Easter Sermon 2016

     If you’ve been to the Skydeck of the Willis Tower (formerly named the Sears Tower) in Chicago in recent years you know about the glass overhangs that have been installed around the perimeter of the top floor.  With glass walls, ceilings and even a glass floor they let you step beyond the walls of the building and out over the sidewalk over 1000 feet below.

            Many people don’t have the nerve to go out on them.  They don’t go for stepping over the edge of one of the world’s tallest building onto glass.  I think they’re a blast!  You can see for miles and miles around.  And of course you can look down down down to the sidewalk and miniscule people below.  Perhaps it’s my engineering background, or a complete lack of sense, but I felt perfectly safe; indeed delighted to be cheating gravity like that.

            In hindsight I realize how much blind faith I have in the whole thing.  I understand some of the glass overhangs developed cracks when they were first installed and needed to be redone.  But I trusted the people who made the glass.  I trusted the people who installed them.  And I trusted the engineers who designed them in the first place.  Ultimately I trusted everyone who built that skyscraper that reaches to such a dizzying height.  I never met a single one of them, but I put my life in their hands.

            I call this ‘faith in the power of the human intellect’.  We humans are smart creatures.  We can figure things out.  We can understand things.  We can build amazing things.  Sure there are always risks involved, but for the most part we can do things safely.

            At one of my son’s recent Boy Scout meetings the boys made presentations on historical figures.  One of the historical figures was Charles Darwin.  And of course Darwin is credited with evolutionary theory.  The adults were allowed to ask the scouts questions about their characters, and I was amazed at the level of detail of the questions: What year was the theory created?  What was the species of bird that gave Darwin the idea?  Where in the world was he?  What was the name of the island chain?  And what was the name of the ship he traveled on?  The scouts or other adults knew every answer!

            I wondered if their biblical knowledge could be so detailed.  Now you probably know I don’t have any problem with evolutionary theory on biblical or theological grounds.  I do have problems with it on scientific grounds – it doesn’t jive with the laws of thermodynamics – but on the whole most people just blindly ignore those problems.  Instead we have made the principles of evolution the principles of the existence of everything.  The evolutionary theory has become the crowning achievement of human intellect.  Given enough time and resources and we humans can figure out anything and everything.

            So what do we do about Easter?  What do we do about an empty tomb and the resurrection?

            Let’s not beat around the bush here.  If we’re honest with ourselves, for most of us Easter is a family tradition and the Bible’s stories are myths for children that are a part of that tradition.  In 1952 theologian Paul Scherer wrote, “Much is made in our time of the fact that ‘the idea of a bodily resurrection’ is not congenial to the modern mind.  The very statement itself might seem in a measure offensive.” (Interpreter’s Bible Commrntary, Volume 8, Pg. 415-6)

            Indeed true.  But we who believe in tall buildings and glass floors and grand scientific theories should not think ourselves enlightened because our minds have concluded that bodily resurrection is impossible.  The challenge has been posed for thousands of years.  In fact the challenge is posed in the Bible itself.  The four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all crash into the impossibility of the resurrection like an Olympic sprinter who has just run into a brick wall at top speed.

            In our gospel reading today the women at the tomb struggle to comprehend what has happened.  The men have an even harder time believing.  Next week we’ll read about Thomas and his refusal to believe without more proof.  Matthew’s gospel records an appearance of the resurrected Jesus to the disciples but he also records that as Jesus was standing there with them and they could see him and talk to him and touch him they still had doubts!  We often say that seeing is believing… not when it comes to the resurrection!

            The word I like to use for all of this is the word incursion.  Webster’s Dictionary defines an incursion as a hostile entrance into or invasion of a place or territory, especially one of sudden character; raid.

            We humans, with the supremacy of our intellect, can ignore the resurrection, call it a myth, and leave the supremacy of our intellect intact.  Or, we can recognize it for what it really is – an incursion into our world; an incursion that makes no sense and cannot be controlled.

            Perhaps that offends us.  Perhaps we don’t like to think that powers exist in this universe – or perhaps beyond this universe – that are beyond our ability to grasp, predict and understand.  Or perhaps we are truly wise enough to recognize that this is a good thing.  No matter how much we think we advance we cannot stop death.  And there is nothing in our human intellect that can resurrect the dead.  Perhaps we can keep biological processes going on for a while, but death is still ultimate.  We are limited.

            God and God alone can save us.  God has to be beyond us in ways we cannot understand for God to truly be God.  A god we can understand, predict and control is not strong enough to do us any good.

            God’s incursion into the universe with the resurrection would be a terrifying thing – what is the enormous power that exists outside of what we can observe? – if it weren’t for the crucifixion.  There we see the true nature of our God – a God whose love is so deep and true as to be willing to suffer us at our worst.

