December 8, 2019 Birth of Jesus Matthew 1:18-25

            We just read Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus.  Interestingly though, nothing is said about… the birth of Jesus! Jesus will be the main character of the story Matthew is about to tell but his birth doesn’t seem to be about him.  Verse 25, where his birth is actually mentioned, is more about Joseph and Mary’s relationship than anything else.

            We can take this story several directions.  I think it is insightful to look at a tension that is happening in the background.  It probably was a tension in the lives of Matthew’s original readers.  And it may be for us too.  We see it in the actions of Joseph.

            We learn that Joseph and Mary are engaged to be married, but then Mary is “found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Joseph, we are told, is a righteous man.  And there is the tension.  What should a righteous man do in this situation?

            When we hear the word “righteous” our minds may think of someone who is self-righteous, holier-than-thou, and altogether a pain to be around.  But that is not the way Joseph is described.  Righteousness here means a just man.  He has built his life around decency and honesty.  He’s good.  He’s kind.  He wants to honor both God and the people around him.  For guys like Joseph, honoring God means sincerely trying to live by the myriad of religious laws.  They were a means to be in right relationship with God.

            But Mary’s pregnancy creates a problem.  Their engagement was a binding arrangement.  You couldn’t just break an engagement the way you can today.  Maybe they weren’t technically married yet (marriage being when they began living together) but as we see in verse 19 when we read, “Her husband Joseph…” the terms husband and wife apply to them.

            We know nothing of Mary’s side of things.  That’s all in Luke’s gospel.  Here we get Joseph’s side.  What should he do with this obviously unfaithful woman?  It is clear that she is not trustworthy.  I mean, how blind would he have to be if he still trusted her!?!  There is no way he can build a healthy family with this woman.  But what to do with her?

            This is more than just the risk of her being disgraced.  According to Deuteronomy 22:23-27 the religious laws required that she be killed.  The people of Israel were to rid themselves of unfaithfulness in any form.  While history tells us this was seldom enforced, and it wasn’t really done at Mary and Joseph’s time, this could still truly be a life and death situation for her!

            What should Joseph do?  He obviously loves her.  And while he may be brokenhearted by her unfaithfulness, he does not want her hurt or disgraced.  Even that would ruin her life.  But he also can’t trust her as a wife.

            Keep this dilemma in mind in the months ahead as we read through Matthew’s gospel.  Over and over again we’re going to encounter a conflict between technical righteousness and, let’s call it,… fundamental decency.  And over and over again we’re going to find that fundamental decency wins out. 

            How do you handle it when the rules demand one thing, but decency says another thing?

            The story of Marion Hungerford is a good example.  She is a late middle aged woman who has some serious mental health issues.  A psychiatrist assessed her to have a “very low capacity to assess reality” and “a very low level of intellectual functioning.”  Her long time husband eventually left her and she began a relationship with a man with whom she helped commit a series of armed robberies.  Her role in the crimes to was drive the getaway car and sometimes case the places they were to hit.  She never actually participated in the robberies themselves and never handled the gun.  No one was every actually shot or hurt in their robberies.  Together they stole less than $10 thousand.  When they got caught his sentence was 32 years.  Her sentence as a first time offender: a mandatory minimum 159 years in federal prison.

            I’m not going to try to explain all the legal quirks that caused this mandatory sentence, for though the judge said he thought it was unfair his hands were tied.  I think we would all agree that while she helped commit some serious crimes, and indeed she needs to be held accountable, a first time offender with limited mental capacity who never actually did anything violent does not deserve that kind of punishment.  The letter of the law requires a punishment beyond fundamental decency.

            Fortunately for Marion, her case was reviewed, a new prosecutor was appointed, and he actually worked hard to have her sentence reduced to seven years.  That, I think, is more in line with fundamental decency.

            That example, and the second prosecutors actions take us to where our faith will take us in how we live our lives.

            Notice in the gospel how Joseph, a faithful Jew, is thinking and preparing to act.  Not all Jews are going to be like the Pharisees and Sadducees who are sticklers for technical adherence to the law.  Many Jews are like Joseph, seeking to truly live with decency, true integrity, and basic mercy.

            Had Joseph not had the dream which changes his mind about Mary I’m sure he would have dismissed Mary as quietly and discretely as possible.

            Sometimes people describe the Old Testament as being full of wrath and the New Testament as being filled with mercy, but that is an oversimplification.  There is wrath in both testaments, and there is mercy too.  The real difference is subtle, but you can see it in Matthew’s gospel.

