History and Divine Necessity

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Biblical Text: Luke 13:22-35
Full Sermon Draft

A lot of people these days claim “history” on their side. We are urged to “be on the right side of history”. I’m convinced this is actually derived from a Martin Luther King quote.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

I first heard this quote modified about 15 years ago to drop the moral universe and replace it with history (Here is an example of that substitution). In fact I was surprised (and delighted) when I looked up the actual quote and its context to find moral universe. When you look at the context, which this sermon does, King’s moral universe is very defined. Where history, especially when it is claimed as a moral imperative, is always relative to the speaker, a moral universe is rooted in a larger context. King’s larger context, as the larger quote displays, is the bible, the faith and the Words of the Lord.

And that is the bedrock of the text. The only person who history is relative to is Jesus Christ. To understand the moral universe we much decide who we say Christ is. It is necessary, it is a divine necessity that Jesus continue his course. That fox Herod has no authority to stop it. Now there are a whole lot of things that we might think the divine necessity applies to or should apply to, but none of those are what God says it does. God applies that necessity to the cross. The one who had actual complete freedom chose the cross. The action is why King’s statement is true. The entire moral universe is defined by the love of God. A love that desires to gather his children under a crucified wing.

We sang a hymn new to the hymnbook and modern this morning that captures this mystery. It is paired with a pretty melancholy tune in the Lutheran Service Book, but no one would say that the combination is anything other than a tough contemplative song. For a people who might be more used to the modern praise song with snappy riffs, happy cords and simple refrains, In Silent Pain the Eternal Son (LSB 432), might just be the antithesis. What is really captured by it is the fact that the most glorious sight in the universe is a set of scars…that a body derelict and still on a cross is the definition of necessity and love.

1. In silent pain the_eternal Son
Hangs derelict and still;
In darkened day His work is done,
Fulfilled, His Father’s will.
Uplifted for the world to see
He hangs in strangest victory,
For in His body on the tree
He carries all our ill.

2. He died that we might die to sin
And live for righteousness;
The earth is stained to make us clean
And bring us into peace.
For peace He came and met its cost;
He gave Himself to save the lost;
He loved us to the uttermost
And paid for our release.

3. For strife He came, to bring a sword,
The truth to end all lies;
To rule in us, our patient Lord,
Until all evil dies:
For in His hand He holds the stars,
His voice shall speak to end our wars,
And those who love Him see His scars
And look into His eyes.

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The Elder’s Turn

Biblical Text: Ephesians 5:22-33
Full Sermon Text

I was on vacation this Sunday, so our Elders filled in. One elder in particular, Dr. Warriner, you will hear on the podcast delivering the sermon.

I didn’t want to appear like the biggest chicken selectively picking the week of one of the toughest texts to modern ears to be on vacation, so I ghost wrote it. I would make a lousy speech-writer. I’m too much of a narcissist to get into someone else’s voice. Anyway, the text is St. Paul on marriage. The attempt is to find the grace in tough words.

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Hope abides in The Foolish Things…like the Cross

Sermon Text: Ephesians 3:14-21
Full Draft of Sermon

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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Christian Marriage

Biblical Text: John 15:9-17
Full Text of Sermon

Finding poignancy in pop songs is pretty tough. Lady GaGa flirts with it before retreating to camp and a great bass line. There are the ever so earnest indies. The ingenues like Adele whose combine the virtues of youth and a healthy supply of talent, but that usually doesn’t age well. Something close to of the moment (I’m a pastor with three young kids, so cut me a little slack) – “somebody that I use to know“. One of the pop lines that has stuck with me is from Matchbox 20’s Real World. The Chorus, after having the singer imagine that he’s rainmaker, sings about the real world – “Please don’t change, please don’t break. The only thing that seems to work at all is you.” I remember thinking when I first heard it that the song feels the fallen world. A bunch of people looking for something that works knowing that everything eventually breaks.

That is where the orthodox understanding of marriage comes in. Everything in this fallen world breaks: towers and titans, marriages and friendships, toys and trinkets. And when we move past bargaining- “Please don’t break” we move toward acceptance, at least if pop psychology is correct. Acceptance in the realm of marriage looks like what we have – a landscape full of people that we used to know, maybe even those living with us.