            There’s an important Greek word that shows up various times in our gospel reading for today.  It is the word rhma.   It means utterance and enactment.  The two men at the empty tomb tell the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”  Then the remembered his rhmatwn,  and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and all the rest… But these words seem to them an idle rhmata and they did not believe them.

            Utterance and enactment, rhma is words put into action.  It is belief that is lived out in reality.

            May your reality this Easter not be idle rhma, a belief that is just a myth or a family tradition, but a real rhma, beliefs put into reality.  May you live with boldness and confidence.  A confidence not based on the power of your human intellect, but a confidence based on the power of your God, who has the power to upend things as God chooses.

            Let me conclude with these words I shared in the sermon at the early service from Paul Scherer, “One does not need to be told what an appalling sense of utter uselessness presses down in our modern world on the human soul: the laws and measurements of a huge order that leave little freedom and less stature; a civilization that drives people around for a while like gadgets on the flywheel of progress… And then the little room we have: a bit of a home, a bit of a job, two children, and a few friends; that about says it.  We wonder sometimes why on earth in such tiny places we should get so excited about things.  Come another century and what difference will it make?  Until God flings down this glove at our feet, daring us not to be as little as we think, but as great as we are, trying to show us as best he can what poor fractions of reality we are crawling into most of the time.”  (Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8, Pg. 416)

You Wouldn't Stay with Jesus Either

            Entrance processions were a familiar ceremony in the first century.  Thus Jesus’ entrance procession into Jerusalem drew some attention from the leaders.  Biblical commentator R. Alan Culpepper notes that entrance processions usually had a four part pattern.  1. The conqueror or ruler is escorted into the city by the citizens.  2. The procession is accompanied by hymns and acclamations.  3. Some aspect of the procession shows the authority of the ruler.  4. The entrance is followed by a “ritual of appropriation,” such as making a sacrifice that takes place in the temple.

            Indeed Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on that day that we have named Palm Sunday contains all of these elements:

Jesus is escorted into the city by people who spread their cloaks on the road.

The crowds praised God with loud voices for the miracles they had seen.

Jesus shows divine knowledge and authority when he tells his disciples to get a certain colt, then predicts ahead of time exactly how it will happen, and then rides on it even though it has never been trained.

And fourth, if we read further in Luke’s gospel, the first thing Jesus does is go into the temple, look around, and then upset the tables of the money changers and merchants – a symbolic act of claiming authority over the temple.  (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 9, Pg. 366)

            Culpepper’s ideas are thought provoking, especially when you dig deeper into them.  Was the crowd that welcomes Jesus into Jerusalem the high and mighty of the city?  Were they the wise and the wealthy?  Culpepper notes:

“Jesus was a king… of fishermen, tax collectors, Samaritans, harlots, blind men, demoniacs, and cripples.  Those who followed Jesus were a ragtag bunch, pathetically unfit for the grand hopes that danced in their imaginations.  There were women who now leaped with joy, a Samaritan leper with a heart full of gratitude, a crippled woman who had been unable to stand straight with dignity for eighteen years, and a blind man who had followed Jesus all the way from Jericho.

“The cloaks thrown on the road that day were not expensive garments but tattered shawls and dusty, sweat-stained rags.  Jesus was the king of the oppressed and suffering.  He shared their hardships, relieved their suffering, accepted them when others deemed them unacceptable, gave them hope, and embodied God’s love for them.  Now they came to march with him into the holy city.” (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 9, Pg. 370)

            This event certainly attracted the attention of the city’s leaders.  Who was this guy and the dusty uneducated crowd around him?  There’s no wonder they were anxious.  Jerusalem was crowded with pilgrims arriving for Passover.  The Romans already have extra troops stationed around to keep the peace and they’d like nothing better than an excuse to start beating on people.  What would this bunch, with their home-grown “king”, do?  There’s no wonder that some of the Pharisees who witnessed this procession told Jesus to keep his followers silent and in line.

            I want to make one tweak to this four part pattern of an entrance procession.  While the fourth part of the pattern is indeed followed by Jesus going into the temple and overturning the money changers’ tables, that was only a symbolic act.  The temple was the place for making sacrifices; sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins.  While Jesus spends the next few days going to the temple and preaching and teaching, does Jesus ever offer a sacrifice there?  No.  If he did it was sure to have been recorded in the gospels.

            But he does make a sacrifice, doesn’t he?  He makes a sacrifice to save us all.  In a mystery we cannot understand his sacrifice is the ultimate one for all our failings and wrongdoings.

            Does Jesus sacrifice take place in the temple?  No.  Does it even take place within the city of Jerusalem?  No.

            Perhaps the fourth part of the pattern, the part of the pattern about making a sacrifice in the temple, is actually delayed until Friday.  In a way the holy city of Jerusalem vomits out its king even as he wants to sacrifice to claim it and save it. 

