An Arizona Visit

I was sitting in my office fresh from vacation. The translation for the week was done. I was trying to scrape the rust off the brain. Half-heartedly skimming somebody’s commentary on the gospel of the week. When I felt a breeze. But it wasn’t the AC kicking on and refilling the tubes. Instead it was an old friend.

“Dr. Luther, I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. I got the feeling the last time we talked it might be the last time. And that was quite a while ago. About 7 years”

“Seven years? You’ve got to remember, time for me isn’t quite linear anymore. Worms feels like yesterday. So that little conversation of ours was just this morning. But I did notice that you seem to have moved. And not a small one. You know, other than my trip to Rome, which was only about 850 miles, I don’t think I ever traveled more than 75 miles away from my hometown. And you are sitting on the other end of a continent! And it is hot. Are you sure you didn’t move closer to hell?”

“Yeah. That might have been an undercurrent in that conversation earlier this morning. Remember how von Staupitz sent you on that Roman trip. Said, ‘you need to see the city.’ Sometimes in our common work of the gospel you need to be somewhere else. At least that is what we tell ourselves.”

“But it seems to have worked. The black dog was at your door last time, and I hear no barking now. Although these little chats are never without purpose. I don’t get released from Leo X and Charles V for chit-chat.”

“You are going to have to tell me about those chats.”

“You’ll get your own one day. Mark 7. That’s what you are pondering.”

“Yes. It is just so unnatural. It is all law, but the law is usually natural. We call it cancel culture – driving out the unclean – but it is really larger than that. Parents spend inordinate amounts of time and money trying to control their kids peer groups. Our own synod excommunicated a 20 year old recently, basically for hanging out with the the wrong sorts. All of that seems natural, like practical wisdom. Hygiene. Yet Christ says, ‘there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him.’ And the received understanding immediately jumps to Jesus eating with ‘tax collectors and sinners.’ But this passage has been used to justify all kinds of terrible stuff. Material that is clearly not good for anything, but the second you say so, somebody stands up and calls you a Pharisee or a legalist.”

“I did say the proper separation of law and gospel was the hardest skill in all of Christendom. And the one most necessary.”

“Yes. And I don’t think we’ve done that right here in a long time.”

“Keep talking.”

“The context that Jesus is talking about is piety practices. Hand and cup washings, pledges to God, for lack of a better word ‘religious acts.’ Things that might have started out as helpful to faith, but have become the entire purpose replacing faith. Practicing magic. Virtue Signaling. In your day, indulgences, pilgrimages and relics.”

“Yes, those were big things in my day. But it isn’t like every age doesn’t have their own.”

“But ours are so strange. In the Epistle Paul talks about putting on the armor. Know you are in a fight. Yet the religious act of our day seems to be ‘strip it all off and walk naked, otherwise you don’t have faith.’ Any law is a bad law and contrary to the gospel.”

“You might have something there Brown. Continue.”

“The core seems to be ‘whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach.’ It is about the heart. There are things from the outside that can enter the heart and displace true faith. There are also all kinds of things that exit the heart. ‘Out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, etc.’ The breaking of the entire 10 commandments. The heart itself is initially unclean. But the Christian has had a new heart created in them by baptism and the Spirit.”

“Now you are dividing the law and the gospel. Can you bring it home?”

“The breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate is what covers the heart. Eating with ‘sinners and tax collectors’ will not make you unclean. As long as it isn’t your heart that is desiring to join in ‘all these evil things.’ If your heart is acting out of faith it is protected by that righteousness and would not join in those works. Not all the demons could make you. You can stand in the evil day.”

“Ok, but haven’t you just made another religious work, Brown?”

“I don’t think so, because it is all borrowed armor. It is not our breastplate, but that given to us by Christ. It is not our heart, but the one created anew by the Spirit. We’ve been given these gifts not to bury them, but to use them. Not to discard them, but to wear them for the battle that rages.”

The great man walked out muttering something about it being too hot and Leo called. And then the AC kicked on flapping the pipes and jolting me from my seat.

Taking the Long Way

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Biblical Text: Mark 7:31-37

Sometimes the smallest thing in the text can inspire a thought. Here it is the travel notice -“He returned from the region of Tyre through Sidon…”. Jesus goes north to return south. But the travel notice state or implies a much longer journey, something of a great circular route, a long way. But even when you take the long way, you eventually end up where you are going. And that is what confronts Jesus when he completes the circle. It is often what confronts us on our spiritual walk-abouts. When we’ve taken the long way, the spiritual question remains, and how we are going to answer it. That is what this sermon is about.

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Hearing the Signs, Fearing their Silence

Biblical Text: Mark 7:31-37 (Isaiah 35:4-7)

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This was our “Rally Day” or recognition of the start of School week. (We delay a week typically due to the labor day weekend.) So, there are parts of the service – like the installation of Sunday School teachers, and blessing of backpacks – that I couldn’t get on the recording. Physically we did them down in front where our various mic’s don’t capture too well. That blessing was probably the key to thinking about this sermon unfortunately.