            Matthew doesn’t want us to think that Jesus has come to upend Judaism.  He has not come to abolish the laws.  He has not come to throw out the past or to say it was wrong.  Matthew wants us to see Jesus as God’s next step – God’s ultimate step – in being in relationship with people.

            In the early chapters of the gospel we’re going to see several things where Jesus is being portrayed as the new Moses.  You’ll remember from the Old Testament that Moses is the one who receives the religious laws from God.  And those laws are not so much about teaching what is right and what is wrong, as they are about showing people how to be in a good and healthy relationship with God.

They teach God’s ideals, how to make them reality, and how to fix things when something goes wrong.  While we may think them harsh by today’s standards, they really reflect similar legal codes of the time and actually have lots of areas that show mercy.

In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.  For truly I tell you until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

Yes, Jesus affirms the law in its entirety.  He does not condemn it.  There is no condemnation for it.  When we read the sermon on the mount we discover that Jesus actually makes the law even more strict than its letter.  You’ll remember him teaching, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable…”  and he goes on.

And who among us never gets angry?  Such a demand is impossible.  Jesus takes the religious laws and pushes them to such an extreme that everyone is caught in condemnation.  That then, sets up the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  To pull in Romans 3, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  And if all have sinned and fall short, then all are in need of God’s grace.

            That is the trajectory that Matthew will follow.  In the birth story of Jesus we see that without Jesus there is still mercy and kindness from an upstanding Jewish man.  But by the time we see the crucifixion at the end of the story we’ve learned that kindness is not for kindness sake.  We are not driven to niceness because we want to be nice people.  We are driven to see the world and act from our brokenness before God and our need for grace.

The difference is subtle, but profound.  If you’re driven to be a nice person then no matter how hard you try, if you succeed at being nice, you’ll ultimately become arrogant and feel superior.  Whereas if you are driven to kindness and mercy because you know you are undeservedly receiving it from God, then you will give and not feel superior.  Your giving will be authentic.  You will not look down upon others.  You will know when to reach out and when to work hard.  You will be able to help hold people accountable for their actions while not being too harsh nor too lenient.

Joseph receives a dream.  We are usually drawn to the first part of the dream which tells him to accept Mary.  We then forget what is an equally important part, “You are to name him Jesus.”  Which means, “he saves”. 

Jesus’ coming will be God with us.  God with is not to destroy but to save.  God with us to establish a relationship built on God’s eternal goodness and our need for it; rather than our abilities to be good.

November 24, 2019 Coming of the Kingdom Luke 17:20-37

     Some years ago the Left Behind books and movie series captured the attention and imagination of many people.  The whole series was built around the few verses that we had in our gospel reading, and the parallel ones in Matthew’s gospel.  The problem is that Left Behind, and everything similar to it, completely ignores the point Jesus is making.  Indeed the image of two people sleeping and one suddenly disappearing is intriguing.  As is the idea of two people milling grain and one of them disappearing.  It is all so sudden and unexpected.  I used to see bumper stickers that said, “Caution:  In case of Rapture this car will be driverless.”

     The point Jesus is really trying to make comes in the first verse we read, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that came be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

     Jesus says that in response to questions the Pharisees had been asking about when the kingdom of God is coming.  I imagine Jesus sighing in exasperation because they just didn’t get it.  The Pharisee sect, and many Jews of the time, expected a great and terrible “Day of the Lord” when God would suddenly come with a great spectacular show of force and once and for all overthrow their oppressors; and maybe even be the end of time.

     That same imagination is still a big part of the faith of many Christians.  But, we can see as Jesus tries to redirect their thinking, it is misguided.

     We’re going to focus on what Jesus really meant in that first verse.  While the rest of the verses are vivid most biblical scholars admit they just can’t fully decipher what Jesus means.  What is clear is that people shouldn’t be complacent about the things of faith.  Do not put things off, because the world is not a predictable place. 

     Jesus’ main teaching is abundantly clear when he says, “The kingdom of God is among you.”

     This verse is so central to who we are as Christians and how we live out our faith that I want to point out a variation you may find depending on the Bible translation you use.  The New Revised Standard Version makes it pretty clear.  “The kingdom of God is among you.”  But some translations leave it vague, and therefore the potential exists for a major misinterpretation.  For example, the New International Version, a very popular translation of the Bible, says, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.”  There’s nothing technically wrong with that translation, except that it opens the possibility that the kingdom of heaven is something that exists in your hearts as an inward personal power.  That idea is not what Jesus intended, and it is a big mistake!