And what has happened to the ragtag crowd that welcomed him into the city?  Where were the fishermen, the sinners, the outcasts, the tax collectors, harlots and demoniacs who welcomed him?  Where were those bottom dwellers of society whom no one noticed or cared about until Jesus came along?  Were they there sticking by their king?  Were they there for the one who accepted them when no one else did? 

Some repayment of loyalty from them!  It’s pretty sad when the losers in life won’t even acknowledge you.  Even they reject Jesus when he makes his ultimate sacrifice for the world.

            As we look at the story of Holy Week we remember just how complete the rejection of Jesus was.  On Good Friday I’m going to read a sermon from theologian Karl Barth who notes that the only people who were truly with Jesus in the crucifixion were the ones who  had no choice and couldn’t get away – the two criminals crucified beside him, nailed into place along with him.

            As our great Holy Week stretches out before us may we not reject our Savior.  May we not be like Jerusalem and even refuse to let him make his sacrifice within us to save us.  And yet, there is a tough fact to face.

The only way we would have been there when Jesus actually completes the work of his triumphal entry is if we too were nailed to the spot against our will.

When we can accept our desperate, hopeless inability to be good enough for Jesus and to actually truly follow him we are finally in a place to accept his grace.

A few years ago Saturday Night Live ran a sketch where when Jesus is raised from the dead he goes on a Rambo-like killing spree and blows away all the bad guys in Jerusalem.  But does Jesus do that?  Does Jesus ultimately reject the holy city because it and everyone in it: the good, the bad and the ugly all rejected him?  Does Jesus reject us all because unless we were forced against our will we wouldn’t be there either?  No.  The true grace of God comes when we realize that those who reject Jesus are still acceptable to him.

Journey with Jesus this week as we go through Holy Week, the most important week of the year for us Christians.  Be with Jesus each and every day.  And then feel yourself also withdraw from him when it all goes wrong.  Do not look at the people in the gospels and think that you would have done better if it were you because you wouldn’t have.  Only those nailed to the spot against they’re will were actually with Jesus.

And then may Easter open you with deeper joy in God’s accepting favor, favor which you can never deserve but always have. 

The Problem of Pain - Faith Questions Lenten Series

When I was only three or four years old I remember visiting my great step-grandmother in a nursing home.  I remember her complaining that she had pain in her knee.  Now I didn’t know what the word “pain” meant.  I remember thinking, “I hope I never have pain.  It sounds like it hurts a lot!”

            I’ve titled this sermon “The Problem of Pain” because pain is indeed a problem.  C.S. Lewis wrote a book by the same title, and admits that no matter how you study it pain is a problem.  Most of our faith questions topics this Lent have not had answers.  Indeed that is the case again today, but as in the case of the rest of the topics, engaging the problem is very constructive.

            Oftentimes pain makes sense to us.  A few weeks ago in a Sunday sermon I mentioned the time I injured my finger with a sledge hammer.  There was definitely pain with that, and getting my finger sewn back together hurt more than the original injury!  But it made sense.  I did something stupid.  Now I pay the price.

            And sometimes pain makes no sense.  Again from the sermon a few weeks ago I brought up the girl who was severely injured by a drunk driver on Christmas Eve.  That makes no sense at all.  And many an atheist will state that if there is a God, and if God is as good and loving as we Christians insist God is, then why does God allow so much suffering in the world?  And that is a fair question.

            Now some will say that pain teaches us things.  Indeed pain is a good teacher.  You can bet I will never ever use a sledge hammer again the way I used it when I injured my finger!  I learned a lesson that will endure forever.

            And some will say that God can use pain to toughen us up for difficult tasks.  The Bible verse from Romans 5 that we read earlier comes to mind, “…suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”  Indeed there are times when pain strengthens us for what lies ahead.  And indeed God can do anything, so it is very much within the realm of possibilities that God can use pain to strengthen us.  You know the saying, “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

            Along these lines, pain can certainly help us to be more empathetic.  After our worship tonight AA comes in to use the room.  AA is a perfect example of pain being used to create empathy.  Who better than someone dealing with an addiction to alcohol to connect with others with the same struggle?  Only an alcoholic knows the real power of the addiction itself, and the family dynamics, and the sneakiness, and the enabling, and the manipulation, and the lying that all goes into it.  Of what good is any therapist who only knows the problem in theory.

            And aren’t the best medical doctors the ones who know what it’s like to receive medical care?  The best bedside manner from surgeons comes from surgeons who’ve had surgery.

