4th Sunday of Easter Sermon

Sometimes the best way to know your own faith is to know someone else’s faith.  For 2016 I’ve put the Qur’an on my reading list – or perhaps I should say an English translation of the Qur’an because according to Muslims the Qur’an is only truly authentic in Arabic.  I’m about a third of the way through it by now.  I did a little bit of background research into the Qur’an before I started reading because it is the scriptural writing of another faith and I wanted to give it a fair reading.  I’ve come across Islamic scholars who interpret the Christian Bible and their attempts are absurdly wrong.  I don’t want to make the same mistake.  Interestingly the first time the Qur’an was ever published was in the year 1543.  And it was published at the insistence of Martin Luther who felt all Christians should read it.

                Now Luther’s reasons for wanting Christians to read the Qur’an were not so they could have a deeper appreciation of another faith.  He wanted Christians to read it because he felt it would strengthen the case to oppose Islam.  Indeed after reading about a third of it I understand why Luther felt that way.  While it repeatedly reinforces that God is merciful and forgiving, in general it teaches that a proper relationship with God is heavily based on doing good works.  Of course Luther argues that a proper relationship with God is created by God’s grace and lived out in faith.  But that is beside the point for today.

                For today I want to use the Qur’an to help us more deeply understand the last line of our gospel reading where Jesus said, “The Father and I are one.”  That’s a theological statement with tremendous meaning that I think we easily overlook because we are so familiar with it. 

The Qur’an brings up Jesus numerous times.  For Muslims Jesus is considered one of the great prophets, but not more. In the sura in the Qur’an called “The Feast” we find these teachings, “The Messiah, son of Mary, was only a messenger; other messengers had come and gone before him; his mother was a virtuous woman; both ate food [like other mortals].”  And, “Those who say, ‘God is the Messiah, son of Mary, have defied God.”  As I said before, I’m not a Qur’an expert so I’m not going to try to fully interpret those verses, but they do give us a backdrop to understand the contrast of our own faith.

                If we consider Jesus to be a great prophet and teacher our understanding of God changes greatly and our faith takes a very different form.  We would believe that Jesus came to teach us about God’s nature and teach us about being in relationship with God.  However, when we take statements like, “The Father and I are one,” our faith takes on a deeper dimension.  Jesus didn’t teach about being in relationship with God.  He was God actually living in relationship with people.  Do you see the difference?  If Jesus taught about God then our faith would be a faith based on teachings, regulations and rules.  A faith built on relationship is different, and as Christians we would say more authentic – incarnational. 

If your faith were based on rules and regulations it would be more like your relationship with the federal government.  Tomorrow is the deadline to file your income tax statements.  How hard do people work to find ways to wiggle out of paying taxes?  They find loopholes and exceptions.  They create strategies to hide wealth and earnings.  Ultimately it’s become a lot like a game.  You may have heard about the recent rulings about companies doing inversions to reduce their tax burden.  Inversions had been legal ways to wiggle out of taxes.  Not anymore. 

If Jesus came only to teach our religion could take on such a form.  Forms, paperwork, rules, exemptions and on and on would go the complicated code between God and ourselves.  It sounds like the kind of stuff Jesus got so upset with the religious rulers about, because that it what they had done.  If that were our case the church could have faith audits of everyone whose annual response was questionable.  Perhaps the church should demand to see your income tax filing and fine everyone who does not meet a tithe!

Do you see how faith would be different if we took Jesus as a teacher and an example, but not the Son of God?  However, when we fully acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God we have a very different faith indeed.  We then realize that God’s nature is not one of being removed and distant from us, but one that wants to be close and in relationship.

                While Jesus taught many things, and we learn from them, following Jesus’ teachings are not the center of our faith.  Being in relationship with God as revealed by Jesus is.  Can any full and authentic relationship be based on teachings and rules?   No.  Sooner or later you’ll find a way to wiggle around the rules. 

Jesus said, “The Father and I are one.”  If you want to know the nature of God fully, look to Jesus.  You know the old saying that actions speak louder than words.  Jesus’ actions speak to the nature of God louder than any words can.  Our gospel reading came from the gospel of John so let’s use it to witness to God’s nature and our relationship with God. 

Perhaps the actions of Jesus that stand out the most are those around the crucifixion; a God who will suffer death out of love for those he created.  Indeed that is central, that is God’s ultimately revelation of love, but there is more.  God is playful.  Look at the miracle at the wedding in Cana.  Water is turned into wine.  And it is not a scant amount of cheap wine, but over a hundred gallons of the finest of wines.  You also see playfulness in the Samarian woman Jesus meets at the well.  Last week’s gospel reading shows God’s playfulness when Jesus tells the disciples to fish from the right side of the boat rather than the left.  Suddenly instead of catching nothing they immediately catch a net full.  There’s also the playfulness at the feeding of the 5000.  Jesus says to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for all these people to eat?” and yet he knew all along what he was going to do.

