Discipleship 101

Biblical Text: Mark 1:14-20

The text is Jesus’ calling of the first disciples – Andrew and Peter, James and John. But prior to that there is a one sentence summary of the preaching of Jesus. “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.” Making disciples in the mission of the church. Jesus gave that to the church in the great commission. But what does it mean to be a disciple? That is the question of this sermon. Because the first think you have to confront is does it mean for everyone what it meant for those first 4? They left their nets and the father and followed. This sermon ponders that a bit. And it does so in the light of that summary of Jesus’ preaching. A summary of preaching which I think serves rather well as the basics of discipleship shared by all from Apostles to the present age.

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If it produces, well and good; if not, cut it down…

Biblical Text: Luke 13:1-9
Full Sermon Draft

Sometimes data visualizations just get it. The word tree above gets its. We are in the middle of lent which is a penitential season, a season for repentance. Now there are some really good questions that we might ask about that. What is repentance? What does it include? How do we do it? Why? Who?

This text is at its core about answering those questions.

Who? Everyone.
Why? Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Because the assumptions that we have been taught by the world are not what the Word of God tells us. Hear the Word.
What does that Word assume? No one is good. The word itself accuses us (the law), but that same word is our salvation (gospel).
What does repentance include? A change of assumptions from the world’s to the Word’s. A fruitful living according to the Word.
Where do I go to understand fruit? Look it up in the Word.

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Ash Wednesday Meditation

Text: 2 Cor 5:20b-6:10; Psalm 51:1-12

“We implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God…we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain…behold, now is the favorable time, behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Not to receive the grace of God in vain, isn’t that a strange string of words? What does it mean to receive the grace of God in vain?

We are not talking about pure unbelief or the enemies of the gospel. They do not receive the grace at all but deny that it exists. Instead we are talking about someone who has received it, but it does no good, or it doesn’t do what it is supposed to do. So what does the grace of God do?

It breaks down and it builds up. It kills and it makes alive. It cleanses and creates anew. Both the law and the gospel are a grace. By the law we know our sins. As the psalmist says, “I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me.” That is the peculiar grace of the law. But the overwhelming grace of the gospel follows, “create a clean heart….renew a right spirit…restore to me the joy…the joy of you salvation…uphold me with a willing spirit.”
So what does it mean to receive grace in vain? The core of it is to have heard the law, but never applied it to ourselves. Our ears have heard the 10 commandments. Our intellect has turned them over, maybe even memorized them along with a bunch of scripture and catechism answers. Our parents, physical or spiritual, have led us in green pastures. But the terror of that imposing law has never got to our hearts.

To receive it in vain is to receive the grace as if you don’t need it. To stand in the light of the law and think as the Pharisee, “Thank God I am not like that publican”. To stand in the light, and not see the darkness of our natural heart. To be put next to purity and think oneself not to shabby. To be shown just how lost we are, and not ask for directions thinking we are fine. We are rich, we have means, we have years, we will get out of this and be the stronger for it. We appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

The entire passage, maybe like the ashes of today, might seem a little overboard. We implore…we appeal…behold, now….a second time, behold, now. To the one who receives in vain, why all the histrionics? We’ve got this under control, calm down. But we don’t. The proclamation over the ashes, dust you are and to dust you will return is true. We don’t have this under control. We can’t add a single hour to our given time. Yet, we can receive that in vain. Never let that sink into our hearts.

Yet God holds out his grace for us. He proclaims it in many and various ways – as Paul talks about in the rest of the passage. In Christ God has declared us reconciled. God has stopped counting. He’s drawn up unilateral terms of disarmament with the most beneficial terms imaginable. We get the kingdom, as long as we don’t think it is ours by right, it is only ours by grace. And now is the time to sign that peace treaty. Now is the time to let that grace move our hearts. To break our stone hearts…and to receive new clean ones.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God…now is the favorable time…a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Amen.

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Preaching the Good News to the Poor

Biblical Text: Luke 4:16-30
Full Draft of Sermon

Following the season of Epiphany texts we’ve been looking at the ways that God reveals himself. We’ve structured it around what I’ve asserted is the question of the age: How do we see/meet God? Our culture and even many of our churches have attempted to claim or put forward an unmediated experience of God. And if we don’t have that direct access, then we turn away or search in another spot. The biggest problem with that is that God has promised to work, to be present, through means. The grace of God comes to us through the means of grace. The last couple of weeks were baptism and the Lord’s supper. This week was first confession and absolution. Those are the proclaimed word reduced down to their essence. Today, in your hearing, is the year of the Lord’s favor. The eternal Jubilee has been proclaimed by Jesus and the church has been proclaiming that release ever since.

The second slowly dawning epiphany that this should point toward is the false spirit nature of any movement or group that says you don’t need a church or a congregation. Because the church is the focus of those means. Where ever two or three are gathered, or as the text for this sermon says, it was Jesus’ custom to go to church on the sabbath. That is an anachronistic claim, the real word is synagogue, but it stands as the text shows the basic structure of that OT service. The synagogue was brought together around the word – written and proclaimed. The OT sacramental word was found in the temple. We are the inheritors of Word and Sacrament. God has always primarily worked through Word and Sacrament. It has always been grace, through means. Those means following Christ are found in what we call a church.

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Ash Wednesday

This morning we took psalm 51 as our text. We know the famous portions – restore unto me the joy of your salvation – but the last four verses spoke a couple of points to me.