But acceptance is not the endpoint of the Christian story. We might accept that things break, but not for the purpose of excusing them or making the brokenness normal. If we say the brokenness is normal, we lose the gospel. Instead we teach repentance – I’m broke. And we teach restoration – Christ makes all things new.

In regard to marriage we could teach acceptance, but that is what Moses did, that is what the law does. And the law permits divorce. In this day and age it is permitting a whole bunch else as well. But Jesus didn’t teach that. If he did, we wouldn’t have the cross, because that is what Jesus did for his bride the church. And you don’t do the cross if there is another way out. We are broken. We live in a broken world. But Christ was not. Jesus fulfills the covenant that marriage is a glimpse of. The bridegroom shares 100% of himself with his bride. The crucified one is the only thing around here that works.

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Benedict-Wilson Wedding Sermon

I don’t usually add these occasional sermons. They usually are so specific to the event that I don’t think there is much that someone could get out of them without that background. This is one I think a little differently about. I really liked this sermon (if I do say so myself). It is short, a quick read and I think presents the gospel in a light and attractive way. It might be worth your 5 minutes whether married 5 mins or 10 years.

Text: 1 Cor 12 – 13
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…”
Our generation has been chastened from some of those stark statements, but we still gather in joy at weddings. Brides – like Delia here, and grooms –like Curtis – will come before God and their assembled family and friends and promise shortly to love, honor and keep in sickness and in health. They will pledge to each other their faithfulness. In other words, to promise that love never ends.
But St. Paul – the writer of those words – is not naïve about love. Listen to how he defines love. It bears all things. So when the mountain top experience of the wedding day is a distant memory replaced by the mountain of laundry. Love bears it.
Love believes all things. I don’t think that St. Paul is asking us to be intentionally stupid here, but is saying that love puts the best construction possible on your spouse’s actions. So when he’s watching football on your anniversary – it is not because he’s an ingrate, but because he really means it’s a big game. Or when she claims that new furniture is needed or that you need to forget about the game to decorate a room – love believes this is a necessity.
And probably most importantly – love hopes all things. Your hopes are now for each other and jointly as a couple. Love chooses to place its hope in your partner – even when it might not be the smart thing. Love choses to hope in the union – when something else might look more hopeful.
And all of these bearing, believing, hoping, enduring…these actions of love are not easy, but they are your choice. The world wishes to say that love should be easy. From mountaintop to mountaintop. God’s revelation is that love is both easy and hard…and much more defined by the hard…and it is in our hands. We choose to continue to love, even when something might not be loveable.
The truth is that none of us will ever live up to that. But we have been given an example and a promise. Christ loved his bride the church. Such that he bore the cross for her. Believes that she is the best thing even though church history might say otherwise, continues in word and sacrament to hope for her… and Christ’s love for His bride the church does not end. How Christ deals with the church is the ideal for marriage – with hope and faith , with forgiveness, and greatest of all, with love.
So we gather in joy for a wedding, because we commit ourselves to that ideal. And we commit to that knowing that Christ has already lived it for us. That when we are weak, He still loves us…and allows us to renew our lives though His never-ending love. Amen.

The Milk of Faith

Draft 1.0

There are some very simple statements that are rarely expressed that are the seed bed of faith. You get close to them if you look at the world and just say what you see. Do you see millions of atoms randomly moving around? Do you see a tragic beauty? Maybe just beauty? Probably your answer to that sets your course. You presuppositions typically set your logic.

I was converted in a way to our VBS this year. It did a masterful job of talking about some of the unexpressed basic assumptions. Who is God and how does He act in regards to us? What are your gut level thoughts and presuppositions about God? VBS took Psalm 139 as the text. I pays every Christian to bring those basic thoughts to life every now and then. The world and our adversary will try and convince you that you are a fool for thinking something like: God loves you no matter what. But that is what God has revealed about himself in the Bible, in Creation and most clearly in Christ, in the cross. Those simple statements are the simple milk of faith.

[Note – in the podcast the sermon starts about the 5:00 mark]

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