not grounded first and firmly in the Word of God is just so much trouble. The one needful thing – the one thing that we can’t go without is the Word. And that is typically presented as a choice. Do we choose the feet of the Jesus, or our cares? Everything else shall pass away, but what is done at the foot of the cross will never be taken away.

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Reaping and Sowing (The Gospel Lived…)

Text: Galatians 6:1-18
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This was the final installment of the series on Galatians. In chapter 6 of Galatians Paul does two things. In the sermon I reversed the order in the sermon because it makes more sense for a congregation or someone listening for the first time. First Paul gives a concrete glimpse of what living the Gospel looks like. He does that using three images:
1) The image of confession and absolution. We all fall and all need to be restored.
2) The contrasting of images of the burden of the labor of day and the load of a ship’s cargo. One we are to help carry for each other. The other we carry ourselves into the final port. The quick summary of this contrast would seem to be: Be quick to take part with the people of God in the work of the Kingdom, while watching and maintaining your personal spiritual life regardless of the work of others.
3) The image he dwells on the most is sowing and reaping.

Paul applies sowing and reaping to three places:
1) Ministry – What does this gospel look like? A shared ministry where the teaching of the word is supported and respected.
2) Personal Holiness – The harvest starts with what you sow. Sow to yourself, and you will reap destruction. Sow to virtue and you will reap eternal life.
3) Good Works (the outgrowth of personal holiness) – If you are well taught and active in the word, if you are sowing to the Spirit through virtue, we do not tire of doing good – first at home with the family of faith and then to others.

After his concrete statement on the gospel lived, Paul returns to his major points: Apostleship, grace and Walking in the Spirit.

I started the sermon with some personal pondering. I probably should have cut it out as not really on point, but Paul’s swift conclusion got me pondering those things. Paul gets to the end and what do you say? How do you end an address on the Christian life. (Galatians may very well have been the first such letter ever written). Elsewhere Paul collapses into greet so-and-so and laundry lists of good wishes. Here, he concludes simply with what we know as the apostolic greeting: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. (Gal 6:18 ESV)” Which in the context I take as a sending. Go live the Gospel. God live by grace through the spirit. In that faith and in that Spirit, brothers and sisters. We want so much tied up neatly. But so much of the Christian life – the freedom of the Gospel – is untidy. Go live it. Fail at it. Come back for repentance and absolution. And try again. But in the midst of that struggle we have peace. The Lord Jesus Christ bought it on the cross and now lives and reigns to all eternity. What are our struggles compared to that?

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Hope and Holiness

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If I’m looking at this sermon critically – it is too much lecture and not enough preaching. Here is what I mean by that: a lecture conveys information while preaching reaches beyond that.

The core of the text (1 Pet 3:13-22) as I read it was a summary of Peter’s argument up to this point, and a reiteration of the purpose. The argument is be holy. The longer form of that is Be Holy because you are a child of God and that is what God’s children do. The purpose – to point the glory and all eyes toward Christ.

Peter’s words are “be prepared to give a defense for the hope that is in you.” For me the summary of the hope that is in me is creeds. The creeds themselves are intellectual things. The make statements of what I take to be facts. (Non-Christians would say that make claims that are probably not facts.) But it is not that intellectual content that is the basis of my or the church’s hope. The basis is the truth that the creeds speak about – the God, Father, Son and Spirit, reigns. Hope rests not in this suffering world, or hope rests not in this ill-at-ease contentment of safety and plenty and its continuation. Hope rests in the fact that God acts and has acted and continues to act. Hope rests in the fact that the God who has acted has revealed himself not to be a harsh judge, but one moved to compassion (I’m bringing back a greek work – splagnizomai), who has his guts torn out over his world.

Our proclamation of that Hope (the church’s proclamation of that hope) is displayed in our holiness. Being prepared is not just about knowing the creed, but also about living it. And living something is always messy.

The Gospel according to Private Ryan

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Text: Luke 18:1-17

Most things have a normal curve outcome – i.e. lots of “c’s”, a few “A’s” and a few failures. As I was writing and practicing delivery, I knew this sermon was inverted – all or nothing.

Here is why it could strike out: 1) reference to child sexual abuse, 2) talking about how to be a disciple/holiness, 3) the major image being a secular motion picture, 4) continuing or heavily referencing the previous week’s gospel (the context is critical), 5) a heavy theological concept at the end (absolution coming ‘extra nos’ or outside of ourselves), 6) an analogy that if I took it out of the context of the image would be gross work’s righteousness, 7) a different outline or format than I typically use and 8) a general high level of emotional pitch throughout.

It was risk piled on risk. (Ok Holy Spirit, better show up for this one.) I was pondering right up until Sunday Morning if I had the guts to deliver it.