            This all hit me suddenly a couple years ago when Scott Swigart was in the emergency room at Strong Hospital.  Usually the doctors and nurses come in and tell a patient what medicines her or she is being given.  But when I visited Scott I noticed the staff was asking him what medications he wanted to receive!  I was astonished and when the staff left I remarked on this.  Scott smiled and said he’d trained them all!

            Indeed pain can have many constructive purposes.  But let’s not go so far as to say that all pain has a reason.  And let’s not do as I hear far too often, “I’m sure God has a purpose for this.  I’m just not sure what yet.”

            We are far better to take the thoughts of 13^th Century Thomas Aquinas who said that pain is not a good thing in itself, but a thing which might have a certain goodness in particular circumstances.  But we have to leave it at that.

            Ultimately if we reach the conclusion that we humans are very good at – that the presence of pain is a sign of God’s displeasure, and the absence of pain is a sign of God’s pleasure in us – then we are wrong.  It just doesn’t work out.

            And thus the problem of pain.  I’ll recommend reading C.S. Lewis’s book The Problem of Pain if you want to go deeper into this.  He admits his conclusions are not new or unique.  Ultimately he concludes that pain is a consequence of God giving us free will.  You may remember just two weeks ago the way Lutheran theology struggles with the idea of free will and eventually rejects it.  Interestingly Lewis wrote The Problem of Pain in 1940.  Then in 1961 he published A Grief Observed which is a series of journal entries he wrote in his dealing with the pain of the death of his wife Joy Davidman.  They had been married only four years when she died.  A Grief Observed does not invalidate The Problem of Pain but it seriously questions all logic in regards to pain.

            Let me conclude with one of Lewis’s last journal entries in A Grief Observed:

“Sometimes, Lord, one is tempted to say that if you wanted us to behave like the lilies of the field you might have given us an organization more like theirs.  But that, I suppose, is just your grand experiment.  Or no; not an experiment, for you have no need to find things out.  Rather your grand enterprise.  To make an organism which is also a spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a “spiritual animal.”  To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, “Now get on with it.  Become a god.”

A Grief Observed, Bantam Edition 1976, pg. 84

Irresponsible Gift or Selfless Gift? Lent 5 Sermon

Have you ever spilled or broken a bottle of perfume or cologne or some sort of fragrance?  Whether you have or haven’t you can probably imagine the smell – way too much of it!  And if it soaks into clothing or the carpet that smell’s going to be hanging around for a long long time.

            If you’ve ever been around a powerful smell that you just can’t escape then you probably know what it smelled like when Mary poured the better part of a pound of perfume on Jesus.  Though probably sweet in small doses, this smell was overwhelming.

            And have you ever been in a public situation that suddenly turned awkward?  There’s this stunned silence with no one knowing what to say.  So imagine the scene of Jesus and other men reclining by a table to eat dinner.  They didn’t sit in chairs and have a table as high as ours are today.  The table was short.  You would recline on your side and extend your feet out and away from the table.  Thus Jesus’ feet are easily accessible.  In the midst of conversation and eating Mary comes in and pours this perfume on Jesus’ feet.  There’s an embarrassed silence as the smell overwhelms everyone’s nose.  But before anyone speaks Mary stars wiping his feet with her hair.  Now it would be one thing to pour a lot of perfume on Jesus feet and then wipe it off with a towel or something.  But even if Mary had incredibly long hair this act takes a lot of really close physical contact.  To call the scene sexually charged is an understatement!  The embarrassed silence and shock from the other guests is now seems to drag on endlessly.

            It is Judas who breaks the silence with a very responsible statement, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii (about a year’s wages for a blue collar worker) and the money given to the poor?”

            Who among us hasn’t had that same thought run through our head when we encounter something excessive?  The gospel writer then adds a really strange note, “He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put in it.”  Now there’s a sermon’s worth of material in just that statement, but let’s not get sidetracked on that.  Let’s just say that Judas was allowed to keep the common purse even though they knew he stole from it!?!

            Even though we may have read this Bible passage numerous times we still aren’t ready for Jesus’ answer.  We expect him to say: ‘Right you are Judas.  Mary, this is a complete waste.  Not to mention that it’s embarrassing!  Get up and act the way a proper lady should!’  But instead Jesus says –and our translations are really off from the Greek here, so let me say it more literally-, “Permit her; it will keep until the day of my burial.”

            Well, given how strong the smell is and that Jesus is crucified in under a week, this was probably true!

            What are we to do with all this!?!  How can Jesus endorse such waste?  How can Jesus approve of such irresponsible behavior, let alone the obviously sexual overtones of her act?  How indeed?

            In situations like this I think I make a very well intentioned mistake.  And you probably do too.  I was always taught to be a responsible person.  While it was okay to have fun, you always put limits to the fun.  You didn’t spend too much money or too much time.  You work hard, you earn money, and then you apply it in responsible ways that provide for your needs and for the needs of others.  Overindulgence leads to debt and debt leads to a downward spiral of interest payments and maybe even bankruptcy.