     In the Anchor Bible Commentary Joseph Fitzmyer points out that while it is technically accurate to translate the Greek word entos as “within,” that misses the point.  He says, ‘…elsewhere in Luke’s gospel the kingdom is never presented as an inward reality or an inner condition of human existence.”  (Anchor Bible, Volume 28a, Pg. 1161)

     The kingdom of God as Jesus teaches it, is present among the community of believers who live by faith.  It is important to realize that that is how God’s kingdom works.  It is how God gets things done.  If you’re looking for supernatural signs and powers you’re missing the point!

     Perhaps prayer can serve as a good example.  What do you expect to happen from your prayers?  You’ve heard me say this before.  Prayer is not a connection to a divine vending machine that give out supernatural solutions to earthly problems.  All you have to do is enter the right code into the machine by saying the right words and it will be done of you!

     Yet all too many people think prayer works that way.  Big mistake.  Don’t expect God to solve your problems through supernatural means just because you pray about it.  That’s not how God prefers to work.  And God has good reason for it.  But let’s return to that in a minute.

     What then is the point of prayer? you ask.  If God won’t help then why bother?  If God isn’t strong enough, or willing enough, to help me through life’s problems then what good is it?

     Those are fair questions.  And I don’t want to minimize the fear, confusion, and pain that exists in many people’s lives.  I don’t want to minimize the feeling of powerlessness in the face of problems that many people face.  Indeed, and certainly, do raise all those things to God in prayer.  God can do anything.  God can do miracles.  But don’t count on it, or expect it because you offer the right words in the right frame of mind.

     God wants you to bring your joys and fears, your triumphs and your failures to Him in prayer.  That’s part of being in relationship with God.  But don’t expect your faith to give you a supernatural escape from the problems of life.

     God did not spare Jesus from crucifixion.

     Here is how prayer works in a dependable fashion.  It is the community of faith raising an issue before God and considering it in light of God’s promises and God’s love.  It is contemplating it, struggling with it, working through it along with God.  And then, collectively working to make the answer into reality.

     Does that make sense?

     A life of faith is not about divine rescue or God helping us an individuals get through life.  That’s not how God made you.  That’s not how God equipped you or blessed you.

     God gave us real strength, real capability, real power.  God then invites us to use all of those things in the world collectively and in light of God’s purposes.

     I know it seems like it would be nicer if the kingdom of God on earth was about God solving problems for us so we could have an easier life.  It seems tempting.  But ultimately it is not good.

     At the risk of diving into politics that’ll get me into trouble, I get frustrated when I hear politicians make proposals that subsidize people’s incomes or housing.  Oh, it may win them votes, but does the recipient of a subsidy really feel good about themselves.  While aid in a crisis is certainly needed, an ongoing subsidy makes a person feel less than capable.  If you want to help a person feel worthwhile – feel like they’re truly meaningful and a person of dignity – you don’t subsidize their lives.  You equip them to provide for themselves.

     That is how God works.  That is how God give us dignity and self-worth.  It is by making us capable and then inviting us to use those capabilities along with God and each other that God gets things done.  That is how the kingdom of God comes.

     Again at the risk of diving into politics that’ll get me into trouble.  There’s the other end of the spectrum – those who gain tremendously by not really doing work.  They’ve figured out how to exploit systems and other people for their own gain.  The confirmation class recently studied the commandment, “Thou shall not steal.”  We learned that gaining things through exploitation is also stealing, even if it is legal.

     I admit I’m guilty of this.  Part of the remuneration I receive from St. John’s is having money invested in a mutual fund for my retirement.  I put money into it too.  It is certainly nice to check its value from time to time and see significant growth.  The national church has investment options that take the church’s morals into account.  So, for example, while some things like pornography might be highly profitable businesses, they aren’t going to invest in them.  I’m glad to know my money grows in basically ethical ways.  And yet, it’s still not something I’ve exactly earned.

     I had a friend in college whose father had what I thought was an excellent investment strategy.  He looked specifically at the appliances in his home.  If he liked what he saw – the design and the engineering – he would look into the company further.  And if he liked their business model he would buy their stock.  In other words, he was consciously investing his money in companies he had investigated and believed in.  Perhaps he wasn’t “earning” the returns on his investment, but he had a conscious hand in how his money was being used.  I admit to being too lazy to do that.  But I hope you get the point.