Psalm 51: 16-19
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Two points:
1) The purpose of repentance is restoration to the community of God; it is not just private.
2) The purpose of repentance is not a hang-dog sorrow, but a preparation for joy.

Look at the progression in the verses. The Lord refuses the formal sacrifice which leads to a broken spirit. The broken spirit (repentance) leads to God rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. That is a communal ideal, Jerusalem the city and people of God. Being restored to the city of God leads to being part of the community’s worship; sacrifice is accepted. Personal repentance is necessary, but repentance is not just a personal bath. It is a rejoining to the people of God.

The Lord welcomes and restores sinners. Dust I am and to dust I will return, but I have not been cast away from God’s presence. The Lord has promised salvation. He builds the walls and does good to Zion. We are a people held in His palm, in His memory. The restoration first seen in Christ, is then displayed in this collection of remembered and reformed dust. The Lord remembers his dust.

The Disciple’s Life of Repentance

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Text: Luke 17:1-10

Luke 14:1 – 17:10 in my reading is one long extended teaching on being a disciple. The text for this sermon is the summary or conclusion of that section. I drew that boundary because in Luke 17:11 Jesus is no longer ping-ponging back and forth between disciples and Pharisees, but he is back on the road to Jerusalem. The entire Jerusalem road narrative is about discipleship, but this inner part has been more intense. It has been much more about how the disciple acts while Jesus is not present here and now.

The focus on being a disciple gives the section a heavy law feeling and it does end with millstones and the blunt saying about being an unworthy servant. But it is right there where the gospel enters. Of course that is how we would act. If we had a field slave and he came in we’d tell him to go clean up and make dinner. But that is not how God acts. In Christ – God serves the dinner and washes the feet. The unworthy slave is told to sit, eat, drink, rest…while the worthy son is crucified.

It is just that love for the unworthy slave that should inspire the life of repentance. We no longer have to look pious. We are not part of a religious club where membership depends upon our status or appearance. We have been seated at the table. We repent not because it atones for sin or gives us any merit. We repent because we desire to be closer to the heart and mission of the God who loved us first. We repent as a plea – Lord come quickly and finish what you started.

Deep Lent

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I’ll just say I hated the text this week. It was harsh and rough, and I couldn’t escape it. Everything I read to prepare for preaching just lead deeper into the heart of repentance. Everything lead to heart rending stories. A better preacher would have been more winsome. Me, all I’ve got is a little logic and I’m too stupid to dial it back a bit and too slow to dodge. I hope and pray that the Spirit used this better than the words said.

What did you come to see? – Luke 7:18-28 – Advent 3

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Text: Luke 7:18-28

The middle two weeks of advent are the weeks of John the Baptist. He’s a forgotten figure in modern Christianity. He doesn’t seem to have much meaning or purpose. We continue to read the stories of the patriarchs. We will talk about the OT prophets. We will give due to the apotles. The later church fathers will also be discusses. John the Baptist, who Jesus declares to be the greatest born of woman, gets left out.

One really good reason is that he more or less gets subsumed under Christ. The life and mission of Jesus overwhelm John who doesn’t leave any writings outside of the voice captured in the gospels. But that doesn’t account for it alone. I think it has more to do with the baptist’s message. It is a sparse and clear proclamation -repent, be baptized and bring forth the fruits of repentance. It is a message that Jesus picks up (Mark 1:14-15).

So much of life is spent finding the middle way. And that is usually the course of wisdom. Stay away from the extremes. Find the middle path through the mess. Just that in regards to truth, finding the middle way leaves you with nothing. God’s grace is not found by splitting the difference with the Baptist. I’ll admit I sin, but living the life or repentance seems extreme. Why this thing called baptism? Isn’t there something grander or more meaningful? The middle way would seem to ask for more than baptism as a sign and seal. In Luke even John seems to have questions. John has not followed the middle way, but things aren’t looking like he expected. He asks Jesus, “are you the one?”

And Jesus doesn’t apologize for the form of grace or the proclamation one bit. In fact he turns to the crowds and asks what did they come to see? They all came to see a prophet. They recognized a truth in John (and in Jesus) that was not just natural wisdom. And that recognition requires more than a middle way response. If you came to see a prophet, and the prophet says God’s grace is here, in water and word, in a crucified peasant, then we should align ourselves with that grace.

It is a great question to many people who come to churches. What did you come to see? If you came to see anything other than the presant grace of God, you’ve got the wrong purpose. Ask youself, what did you come to see? Does the answer require you to make changes?

Don’t look inward, look outward for our salvation and our mission

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Text: Mark 14:32-42

Two poles – 1) It’s about Jesus and 2) He’s got a mission. That has been the core summary of this series through Holy Week in Mark’s Gospel. Our spiritual adversary tries to push us off that second pole. The last thing he wants is faithful Christians actually sharing the Word that frees us from his kingdom of chains. He will shoot us a variety of lies: You don’t measure up to the saints, you don’t talk well enough, you aren’t a perfect person. Gracefully, it is not about us. If it were, the devil would be right. We aren’t enough of anything. But it is about Jesus and what He has done for us on that cross. Peter, the leader and example of the disciples, is our great biblical example. The disciple who fell asleep and denied his Lord at the hour of great distress, is never told by Jesus to go away, but is always invited along. Peter, after all that betrayal, is told to, ‘feed my sheep’. If the devil has you looking inward, you will never get the mission. Our salvation and our mission come from outward. They come from the one it is all about – Jesus Christ.