            We think that when resources are available they should be used to create the most good.  Who among us is not appalled to see a news report about a foreign dictator who lives in an opulent palace while millions outside live in abject poverty.  This is wrong!  This is sinful!  This must stop!

            While I certainly won’t speak against responsible behavior I do think we make a mistake when we think being a responsible person is an end unto itself.  We have to go one step deeper.

            We need to ask ourselves why we should be responsible people?  If we answer, “Because there are limited resources and we have to be careful with what we have so there is enough to go around,” then we’re wrong.  Jesus’ miracles of abundance, like turning water into wine and feeding thousands with just a couple fish and loaves of bread, show us that God has no problem getting the resources needed to accomplish his will.

            The root reason why we should be responsible is the same root reason that drove Mary to pour expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and wipe them with her hair.  That root reason is a response to God’s love for us.

            What Mary did may have been misguided on many levels, but at their core, her intentions were right on.  Mary so completely and fully appreciates who Jesus is and what he has done for her that she offers everything that she is – her money, her time, her body, her sexuality all to Jesus while holding absolutely nothing back.  Not even social norms and shame hold her back; for in her offer of everything she has that is an asset, she also offers Jesus all her failures, vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

            Everything that Mary ever was, is now, and ever will be she offered unreservedly to her Lord.

            Why should you be a responsible person?  Not because being responsible is an end unto itself, but because it flows from your appreciation of God.

            If responsibility is an end unto itself then you will be jealous of every irresponsible person whose life is better than yours.  If responsibility is an end unto itself then you will judge the actions and generosity of others based on your definition of responsibility.  That’s what Judas did.

            Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet with perfume and wiping them with her hair anticipate the foot washing Jesus will do for his disciples in only a few days’ time.  That was also highly improper and perhaps irresponsible.  But that is God showing God’s commitment and lavish generosity and acceptance of us.

            We want to build our lives around God’s generosity towards us.  When we are thankful for that other things flow – things like generosity and responsibility and faith-filled decisions.  Then when we see someone else’s life that looks better than ours we do not become jealous.  We can be appreciative, knowing that God has blessed us richly too.  And when we see something that looks irresponsible we won’t rush to judgement, but instead look to the motive behind the action.  Lavish use of resources may be a wonderful act of faith and devotion, just like Mary.

            May you not be responsible for responsibility’s own sake, but responsible because you are loved by God.  May you love because you are loved by God.  May you be generous because you know God is generous with you.  And may you be just as willing as Mary to hold nothing back – both good and bad – when it comes to giving to your God.  For God wants everything – everything that you are, your assets and your liabilities – so that God can fully save you.  

Faith Questions Lenten Series - Salvation for Non-Believers

Most of the questions we are asking in this Faith Questions Lenten series are impossible to answer with certainty.  Yet they are issues of great importance to us.  Certainly it is the case with the salvation of non-believers. 

            In times past this may have been just a theoretical question for many people… What about all those heathens in foreign lands who don’t know Jesus?  But with the church in western culture declining at an alarming pace the question is far closer to home.  Parents of adult children often ask the fate of their children whose lives do not include Christian faith.  Are they damned?  What about other family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers?

            I believe many people have come to a very weak conclusion about these things.  When I say “weak” I do not mean to suggest it is a lazy conclusion.  It is in fact very well thought out and deeply hoped.  When I say weak I mean that it isn’t based on a solid foundation.

            This weak conclusion is that if a person is basically good God will save that person.  When they die they go to heaven.  If they are basically bad – well then they go to hell; if such a thing exists.  And we are back to the topic of our first faith question of what happens after death.

            I suppose ideas like this come from an internal sense of justice – or karma; that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.  Also there is the judgement parable in Matthew 25.  You’ll remember that there the sheep and goats are separated.  The sheep are those who have done acts of charity and thus go to heaven.  The goats are those who have neglected good works and thus go to eternal punishment.

            While there is indeed scriptural support for such ideas, it’s still weak.  Answering the question of what happens to non-believers is not the main thrust of Matthew 25.

            Instead of the weak conclusion that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell is the idea of universal salvation.  Some people argue that a truly good and loving God would not damn people to eternal punishment.  If God is truly all-loving then God will bring salvation to all.  The Unitarian Universalist Church is based on the idea of universal salvation.  Bible texts like the one we read from Colossians 1 can support this thought.  Verses 19-20 read, “For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross.”

            In seminary we used to joke that all things included every mosquito that ever lived and every blade of grass your lawn mower clipped.

            The idea of universal salvation has appeal.  It puts it all into God’s hands.  We then don’t have to worry about anything.  But the idea of universal salvation also has problems.  Continue on with the Colossians reading and you come across verses 22-23, “He has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him – provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven.”