Of course any authentic relationship is not about just love and fun.  God can get angry.  Look at the scene of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple, and Jesus’ anger at Lazarus’ tomb.

God is forgiving.  We experience that in Jesus forgiving the woman caught in adultery.  You know the phrase he uses there well, “Let anyone who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

God has miraculous powers.  Jesus does all sort of healings and miracles – usually the goal is to restore a broken life to wholeness. 

God knows what it is like to be rejected.  In John 6 we read about many of the disciples leaving Jesus. 

And of course God knows what it is to serve and be a servant.  We see that most clearly when Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.

I suppose I could go on and on but I think I make the point.  Christian faith isn’t about rules and regulations.  It isn’t about works and accountability.  It is about relationship with God.  And that relationship has been revealed because God has revealed himself to us in Jesus; Emmanuel, God-with-us.  Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.”  Again, a relationship.

What makes a Christian a Christian?  What sets our faith apart from others?  One of the biggest things is Jesus’ teaching that he and the Father are one.  If you want to know God, know Jesus.  Our faith is about living in relationship with God because God has revealed what that relationship is like.  He did not teach it from afar.  He lived it for a lifetime.

May you always be able to feel God’s presence at work in your life, and may you be confident in the security of your relationship with God.

Invitation - The Third Sunday of Easter Sermon

I’m sure we’ve all done things that we’ve gotten in trouble for.  Some of them may have been mistakes.  Some may have been deliberate.  Maybe we were being sneaky, or maybe it was obvious.  Whatever the case, we know what it is to get in trouble for something.  Our parents, or spouse, or boss, or friends or whomever we’ve impacted gets mad at us.  They may yell at us.  They may take away privileges or make us do extra work.  Perhaps they use the silent treatment and punish us through that.

            But sometimes the hardest punishment of all is when you hear, “I’m disappointed in you.”  Disappointing a parent or an authority figure can be a crippling blow.  You feel like you not only messed up, you are a mess up.  At times like that you wish you were getting yelled at and reprimanded.  You want some sort of harsh punishment to make up for what you’ve done.  But, “I’m disappointed in you,” makes you feel like a shameful part of you has been revealed and there’s no way for you to restore it.  The relationship feels like it is forever broken.

            I wonder what the disciples were feeling that day we read about in our gospel reading.  It was after the resurrection.  Jesus has already met them Easter evening and breathed the Holy Spirit on them and sent them out into the world to proclaim the gospel.  But they didn’t do that, did they?  No, we discover that one week later they’re still hiding out in a locked room.  That is when the disciple Thomas gets to see the resurrected Jesus and have his doubts taken away.

            I think the disciples deserve a reprimand at this point for sure.  They’re deliberately disobeying their Lord’s command.  But if there was a reprimand the Bible doesn’t record it.  And remember the already dark track record of these disciples.  They generally didn’t get Jesus’ teachings.  One of them, Judas, betrays Jesus; although he’s no longer in the picture.  All of them promise to stay faithful to Jesus through anything, but none of them are.  Even Peter, who some may describe as Jesus’ best friend, denies he even knows him three times over on the night of his arrest.

            Yet after the resurrection Jesus never reprimands this disappointing bunch.  And it seems like their failures are getting even worse.  We see that they’ve decided to go fishing.  Now if they were tired from all their evangelism work and wanted a little break it would be easily forgivable.  No one can work all the time.  Or if these guys had decided to skip church on Father’s Day so they could do a little recreational fishing in Canandaigua Lake we might shake our heads in disapproval, all the while giving them a wink of consent.  But some of these guys at least were professional fishermen.  They’ve returned to their old livelihoods as if their time with Jesus and his death and resurrection were nothing at all!  They deserve a serious dressing down for their disobedience!

            Now before we go too far, I do want to point out one humorous part of all of this that I’ve mentioned before when I’ve preached on this text.  Peter is so excited that he can’t wait to see Jesus.  Instead of helping to row the boat ashore he jumps out and swims – with the bizarre note that he puts his clothes on before jumping in for a swim!

            Indeed appearing before your teacher naked is an embarrassing thing to be sure – sort of like a nightmare.  But Peter’s little better; dripping wet, covered in mud and slime, and smelling of fish!  Then after going ashore he returns to the boat to haul the net ashore and bring some fish.  I’m imagining Peter like a little puppy who’s so excited to see a visitor that he can’t stop wiggling and wagging and jumping up, and maybe peeing on the floor!