     The kingdom of God is among you.  It is how God gets things done.  It is how God affirms our worth and our dignity.  It is how we live. 

     Do not look for signs of the end of the world.  Do not expect divine intervention in your life because you think you’re a good person.  Instead, realize that you and your brothers and sisters in Christ, working together, make God’s kingdom real.  It is real and blessing for us, and real and a blessing for others. 

November 3, 2019 All Saints Sunday Luke 21:5-38

The gospel reading sounds strange and foreign to our ears.  We are not persecuted for our faith.  We do not live in the immanent fear of destruction, or the end of the world.  Many people, even non-Christians, will accept Jesus as a great moral teacher.  But they are apt to just disregard verses like these as bizarre pieces of the past.

            The verses start with some people speaking about the beauty and grandeur of the temple in Jerusalem.  Indeed by all accounts it was a magnificent structure, especially after the Herod family spent fortunes of money over decades expanding and beautifying the courtyards surrounding the temple proper.  But Jesus says that all will be thrown down.  Indeed, about 40 years later the Romans did destroy Jerusalem and the temple.  The only things that survived, and still exist today, were deep under the ruble.

            Some critics seeking to disregard the significance of Jesus’ predictions point out that Luke’s gospel was written after the temple was destroyed.  They then say that the historical Jesus never really made these predictions.  They were written later, pretending to be older.  They have some evidence for reaching this conclusion.  However, Luke’s primary source – the Gospel of Mark – also contains these teachings.  And there is plenty to suggest it was written while the temple was still standing.  Thus the predictions were indeed made before the events occurred.

            Luke’s original readers found themselves living in an ‘in between times’.  The destruction of Jerusalem was a recent event, which Jesus had predicted.  Persecutions were happening, which Jesus also predicted.  But there was a lot Jesus predicted that had not yet happened.  So, they saw where their lives fit.  And they expected the end of the world to happen very soon.

            We need to be honest that pretty much all of the writings in the New Testament thought the end of the world would happen soon; certainly not thinking twenty centuries would go by with Jesus not coming!

            Many people will use that as an excuse to deny the authenticity of the Bible’s teachings, and dismiss any claims Christianity could have on a person’s life.

            Have you ever watched or listened to a TED talk?  TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design.  TED is a nonprofit that began in the ‘80’s with the purpose of spreading ideas.  Inspiring speakers and thinkers share their well-crafted ideas in a short, something like 15 minute, talk.  They’re online.  National Public Radio has a program devoted to them.

            I dislike most of them.  A supposed expert talking about something for 15 minutes is oversimplifying in the extreme.  And, almost all of them are from a secularist perspective.  While they have some religious leaders, most of them will do anything but recognize religious beliefs as valid.

            A TED Talk called “Does Money Make You Mean?” was recently pointed out to me, and I watched it.  Now from our Christian perspective we know the answer right off the bat.  Of course it does!  Jesus talked about money more than any other topic.  Just a couple weeks ago we had him saying you cannot serve both God and wealth.  Nevertheless Paul Piff, the speaker, shared some experiments about what happens to people as their wealth goes up. 

As their wealth goes up things like compassion and empathy go down.  Their self-interest and sense of entitlement go up.  He says, “Wealthier individuals are more likely to moralize greed being good and that the pursuit of self-interest is favorable and moral.”  Again, that shouldn’t surprise us.  Wealthier people not only give a lower percentage of their income, but often outright less than poorer people.  Often the donations of wealthy people come with strings attached, like naming rights or influence.

And typical of all too many TED talks, the answers have a humanist agenda.  Here’s an excerpt from the transcript.  Piff says, “In one study, we had people watch a brief video, just 46 seconds long, about childhood poverty that served as a reminder of the needs of others in the world around them. And after watching that, we looked at how willing people were to offer up their own time to a stranger presented to them in the lab, who was in distress. After watching this video, an hour later, rich people became just as generous of their own time to help out this other person, a stranger, as someone who's poor, suggesting that these differences are not innate or categorical, but are so malleable to slight changes in people's values, and little nudges of compassion and bumps of empathy. “

Nice idea, but wrong; at least I think so.  Jesus would say that the difference are indeed innate and categorical.  What do we humans do the moment we have power and possessions?  We think they are ours.  We leverage them.  We look to them for protection and we work to protect them.  Jesus said, “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

I think the beginnings of his premise are correct – more wealth does tend to make people more mean, but the solutions he offers later are misguided.  I suggest it makes perfect sense that people of means will want to reject Jesus’ teachings.  They want to depend upon themselves, not God.  And when you do that you begin to become your own moral compass.