            What then is our answer?  What is the Bible’s answer?

            I think we get the clearest and strongest answer if we look at Romans 10:7-17 which we read earlier.  “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.  But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed?  And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?  And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?”  (vs. 13-15a)

            If the question of salvation for non-believers unsettles us, then that is its intent.  Ultimately salvation is God’s business.  Not our own.  Our business is the proclaim God’s love and salvation as fully and completely and widely as we can.  That message we see repeatedly throughout the New Testament.  Jesus’ last words in Matthew are, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them all that I have commanded you.”

            As children of God we are not to be content as long as there is still evangelism work to do.  We do not rest until that is complete.  And there’s plenty to do!

            Now, do we go door to door like the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses?  No.  That’s more annoying to people than helpful.  And any parent of a grown child who has stopped going to church knows that if he or she nags the situation will just get worse.

            No one ever said the task is easy, but Jesus gave us advice, “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves…” (Matthew 10:16).

            Driven by love we use our minds to creatively and endlessly witness to the love of God.  From there it is God’s work.  Our work, our privilege, is to share it.

            What about salvation of non-believers?  I can’t say.  The Bible doesn’t give a clear answer because that’s God’s business.  Our business is to let the question unsettle us into action.  

Prodigal Son - Lent 4 Sermon

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of Jesus’ best known parables.  It, and the parable of the Good Samaritan, are also the longest, most richly detailed, and the most absurd of Jesus’ parables.  Let’s walk through this parable bit by bit to appreciate how Jesus is using absurdity to teach.
First, we have to remember that this is not a stand-alone parable.  It is the third in a set of three parables about things that are lost.  The first one, Luke 15:3-7 is about one sheep out of 100 getting lost.  The second one, 15:8-10, is about one in ten coins getting lost.  And the Prodigal Son is about one of two sons getting lost.  Perhaps it would be better to study all three as a group, but we’ll discover that the Prodigal Son is quite enough to cover in one sermon.  The other two will show up as the gospel reading in September.
There is a very important ancient text we need to keep in mind to understand this parable.  You won’t find it in your Bibles unless it includes the apocryphal texts of the Old Testament.  The text we need is Sirach 33:20-24:
“To son or wife, to brother or friend,
Do not give power over yourself as long as you live;
And do not give your property to another,
In case you change your mind and must ask for it.
While you are still alive and have breath in you,
Do not let anyone take your place;
For it is better that your children should ask from you
Than that you should look to the hand of your children.
Excel in all that you do;
Bring no stain upon your honor.
At the time when you end the days of your life,
In the hour of death, distribute your inheritance.”
Keep that passage in your mind because Jesus plays on that advice in the parable.
So a man has two sons.  The younger son asks a very shameful thing, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.”  Basically he’s saying, “Father, you’re dead to me.  Just get on with dying so I can my hands on your property.”  So much for the commandment to honor your father and mother!
A wise father would condemn such a request and refuse.  But what does this father do?  He gives in!  He divides the property between his sons.
The younger son then does another very shameful thing.  He sells the property!  Commentator Joel Green notes this, “The division of an estate during the lifetime of the father is one thing; actually disposing of one’s inheritance by turning it into transportable capital during his lifetime is quite another, and it is at this point that the younger son’s shocking breach of familial ties surfaces dramatically.  The parable outlines a series of acts that lead from one level of infamy to the next: the request for his in heritance in v 12 now gives way to his actual disposal of the same, his departure, and his squandering of his resources while living as though he were a Gentile.”  (New International Commentary of the New Testament, Gospel of Luke, Pg. 580)
This son has not only rejected his father and his brother.  He’s rejected his religion, his culture and his country.  This guy is the scum of the earth.  He’s a lowlife.  He’s a scoundrel.  He’s filth.  If you find parallels between yourself and him – particularly if you had a wild youth – don’t.  He’s worse than you ever dreamed of being!  And he’s not going to get better!
After he’s quickly blown all the property and money countless generations of his ancestors labored to create he’s in trouble.  Because of a famine he hires himself out as a laborer to someone in the foreign land who sends him to feed pigs.  Remember pigs are unclean animals to Jews.  Jews don’t eat them, they also don’t touch them or have any dealings with them at all.  Our prodigal would have gladly eaten the pigs slop – garbage as it is – but he’s not even getting that.  He’s now lower than an unclean animal.
He comes to his senses and realizes he’d be better off returning home.  He thinks, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!  I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’”
Notice two things from this.  We learn something about the father’s nature.  This father was a wealthy landowner.  We know because he has a number of hired hands.  Life is hard, and hired hands were always paid subsistence wages.  I’ve mentioned this before.  You’d work all day today to earn enough money to buy food for yourself so you could survive to work all day tomorrow to once again earn enough to buy food.  Money was hard to come by, even for the wealthy.  You got what you had and you held on to it firmly.  There was very little in the way of generosity.  But here we discover that the father makes it a regular habit to pay in excess, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough, and to spare…”