            We know the disciples are embarrassed.  Verse 12 reads, “Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.”  What’s in store for them?  A reprimand?  Rejection?  Will they get kicked out and Jesus will choose better followers – ones who can follow at least the simplest of direction?  Will Jesus use his miraculous powers to punish them… a sort of cruciatus curse like we find in the Harry Potter books?

            Or maybe worse; maybe Jesus will use the silent treatment on them.  Maybe he’ll say, “You know guys, I am forgiving, very forgiving.  But I’m disappointed in you.  I’m really disappointed in you.  I died for you, you saw the proof of God’s powers in my resurrection, I forgave you for abandoning me in my time of need, but you’re still doing your own thing.”  But instead Jesus has cooked breakfast for them.  These professional fishermen who couldn’t catch a fish that night without Jesus’ help now sit down to a cooked meal.

            There are overtones of communion in this meal, even though it is bread and fish and not bread and wine.  Put that somewhere in your mind for a moment because we’re going to come back to it.

            For now we’ll follow the story line when the scene shifts to just Jesus and Peter.  It’s no coincidence that Peter denied Jesus three times so now Jesus asks Peter if he loves him three times.  Some interpreters make a big deal about the fact that two forms of the Greek word for love are used here, but I’m among the many who think that is just a stylistic choice of language.  The words are virtually interchangeable.

            Instead of a reprimand Peter gets asked three times if he loves Jesus.  Peter replies yes three times over.  It seems like something is finally clicking in Peter, and we know that this time he will not fail.  This takes us to one of the main themes of John’s gospel – love.

            Love is something we hear about a lot but don’t understand much.  I think it is important to see love as the 11^th century Cistercian monk Bernard of Clairvaux did.  You know him better as St. Bernard, although it’s quite a feat to say his name and not think of a giant shaggy dog with a keg around his neck!  St. Bernard saw four degrees of love. 

First was a love of self for self’s sake.  You think you’re good and worthwhile and so you love yourself. 

Second is loving God for your self’s sake.  You discover that you have to love God in order to go to heaven, so you make a very quick calculation that it’s in your own best interest to love God.

Third is loving God for God’s sake.  Here you’ve moved on and discovered that God is gracious and merciful.  God forgives you and provides for you.  Therefore you’ve come to genuinely love God because of God’s goodness.

And fourth is loving yourself for God’s sake.  You discover that you are God’s good creation and that while you aren’t perfect you do have God’s good qualities within yourself.  You are worthwhile because God made you.  You are whole because God made you.  You are capable because God made you.  Therefore you’ve come to love yourself, not for your own sake, but because you honor God’s good work.

            While it’s not right to impose St. Bernard’s understanding of love onto the conversation between Peter and Jesus I think we can get a sense of what is going on.  Peter is now seeing the fullness of Jesus’ love for him and what that love means for Peter’s own life.  Peter will go on from the shore that day a changed man.  Yes, he will make mistakes and he will fail.  He will still have his doubts and some fears too.  But he will be driven by the love of God and he will be effective.

            Blessed are we when we experience God’s love for ourselves in that way, for we are energized and capable with an energy and capability no one can take from us.

            And that brings us back to this fish and bread breakfast that Jesus cooks for the disciples.  It does have overtones of communion because it is a meal that Jesus has prepared for his followers.  He asks no questions.  He does not reprimand.  He does not use the silent treatment.  He does not say, “I’m disappointed in you.”  He excludes no one.  He simply says, “Come and have breakfast.”  Come and eat.  It is an act of pure love.

            Whenever we have communion may we remember it is the same meal.  Jesus provides nourishment without questions and without judgment.  It is a simple act of pure love.

Faith and Doubt - 2nd Sunday of Easter Sermon

Stanislaw 1, King of Poland, is noted for saying, “To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.”  Doubting is the word for today as we look at Thomas in our gospel reading today.  Interestingly the Greek word for doubt never actually shows up in the text.  Jesus’ words are more literally translated, “Do not be faithless but faithful.”  It is our Bible translators who have chosen to use the English word doubt.

            It is strange to create a sermon around a word that is actually not in the text, but its absence is significant.  The Greek word for doubt does show up in the Bible when it comes to accepting the resurrection.  We see it especially in Matthew 28:17.  But nowhere does Jesus actually criticize someone for having doubts.  Indeed the Bible suggests that faith and doubt go hand in hand.  You’ve heard me say before that the opposite of faith is not doubt.  It is fear.

            As I was working on the sermons for our special Lenten worship services this year I became aware of just how willing Lutheran theology is to give room for doubt.  Like Stanislaw 1 said, “To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.”

            I know of other church denominations that push hard for their members to believe without doubts and without questions.  They are taught that if the Bible says it, it must be so.  And you must believe it deeply and without serious questions.  I often wonder how much doubt their members really have and just aren’t willing to admit it?  Do they really believe as blindly as they appear to?  I think such faith is actually quite fragile, and probably not very effective.  I understand why they are so afraid of doubt.  If you are saved by faith, and if doubt is the opposite of faith, then to doubt is to risk damnation – a really scary thought.