One of the inescapable facts about life is that it ends in death.  Commentator R. Alan Culpepper notes, “For those who have no faith and no knowledge of God, death stands as the final denial of life.  All that we may attempt or do is eventually swept away by time.”  (New Interpreter’s Commentary, Volume 9, Pg. 410)

In the Old Testament apocryphal work called Wisdom of Solomon we find this in Chapter 2:

‘Short and sorrowful is our life,and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end,and no one has been known to return from Hades.For we were born by mere chance,and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been,for the breath in our nostrils is smoke,and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts;when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.Our name will be forgotten in time,and no one will remember our works;our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,and be scattered like mistthat is chased by the rays of the sunand overcome by its heat.For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,and there is no return from our death,because it is sealed up and no one turns back.”

I’d like to hear a TED talk about that undeniable truth sometime!

Here on All Saints Sunday we remember those who have died in the last year.  Their memory is fresh in our minds.  In time that will change.  And even if we remember them perfectly, in time we will die too.  Eventually no one will remember.  That’s a depressing way to live!

The Bible teaches us that beyond the end of life, and in today’s gospel reading – the end of time, stands the Lord.  Those who live under Jesus’ lordship can live expectantly, filling each moment with meaningful activity. 

Every moment is an opportunity to contribute to God’s kingdom.  If you are rich and focused on your Lord you will not be greedy.  And if you are poor and focused on God you will not be lacking for capacity to serve.

For those who have died, and for us who have yet to take that journey, the end of life and the end of time holds no terror for us.  God’s love is bigger and stronger than any force in this world, bigger and stronger than death, even bigger and stronger than time itself.

Jesus said of the end, “Stand up, raise your heads, because your redemption has drawn near.” (21:28)

No matter how foreign and strange our gospel reading may seem, these words of Jesus underly it.  I love the art on the cover of our bulletin.  It is an artistic depiction of the risen Christ.  You can see that in him reside all the seasons, the sun, moon, and stars, and much more.  Christ is all and in all.  And so we can say as the cover of our bulletins say, “Even at the grave we make our song, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.”

Oct. 27, 2019 Conference Assembly - Reformation Sunday John 8:31-36

            Every time you hear this Reformation Sunday gospel reading I hope you laugh inside.  The Pharisees say to Jesus, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone, what do you mean by saying, “You will be made free?”’  What!?!

While they themselves may never have been enslaved they ironically ignore the origin of their nation and their faith.  You know the story well.  Judaism as a faith was born as God rescued them from centuries of slavery in Egypt.  God freeing them from slavery was their founding!

But that’s just the beginning of the irony.  The Jews were never a powerful nation.  They were bullied about by their stronger neighbors from the beginning.  And they were hardly ever actually free.  In the 7^th Century B.C. they were almost totally conquered by the Assyrians.  In the 6^th Century B.C. the Babylonians did conquer them; and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. 

Then the Persians ruled them.

Then the Greeks.

Then they were caught in the struggle as the Greek Empire fell apart.

Then a little bit of independence before the Romans ruled them.

            Never slaves!?!  Maybe they hadn’t been literally enslaved, but they were certainly ruled by every major empire that arose from the Bronze age to the Romans.

            And let’s remember their plight in the first century.  The were ruled by the Romans and their homeland was heavily occupied by the Roman armies.  Why?  Because the land had strategic importance to the Romans.  We often forget that in the 1^st Century immediately to the east of the Roman Empire was the Parthian Empire.  The Parthians were every bit as populous and every bit as massive as the Romans.  Each empire kept a wary eye on the other.  Jewish territory was a strategic buffer for the Romans.  It was so militarized they could forget any freedom.

            In literal truth and in spiritual truth, those Pharisees were enslaved, and so blind to their slavery that they couldn’t even see it.

            Here on Reformation Sunday we can laugh at their blindness, but before we do, let’s make sure we aren’t blind ourselves.  You’ll remember this line quite well, “Take the log out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

            On Reformation Sunday we celebrate – we champion – the idea of being saved by grace through faith.  God has acted.  God has won the battle with sin.  We are set free.  It is not by our own merit but by the pure love and grace of God who delights in us.  God does not want to see us enslaved to sin.  God wants us to be free as God created us to be.