In other words, the father’s pretty generous not only with the prodigal son but also people who are his laborers, not his relatives.  We realize that all along this father isn’t all that careful with the property.
The second thing is that while this prodigal son is returning to his father he isn’t really repenting.  He isn’t saying, “Father, I’m sorry.  I really really blew it!  Please forgive me and take me back.”  No, this is more of a business calculation.  He’ll return to his father and work as a day laborer because he knows his father is generous to the day laborers.  So he sets off for home.
Now we see even more deeply into the nature of the father.  People of wealth and status walked places.  They didn’t run.  The held their heads high and with dignity.  I’m reminded of the line from the movie The Princess Diaries where Julie Andrews says to her niece played by Anne Hathaway, “We never run.  We hasten.”
There is also a very practical reason why rich people didn’t run.  Men wore robes.  Have you ever tried running in a long robe?  Have the women ever tried running a full sprint in a dress?  You have one of two options.  Either you get all tangled up in your robe and you fall… or, you hike your dress or robe up high enough it doesn’t interfere with your legs!
So, imagine this scene (And I’m sorry that once you get this image in your head you’ll never get it out again!).  You have a rich elderly man sitting on his porch and he sees his long lost son coming up the lane.  He’s so excited that this man, who should be acting like a dignified elderly gentleman, hikes up his robes to his waste (He’s not wearing any underwear because it hasn’t been invented yet!) and as best an old man can run –with a robe held up to his waste with his hands- he goes running down the street calling out to his son!
Oh dear, it’s time to blush! This man has given in to his shameful son’s request.  He pays his laborers too much.  And he runs around exposing himself to the whole town!  If you thought your parents were embarrassing when you were a teenager, your parents had nothing on this guy!
He runs to meet his shameful, unclean, and because he was dealing with pigs, ritually defiled son and adds to all his shameful acts by publically embracing him.  Before his son can even get out his pseudo-repentance business proposition the father has said to the slaves, “Quickly, bring out robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.”
Remember Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  That coat was more than just colorful.  It was a symbol of the father’s favor and it was a sign of high authority.  Here the father gives his son the full measure of family authority.  And more; the ring put on his finger would be the signet ring.  It would have had a raised pattern of the family seal on it.  When signing a contract it would have been pressed into hot wax and affixed to the document as a seal.  In other words, the father just gave the prodigal full legal rights of any family member and power over the property – which, incidentally, is supposed to go to his brother; the one who’s been faithful all along.
Is there any wonder why the elder brother is upset when he finds out about the celebration as he’s coming in from working in the fields?  He is livid beyond all belief!  His dad just gave his prodigal brother power over what’s left of the property!
The younger son acts shamefully.  The father acts shamefully.  Now we’ll discover that the elder son acts shamefully too; and has been for some time.
He refuses to go in to his father.  This is a serious breach of honoring of father and mother.  He leverages his father into leaving the celebration and meeting him in his own place and on his own terms.  In other words, this son is a scoundrel too.  If Jesus’ original audience was backing this older son as the good guy of the story they aren’t anymore.  Sure, he’s right to be angry.  But there are ways to be angry with your parents without acting shamefully.
As he talks to his father we discover more bad things about this elder son.  Notice, he never calls his father, “Father.”  He never acknowledges his brother as brother either.  He says to his father, “This son of yours…”  He answers his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.”
Remember, the father pays the hired hands generously, but this son has never laid claim to his role in the family.  Of his own choice he has lived like a slave.  He has refused to recognize his brother as brother.  He has refused to recognize his father as father.  He has refused to accept his father’s invitation to the celebration.  He has refused all family connections.  His phrase, “… you have never given me even a young goat to celebrate with my friends,” greatens his distance even more; for he has not wanted a goat to celebrate with his family.  If he can celebrate he says he wants to celebrate with his friends, not his father or any family member.
Believe it or not all this only scratches the surface of this parable.  It teaches us many many things.  There are two I want to bring up now, and a third one we’ll bring up in next week’s sermon.
Notice how totally dysfunctional this family is.  My one seminary professor said we should not call this the parable of the Prodigal Son.  We should call it the parable of the shameful father and his two shameful sons.  If one of this parable’s teachings is to show something about the family of God then we’d better be willing to accept that the church isn’t going to be a Pollyanna sweet family system.
If you ever study the Jewish scriptures carefully to see how their relationship with God went you realize it looks like a really really bad marriage.  But no matter how bad the people act God hangs in there with them.
Finally the biggest thrust of the parable is the need to celebrate restoration into the family.  Broken and messed up as it all is – in other words, all too normal – when a lost one is restored there is joy.  We should not react with anger or jealousy when we see God’s grace extended to others.  We should react with joy, even when it doesn’t seem fair.  That is the role of the elder brother – the one who cries that it isn’t fair.  Unwittingly however, these people have also distanced themselves from the family.  They just didn’t realize it.
May your family be better than the family in the parable.  May you find joy in God’s mercy so that you can rejoice in what God has done in claiming you, and also rejoice in seeing God’s claim be made upon others too.