In my head the sermon is an existential one. It points out a common thought, looking up at the night sky and what do you see? There are naive answers, but nobody really holds those long. That is the purpose of the Lion King reference. The existential question of that sky (a sign) is: is their order or is it all just chaos?

The answer revealed to us by the Word of God is that there is an order. In our sinful condition we are like the deaf and mute man in our text, unable to hear the music of the spheres. But Jesus has come to give us back the ability to hear. That same Word that tells us of God’s loving order, opens ears and loosens tongues. And in the application to educating, learning/education/wisdom which is based on that word is a worth endeavor, because God desires to be known just as we are known by Him. The universe makes sense, the foundation of which is revealed to us in the Word of God, so we can grow in Wisdom just like Jesus. It is not the dark forest nor the great filter that haunt our minds when we tune out the music of the spheres.

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Be Opened – The Kingdom Inbreaking in Unexpected Ways

Biblical Text: Mark 7:31-37
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This sermon is based on a “level 2” reading of the Gospel of Mark. What I mean by level 2 is that to make the connections necessary you have to look at the locations, characters and actions of what is being told and assume that the writer picked this story specifically to carry meaning. The deaf and mute man was chosen because his disabilities and their healings are symbolic for what the Kingdom of God is doing on a larger level. The first part of the sermon hopefully establishes at least the plausibility of that level 2 reading. The second attempts to apply it to our situation.

Doctrinally this puts me in the realm of election and sanctification. The sermon is about the tension or specific actions that these doctrines call for.

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Out of the Heart…

Biblical Text: Mark 7:14-23
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This is the second part of the Jesus’ discussion in Mark chapter 7. The first part (last Sunday) focused more on the centrality of the Word of God. In the words of the Lutheran confessions that would is the sole norm of life and faith. It is the norming norm. All of our traditions must conform to the Word of God. The second part Jesus turns from false source of authority to the source of our problems with it. It is not that we don’t know the Word of God, but that naturally, out of the heart of man, come evil designs. What we take into the body cannot defile us as Mark comments settling the question of foods once. But we naturally take part in wickedness and fall into foolish ways.

The sermon examines Jesus’ comments on both wickedness and foolishness and puts it in the context of the larger bible’s discussion of understanding and foolishness. It then bridges into the good news. Out of our natural hearts come wickedness, but God is about replacing those hearts.

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God Has the Power…Hold On!

Biblical Text: Mark 7:1-13
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The text is one of those that is actually real easy to apply today, but preaching that sermon to this congregation isn’t matching audiences. I think you have to look a little to correctly apply it. Putting it in doctrinal terms the text is one about the simplicity of scripture or the perspicuity of scripture. What that means is simply that the meaning of scripture is plainly available to those who read it fairly. That doesn’t mean we accept it, just that we can understand what it says. What Jesus gets mad at in the Pharisees is not that they reject it outright, but that they end up putting forward theological arguments and rationalizations that negate the simple word of God. Their higher theology allows them to break the law yet claim they are keeping it. And this is done with the blessing of the institutional form of the religion. The easy marks are in the introduction. To correctly apply though means understanding the simple or catechism word and then looking at how we might deny it.

We had VBS last week, so what I used as the simple Word were the daily slogans from VBS which told the really simple faith – creation, comfort, healing, forgiveness, eternity. And then it mulls these over a little deeper and takes a look at how we, not others but ourselves, might elevate a higher theology against that simple faith. The bottom line is that any higher or deeper theology must be consonant or allow the simple faith. I’ll make a physics analogy, Quantum mechanics must allow for Newtonian Physics. Quantum mechanics can never completely negate Newtonian Physics. We are being Pharisees when we negate portions of the law yet say we aren’t because of complex rationalizations. Like the response line to the simple VBS statements, we Hold On to the simple word.

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Opened Ears and Loosened Tongues

Biblical Text: Mark 7:31-37
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It was rally day at church this week. For those who might not know, that is the day we install the Sunday School teachers for the year and try and “rally” everyone back from the summer’s diversion.

It also turns into something of a mission festival. Rally Day doesn’t just issue a call to return to church, but issues a call to be witnesses. The lesson is the healing of a deaf and mute man. Jesus’ miracles, in John’s gospel called signs, almost always point to something greater. They might be signs of his being the messiah. They might be signs point to his Godhood. They might also be signs of the disciples or our own spiritual state, or our calling. I think that is what is happening with this miracle. It does function as a sign to Jesus being the messiah. That is why the OT Isaiah lesson was matched up with this Gospel text. But in the context – which the sermon proclaims – they are also a sign to the opening of new ears and a call for tongues to the loosened. Rally Day calls for ears to be opened – come back to the sabbath and the Word. Rally Day also calls for tongues to be loosened – teachers installed and witness in the community renewed.

When ears have been opened, not even Jesus could stop tongues from proclaiming the grace received. That is the call to us. Are our ears open? Are our tongues ready to proclaim?

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