            Perhaps we will reply, “We are Americans.  We are a global power.  We are not slaves to anyone.  Even if our ancestors were among those who were enslaved, there are no slaves among us now!”
            That could be taken any number of directions, but I suggest we have left ourselves become enslaved.

            What is of ultimate importance in life?  God’s love.  God’s love is the ultimate power and the ultimate hope we have.  Nothing else – NOTHING – is important compared to that. 

            If you serve on your church council, what did you talk about at your last council meeting?  Was it about the supremacy of God’s love?

            I miss a lot as the dean of this conference, but I’m not totally blind!  I know what you talk about!

You talk about dwindling Sunday morning attendance.

You talk so few kids in worship, or no kids at all.

You talk about finances, paying the bills, and keeping a pastor.

You talk about maintaining the building.

You talk about not having enough volunteers to keep things going.

You talk about trying old ways that used to work, and trying them harder and harder and harder.

            Are we free my brothers and sisters in Christ, or are we slaves?

            For many of us we are slaves to an idea, a concept of what a successful church looks like. 

-That is a building with a sanctuary, a Sunday school wing, and of extreme importance to us food-minded Lutherans, a kitchen!

-That is a worship service on a Sunday morning with a crowd of people in the pews led by a professional theologian called a pastor, and there’s a choir, and a liturgy, and communion, and special music, and all that.

-That is having a pastor – preferably full-time, and a secretary, and a paid organist/choir director.  And maybe a youth director. And a janitor or cleaning service.

            Slaves we are!

            We need to remember something, and remember it well!  That vision of church is not, and has never been, the norm!  It is a short-term vision of American Christianity that developed after World War 2 and lasted for a few decades.  That’s it.

            The congregation I serve, St. John’s in Victor, did not have Sunday morning worship for the first half of its existence.  For many years they worshipped every other Sunday in the afternoon.

            I grew up in a Lutheran Church that until 1972 was part of a union church – two churches sharing one building: a Lutheran Church and a Reformed (or UCC) church.  The Reformed church was part of a two-point parish.  The Lutheran Church was part of a five-point parish.

            Where oh where did we get the idea that it is so essential, and so much the historical norm, that we have our own pastor for Sunday morning worship every week?

And that it is God’s vision of the church and how it should work?

And that it is the only way we can serve God?

And that it is the only way we could possibly ever flourish?

            We are slaves!

            None of it – NONE – is essential to salvation!

            We Lutherans have a term that we like to use for that sort of stuff- adiaphora; that which is trivial, that which isn’t important, that which is not necessary for salvation.

            Be free my brothers and sisters in Christ from the enslaving power of stuff that is adiaphora!

            You are loved by God.  You are beautiful people!  You are capable people!  You are God’s chosen people for this time and this place to handle these challenges… in the same way the Pharisees that day that challenged Jesus were also God’s chosen people.  But they were blind.

            You are not blind.  You know the story.  Jesus will be captured and arrested.  Jesus will be mocked and beaten.  Jesus will be killed in the most ignominious and painful was ever devised by humans.

            And we get all worked up about stupid things like money and attendance and an aging furnace in our buildings.

            God’s love conquers death!  God wins!  Nothing can stop it!

            We are saved by grace through faith.  It is true.  It is secure.  It has been done.  It is an unchangeable fact and part of history.  You cannot undo history.  Therefore nothing else matters.

            You are freed by God’s love.  Enjoy it!  Rejoice in it!  You have a permanent place in God’s household.  Do not worry about unimportant things.  God’s got it under control!  And God is drawing it all forward into His sure and certain future!

Oct. 27, 2019 Saved By Grace – Reformation Sunday Luke 13:22-30

            In our gospel reading someone gets straight to the point with Jesus and clearly asks the ultimate question of salvation and our existence: “Lord, will only a few be saved?”  We wait for Jesus’ answer with baited breath.  How hard will it be?  If Jesus answers few, then it will be very hard indeed.  If he answers many, then maybe it won’t be so hard and we can sit back and relax a bit.

            Of course typical to Jesus’ style he doesn’t give a straightforward answer.  In fact, we wonder if he answers at all.  He says the door is narrow and many will try to enter but not be able.  Then he says the door will be shut period.  Then he says people from all over: from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God.  That suggests many, perhaps even an infinite number.