            If you participated in the special Lenten worship services you’ll remember how Lutherans have come to understand having faith.  While some churches teach that indeed you do not have to earn salvation.  It is a gift from God.  All you have to do is accept it.  It then becomes a matter of your choice.  You can accept it or reject it.  Lutheran thinking has gone a step farther.  Lutheran thinking says that even your decision to accept God’s gift is actually also God at work in you.

            If you’re a philosopher you quickly realize that this way of thinking means that you ultimately lose free will.  Indeed that is a problem, and it is one addressed extensively by Martin Luther in his writings.  And to put a biblical foundation to it, it is also addressed extensively by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans.

            Perhaps the challenge for right now is to not let our minds go down that path.  If you want to know more read Luther’s writing called, “The Bondage of the Will” or you can look up the sermon I created for it online called “Grace or Freewill.”

            Anyway, for today realize how freeing and empowering it is to know that your faith lies securely in God’s hands.  Not only has God done the work to save you God is also doing the work to have you accept it.  Which means that you have safety to question, to ponder, and to doubt.  Remember again, Jesus never criticized questions and doubts.  They are a part of having faith.  They are a part of developing a strong faith.

            For the disciples of Jesus seeing Jesus alive meant more than just their friend wasn’t dead anymore.  If that’s all the resurrection is then it isn’t a very impressive thing at all.  If fact it would be quite a miserable thing – stuck forever in life’s struggles and burdens.  But resurrection meant far more.  And because it meant far more doubt plays a much more important role.

            Imagine for a moment the future that God has in store for you, a glorious resurrected future far better than you can even imagine.  It is a future where pain, failure and fear do not exist.  And from that point of view look back on your earthly life and concerns.  St. Paul says in Romans 8 that they are not worth comparing.  Who cares what your house or car says about you?  Who cares about how much property you own?  Who cares whether you get the promotion or not?  Who cares if an heirloom or tradition continues or not?  Who cares about an injury or a disease?  Even death itself is nothing of consequence.  You begin to realize that almost everything people consume their lives in worrying about is nothing but the scurrying of ants in the universe.

            That is the perspective the resurrection gives us.  That is why Thomas struggles to have faith.  It is the revelation of a whole new reality for himself and the world.  It takes a lot to accept it.  It takes a lot of courage and confidence to live this life as is most everything everyone else worries about isn’t important at all.

            The Jesuit Priest, Father Martin, recently published an article in the Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-challenge-of-easter-1458916153) about why Easter is so much more important, and potentially problematic, than Christmas.  Christmas is a nice baby story.  Even to an atheist the idea of God coming to life as a human is sweet and quaint.  But the idea of God being betrayed by one of his closest followers, denied three times by his best friend, and executed by crucifixion is another thing indeed.  That is a jarring and offensive thing to believe.  Then to top it off with the resurrection and you’ve just upended everything we build our lives around.

            What does it all mean?  Here are several true statements.  By all human standards you and your life is nothing but the scurrying of ants.  Despite movies like It’s a Wonderful Life, for most of us we’ll never amount to anything.  How many people can you name who lived more than 150 years ago?  Some, to be sure.  How many people can you name from 500 years ago?  How about 1500 years ago?  Even the greatest of emperors has their lives forgotten and their accomplishments crumble in short time.  By all human standards you and your life and all your accomplishments are nothing of significance.

            If that’s what you are by human standards then of what possible value could you begin to have by God’s standards?  God who creates out of nothing, who is bigger than time, and for whom this whole universe is but a speck can’t possibly care one bit.

            And yet we know that isn’t true.  Not only did this great God come to be with us, as we celebrate at Christmas.  Jesus in the resurrection still bears the marks of the crucifixion.  That may seem like a trivial detail but it is of great importance.  The resurrection does not erase the injury.

            The disciple Thomas did us a great favor when he demanded to see the marks of Jesus’ execution.  The glorified resurrected body was not a vision or a dream.  It was not just a feeling or hallucination for them.  The human-inflicted injuries are still there – permanently, forever.  This was the real and full Jesus that they knew beforehand.  God forever knows fully what it is to be you.

            Jesus’ life and ministry was not about giving you a model to live by or to teach you things.  It was to save you… fully.  It gives you value – more value than human standards can.  The wounds of Christ prove that God sees your value.

            Easter makes a big claim upon us – to live today like the resurrection is real.  That claim is sure to cause doubts in our hearts.  But with the security of our God’s grace we dare to engage those doubts.  For through exploring doubts and all the uncertainty that they bring we can come to believe with certainty.  Amen