God Revealed

Biblical Text: Mark 9:14-29

The text is something of a famous one for the cry of the Father who has brought his demon possessed son to Jesus. “I believe, help my unbelief.” Springing off of that a couple generations of preachers obsessed over doubt. But I think most of those sermons were dramatically off in their focus of doubt. They typically accepted a materialist de facto atheist – an enlightenment project – framework and apologetically argued for God. The problem with all of that was they were arguing for the hidden god, the god we know nothing about. And honestly, if the choice is between a hidden god and no god, no god wins every time. But if you are preaching about doubt from this text, it is not about the existence of god. God exists. And he is on your case. In a million different masks he tells you that you are nothing. The hidden god is the god of power and majesty and we are but grass. The doubt is that god could ever care about grass. But the entire text is about the revealed God. Jesus came to reveal the heart of the Father. And that heart is that we are his children and he saves us from the fire. You would never ask the hidden god. But the Father of Jesus bids us ask, because he wants to demonstrate his love for us. And that is what the father does, “have compassion on us.” And Jesus does driving out the demon. And his summary to the disciples is “this kind only comes out with prayer.” It is not exorcism technology. It is getting the hidden god off our backs. Pray. Ask the Father of Jesus. You will see.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rogate – What Shall We Ask?

Every 6^th Sunday of Easter I somehow get pushed into the same meditation. When we date things we find a calendar and just write say 5/3/24 – May 3^rd, 2024. And that time encodes where we are in the earth’s annual trip around the sun. It is handy for calculating interest owed or accrued as the days are easily countable. In other words it is a practical notation, but it is also a skinny one. Through at least the 19^th Century, something on May 3^rd might have been dated – On the Feast of Philip and James. This Sunday would have been known as Rogate. The Sundays all took their names from the first words spoken in service from the Introits originally in Latin. Rogate means to ask. The First Sunday in Easter was Quasimodogeniti which means “as newborn babies.” You might recognize Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was born on that Sunday. Marking time in those ways is thick. It isn’t as practical for calculating interest, but it communicates a lot more than simply where this rock is in its yearly journey. It is centered on what we the people of God are asked to be in contemplation about that week. And if you are a mystical sort, it might communicate what God is about at that time.

So if you come across a document dated Rogation week, what we are asked to contemplate is asking. Originally this Sunday was tied to the Spring Planting. Whether the seeds were already planted or if you were behind and still needed to get some in, Rogate was the Sunday that you asked God for his blessings on the ground and on the crops. Deep rural congregations would often exit the sanctuary and turn the soil while asking for blessing. Give us this day our daily bread. And that daily bread starts with these seeds and this soil.

Rogate for a long time also had a specific meaning in parish life. Sometimes just the Pastor, sometimes it would be an entire procession, if you were Roman Catholic a Eucharistic one, would walk the boundaries of the parish. As the community prayed for its daily bread and the planting, so also would you pray for the entire people entrusted to the care of the parish. The idea of a congregation and the idea of a parish get treated as synonyms today, but they are quite distinct. You could have many congregations within a parish. You could have “rogue” congregations. A congregation is ultimately just a gathering of people. The parish was a defined geographic space full of sinners and saints and everything in between. The parish priest/pastor/vicar was called to hold a spiritual office for the parish – all those within it. Those seen daily, and those never seen. Rogate was the week to be seen. And to ask God for the soil, that it might prove good soil.

I get to thinking in the same veins because I think these changes tell us a lot about ourselves. We no longer really have parishes, even the Roman Catholics. We are all “rogue congregations”. Singular outposts of believers gathering around word and sacrament. And this is still meaningful. And the promises are still present. But it is thinner. It is the church admitting that she no longer influences larger areas. At the same time the boundaries which once were very easy to recognize – you walked the boundary stones yearly. They are now moved all over to who knows where. Which means questions about what exactly one is called to. And if you bump into the neighboring vicar walking the boundaries, what do you owe him? But maybe more importantly who and what are we asking for these days? At the same time as our lives have often become so busy, they have become so thin. The thickness of living with family and known neighbors, has thinned out in many ways. Lifelong work partners now come and go every six months. People who you might spend 10 hours a day with for months leave and rarely cross our minds. The mystic cords of memory are thinner. No longer strands of 3 connected by water, blood and spirit, but cords of one. So thin that we would rather worry about people half a world away than our literal neighbor.

We can see and feel the thinness and know it isn’t good. But the thicker actually binds us. And are we binding ourselves to the right thing? St. Patrick knew what he was binding himself to (LSB 604). So I return yearly, made more difficult by myself having uprooted and moved a long way, and my Son heading back where we left for school, to questions about thick and thin. To what needs Rogation. For what should we ask the Father?

Lenten Midweek 5- Lord’s Prayer

032024-MW5-Sermon Download

This is the final sermon in the Lenten Midweek series. We reviewed the first portion of the Catechism with emphasis on the creed (MW 2,3 & 4). The Law was MW1 and this MW5 is the Lord’s Prayer. We used the third petition as the text. The arrangement of Luther’s catechism in the Word section drops leaves you at prayer, which is part of Luther’s teaching. The Christian life is a life of prayer. This sermon reflects on what prayer accomplishes and how which are the two questions Luther asks in the catechism: What does this mean? and How is this done?