Grace or Freewill? – Faith Questions Lenten Series March 2, 2016

I think most people’s beliefs fit along the lines of what could be called “prevenient grace”.  It goes something like this.  God loves you and Jesus died for you.  You didn’t earn it.  This is God’s grace.  All you have to do it accept it.  These ideas were popularized by John Wesley, and it is at the heart of a lot of fundamentalist and Baptist and Methodist theology.  There are Bible verses to back up this idea.  We read the ever famous John 3:16 earlier, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”  You can easily understand that God gave and we accept.

While this is a common way of understanding grace it contradicts a stronger message in the Bible about grace.  We saw a bit of that in the Ephesians 2 reading, “For by grace you have been saved through faith…”  And whose faith is the author of Ephesians referring to here?  Is it your faith?  That’s what many people believe, but that is wrong.  It is Jesus’ faith.  More clearly it would be translated, “For by grace you have been saved by Jesus’ faith and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Paul’s writings champion this idea of grace.  It is what St. Augustine called “irresistible grace”.  It goes something like this.  God loves you and Jesus died for you.  You didn’t earn it.  And, your ability to accept it is actually not your own decision.  Your decision to accept it is also God working in you.

In other words, God is working both sides of the fence.  God does both the act of saving you and God does the act of making you believe it.

If you think about that for a couple minutes your mind will run into all sorts of problems.  Do we really have a choice at all?  What about free will?  And, what about those who don’t believe?  Does God also choose not to let them believe?

If you have these thoughts, they aren’t new.  Let me read Romans 9:14-22.  Paul writes:

What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! ¹⁵For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” ¹⁶So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. ¹⁷For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses. ¹⁹You will say to me then, “Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”

This is irresistible grace.  It is the heart of all Lutheran thought.  It is very significant in Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and other churches.  It probably doesn’t seem fair at all.  But Paul isn’t done.  Listen on:

“But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?” ²¹Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? ²²What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction;”

Maybe this doesn’t seem fair.  Maybe it makes your head spin.  Maybe it makes you angry because it means you really have no choice.  You may say why don’t we just keep it simple, just believe in Jesus and tell others to also and be done with it.

Indeed that is tempting, but there are problems.  It can deeply impact what drives your life.  Those who think it is their choice can become haughty and self-righteous.  They think their choice to accept God’s grace is a work worthy of salvation.  When the evangelize they push hard that people must accept Jesus as their personal Lord and savior or perish in hell.  They insist that you believe with all your intellect and drive away all doubts; for doubts are dangerous.  That is the life of someone who lives by prevenient grace.

The person who accepts irresistible grace – what the Bible’s real teachings about grace are – lives a much more accepting and authentic life.  They actually trust God more deeply because they know the root of their beliefs rest in God, not their own force of intellect.  They know they are held securely by God even when they have questions and doubts.  In fact they know they can explore those doubts more fully because God won’t let go.  They know that if they suffer a brain trauma or develop dementia or some other catastrophe happens, God’s grasp of them is even greater.

Remember what Paul says in Romans 8, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul is excessively emphatic here because that’s grace!  That’s an understanding of God’s never failing love that simply won’t let go.

The person who realizes this irresistible grace knows it has logical flaws – but so does prevenient grace.  So do all philosophical systems!  The person who realizes this recognizes that they can’t control it and can’t fully understand it.  But that isn’t ultimately important.  The fact that they’re caught up in God’s love is ultimately important.

Then life truly becomes a response to that grace.  You can truly be generous because you are safe.  You can question and doubt because you are safe.  You can show weaknesses and vulnerabilities because you are safe.  Your evangelism is not about convincing others so they by their own power can also intellectually believe.  It is simply an authentic witness that God is good.

I want to end with two quotes from Martin Luther from his writing called, “The Bondage of the Will.”

[Destroying free will doubtless gives] the greatest possible offense to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. it seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace.)"

And also, "I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want ‘free-will’ to be given me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavor after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground …; but because even were there no dangers … I should still be forced to labor with no guarantee of success … But now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own will, and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy, I have the comfortable certainty that He is faithful and will not lie to me, and that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him.