Types of Thanksgiving

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, – 1 Timothy 2:1 ESV

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, officially the best American Holiday in my book. I say that mostly for all the cliched reasons. It’s a day of hearth and home and football. It is a day that connects me with a childhood soundtrack that includes farm reports on the local AM radio and the end of harvest worries. It’s a day that doesn’t demand much. Christmas always tries to bum rush everything before it. Today the only thing standing in its way are the ghouls of Halloween. I never thought I’d find myself cheering for the zombies. Given two months run up, what is under the tree, even if it is a literal golden horde, doesn’t meet the hype. With Easter the American commercialization machine tried with the Bunny and some Cadbury Eggs to Santa Claus the Holy Day, but it just wasn’t able. The Schools moved breaks such that if you get Good Friday off you are fortunate, which I took as the cultural white flag. Easter remains a Holy Day, not a holiday. But that also means it isn’t really shared other than within the church. All Thanksgiving ever promised was a good meal and a pause. A pause that you can fill with whatever wells up within you.

Thanksgiving itself is of course a completely natural expression of the faith. If the people of God would not bring forth praise and thanksgiving, the stones would cry out. But the American Holiday isn’t technically on the church calendar. So every year when I think about a Thanksgiving service it is mostly about those hymns of harvest, hearth and home. But the big book of strong suggestions – that Altar Book – provides at least three modes of thanksgiving. There are texts and prayers associated with a simple Harvest Observance. There are texts and prayers stipulated for a Day of Thanksgiving. And there are texts and prayers for a Day of Supplication and Prayer.

I take those three categories as general buckets of what wells up within us. There is an internet invective – “Touch Grass” – that I find funny. It is telling the too online to log off and go outside. We were made to tend a garden originally. Even for the most city mouse imaginable, there is good in being connected to the rhythms of life. And one of those rhythms is the harvest. Knowing that when you sow, you will also reap. Knowing that you plant a seed and we know not how but it germinates and grows and provides a harvest – 30, 60 even 100 fold. Unless we have cut ourselves off from all things vital, a harvest celebration wells up good things.

The Day of Thanksgiving is more official. If the harvest is bottoms up, the Day of Thanksgiving is tops down. The American Presidents have a tradition of issuing Thanksgiving Proclamations. They existed prior of course, but George Washington issued a famous one. And these are completely appropriate. We can get wrapped up in work and play and life – like the 9 lepers – that we never stop for a second to reflect and return. Jesus, the King himself asks “where are the other nine?” Having a leadership wise enough to say “today, stop, take stock, enjoy the blessings and return appropriate gratitude” is good and right.

It is the last category that maybe we – the children of materially fat years – pass over too quickly, that day of supplication and prayer. Satan’s tricks are many. We don’t think about it, but the Northern Kingdom of Israel was the worldly successful one. They were fat, dumb and happy. It is the world before the flood. It is Sodom knocking on Lot’s door, so attractive that his wife turned around in lament even knowing what would happen. It is the merchants crying over Babylon in Revelation. They are no longer connected to the source of the rain that produces their prosperity. They no longer have officials wise enough to remind them to give thanks. But the prophet Joel shows up and tells them, “Yet even now return to me with all your heart…the LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love…who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave behind him a blessing, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God. (Joel 2:12-14).” Thanksgiving in prayer and supplication is a renewal of the covenant. And the providence of God is always enough for his people.

Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices,

Who wonderous things has done, in whom His world rejoices;

Who from our mother’s arms Has blest us on our way

With countless gifts of love and still is ours today.

Midweek Vespers – An Explainer

If you have not been to a mid-week service for a while, or just not with me leading them, it is worth an explanation of what you might expect. Probably the most practical thing is that I aim for the service to be between 20 and 30 minutes. Their purpose is not a midweek Sunday. It is a daily office. Prayer at the close of day, but for a time during a season of preparation like Advent for communal prayer and praise. The order of service is the canonical office of Vespers.

Now what does that string of words mean? Canonical is a fancy word for regular. The canon of scripture is the list of regularly accepted books. The ministers of a Cathedral church were known as the canons. The canons would lead prayer at regular intervals throughout the day. The Didache, the first catechism coming from the 2nd century, encouraged Christians to pray three times a day. That would have been morning, evening and at mid-day. These canonical hours were expressions of living in community. The canons, or the monks when monasticism grew and often replaced the canons, followed the daily office. And the community around would join as desired. It remains an open question to me if any of us moderns live in community. Yes, we all live in communities, but do we know our neighbors? What do we share with them? These simple regular or canonical services were about shared burdens and joys. They were the daily prayer and praise of living communities. But that is a deeper question of modern life.

The office of Vespers is the office that was originally sung after the day’s work had been accomplished, but usually before the evening meal. Compline, meaning completion, was the prayer before bed. But much of that was dependent upon the sun. Vespers consists typically of a Psalm, a reading, a homily, prayer and a couple of hymns. It is the type of thing that one could do alone (minus the homily) or within a family grouping. This was often the encouragement of the Reformation which saw the extended family as the lived community and the father as the liturgical head of that community.

The one great distinction of the office of Vespers is its use of the Magnificat or Mary’s Song. This is the song Mary sang carrying Jesus when greeted by Elizabeth carrying John the Baptist. You can find the biblical version and that story in Luke 1. That song throughout the ages has inspired many different musical settings and translations. Our hymnbook contains a beautiful chant version that is probably a bridge too far. Maybe at some future time I will see if I can get the choir to prepare it for us to hear it. Instead, what I have planned for these services is a tour of the hymn versions of the Magnificat that our hymnbook contains. Mary’s profound words deserve such a place of honor in our prayer and praise.

So, what can you expect? Hopefully a short encouraging gathering of a community of prayer and praise. A turning or returning to God in faith and hope and then toward one another in love in a season of preparation.

Wrestling with God

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: Luke 18:1-8, Genesis32:22-30

This sermon starts out with a comparison of the metaphors of the hymnwriters for prayer and the strongest biblical metaphors. Our opening hymn of the day was LSB 772 In Holy Conversation (It’s a newer hymn so of course it is under copyright. The link isn’t as helpful as it would be, but it is a start.) The metaphor for a prayer life for the hymnwriters is gentle conversation. The metaphors in use in our texts are wrestling and petitioning an unjust judge. Big difference. The sermon explores the difference and hopefully encourages you toward an intentional prayer life.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Prayer, Transfiguration, Exodus

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: Luke 9: 28-36

Luke’s account of the Transfiguration is interesting. You have to pay close attention to how he tells it to pick it up, but I believe if you do you get rewarded for it. This sermon meditates on three of those interesting differences. Luke’s transfiguration takes place during prayer. What does that mean for the role of prayer? It’s the transfiguration, which is the latin term. The Greek is metamorphosis, which Luke leaves out. Jesus is not metamorphosized, but his glory is revealed. Which in the context of a Greco-Roman religious world is meaningful. As pagan practices start finding their way back into our world, Luke’s avoidance of the term is a meaningful warning. The last is Luke’s use of the word Exodus. How are we included in the Exodus of Jesus? How do Moses and Elijah help us? And how might we see better our own exodus? (On a personal note, I like this sermon, but I willing to think of it as too personal parochial happenings.)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Coming Down the Mountain

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: Mark 9:14-29

The Gospel text assigned for today is the second half of a pair that occurs in all the Synoptic Gospels (Matt, Mark and Luke). The first part is the transfiguration, when Peter, James and John are taken up the mountain and see Jesus transfigured in glory. The second part is this story of arguments, crowds, fathers, sons and evil. It is a story of the confusion that reigns here on the plain, here at the bottom of the mount. And since they are always juxtaposed the text invites us to ponder, what is the difference between the mountaintop experience and life down below. The big difference is the role of faith. The mountaintop is not about faith, because you see. You might have trouble comprehending what you see. Integrating what you see might be tough. But you don’t have to have faith in it. Life on the plain is about faith. This sermon ponders that difference and the meaning of a prayer, “I believe, help my unbelief”, and prayer in general (“This kind only comes out by prayer”) in the life of faith lived here on the plain.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Grace Upon Grace

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: John 17: 9-19

The text is from Jesus prayer on Thursday of Holy Week in John. It is picked because this past Thursday was ascension day, the day 40 days after Easter when Christians mark Jesus’ return to the Father. 10 Days later, next Sunday, is Pentecost when the Spirit is poured out. This is promised is Jesus’ prayer. What this sermon does is first reflect on the foundation for the prayer. Jesus prefaces his petitions with some statements. 1) The World and the those he is praying for are at odds, 2) those he is praying for have been chosen by the Father (election) and 3) It is through the disciples he is praying for that he receives glory. Such is the foundation and purpose of the Christian life. In order to live it, because Jesus is leaving this world, he asks his Father to grant his disciples certain things. All these things Jesus considers that while he was in the World He gave them, and he knows that we need them. So he asks the Father.

I have heard many preachers talk about these things, in particular the first one, as stuff the church should be working on. But that would turn them into laws, not graces. Jesus is asking his father for grace for his people. Grace to be one in the name. Which is true not the least in our baptisms. Grace to be kept from the Evil One. Which is true in that the Satan has been bound and has no way to destroy the church in this world. And Grace to consecrated in truth. Which is granted in the abiding word. Jesus’ prayer has been answered.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I Chose You

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: John 15:9-17

The core assertion in the text is that you did not choose Christ, but Christ chose you. And there are three things that flow from that election: joy, love and friendship. Joy in that we have been given both the victory and a vocation. Love in that we are to emulate Christ’s love for us toward our neighbor. And friendship in that we have been invited into a deep union with God. We are no not slaves of the law, but we are friends in the gospel. We have been made children of the royal household who do not need to seek an audience with the law giver, but merely need to ask our dear Father.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download