            But what does it actually mean?  He’s talking like a politician!

            Jewish teachings at the time gave different answers.  In some places it seems like God makes a great banquet and welcomes many.  In other places it seems like it will be very few.  And two important issues are coming into play.  What gave a person status?  Was it their heritage/bloodline?  Or - was it their work and accomplishments?  Different schools of thought had different answers. 

Many Jews felt that being biological descendants of Abraham automatically gave them privileged status before God.  Their scriptures, the Old Testament, said over and over again that they were God’s chosen nation.  And indeed their incredible ability to survive century after century being ruled by every major empire of the Middle East was amazing.  Other cultures and religions did not have their resilience.

The superior status because of bloodline however, is denounced; although not by Jesus.  It is by John the Baptist who says to the crowds, “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.’”

            So being chosen by God has nothing to do with heritage.  But then does it mean it relies on work and accomplishments?  Is that what Jesus is teaching?  It sounds tempting actually but then we quickly run into problems.  What about faith?  What about grace – that unearned favor of God?  This is Reformation Sunday after all!

            We want solid answers.  We want to know things for certain.  We want things on terms we can understand.  Or perhaps I should say we want things on our terms.  I don’t mean that in a selfish way – I just mean in things and categories that fit our understanding of life.

            Imagine that you’re looking for an apartment to rent.  You find one advertised.  It lists the price, the location, and some limits like ‘aquarium pets only’.  You figure that you can bring your fish bowl with your gold fish but you can’t have a dog.  You go and check out the apartment.  You like it.  You make a deposit and sign the lease.  You figure that as long as you stick to your end of the bargain the landlord has to keep up the landlord’s end.  If something breaks or needs maintenance the landlord will take care of it.  And from your end, as long as you pay the rent, don’t wreck the place, and keep to having just your goldfish in an aquarium you’re fine.  If you don’t pay the rent you could be evicted.  If you bring in a dog you could be in trouble.  It’s a simple two-way set of expectations.

            People inadvertently think the same thing about their relationship with God.  They do their part – they act the way God wants them to act, or act in a way that will keep God happy, and then God will do his part – letting people into heaven.  The question then is, what is the threshold of behavior that God wants to see?  And as I said at the beginning, depending on whether there will be many saved or few people can figure out whether that threshold is high or low.  But on this Reformation Sunday we remember that this whole way of thinking is totally wrong.

            I did a lot of driving last week.  And as I’m going from place to place I often listen to the radio.  Sometimes when I get too sick of listening to political stuff on the radio I switch to Christian stations.  And sometimes it doesn’t take too long until I get sick of that too. 

            What I hear all too much of drives me nuts.  That is advice about how to live in a way that God likes.  Some pastor or theologian takes a Bible passage verse by verse and explains how it teaches us to live.  Christians then should to live that way in order to please God.  The advice isn’t bad advice, it’s just that I think the whole basis is misguided.

            Too many people think that life is about living in a way that pleases God.  And you’ll also remember me saying this so often that you’re probably sick of it: too many people think that God has an individual plan for their life and they have to figure it out, or they have to endure something because they’re sure God is teaching them something they need to have for the future. 

Not so!  While these are all good hearted ideas, they miss the point.  Underneath the premise is the idea that life is a test to see if we can be good enough; and to see if we can please God.  But that is not the purpose of life.  Life is not a test.

            Being saved by grace through faith puts us into a completely different relationship with God, and it completely reorients the way we understand our lives.

            Don’t be driven by the idea that you have to live in a way that pleases God.  And don’t think God has an individual purpose and plan for your life that you have to follow.  That’s just not how it works.

            God delights in the creation he has made.  And God made you and delights in you.  Yes, we all have fallen short of the goodness that God made us for, but God forgives us and still wants to work with us.  God has a plan, but that is not an individual plan for each of us.  God has a plan for the whole creation.  And God invites us to participate in it.  What God really wants is to work with us, alongside us.

            Do you see the difference?  It’s not God challenging us to get it right.  Instead it’s God inviting us, valuing us, wanting to work with us, to do something big.

            A good parent wants to work with his or her children; do things together, grow together, learn together, play together.  That’s the way God wants to be with us.

            The world changes all the time.  And so working in God’s kingdom changes all the time too.  God did not make us for one and only one set purpose.  God made us able to learn and grow and adapt.

            One of my favorite movies of all time is Apollo 13.  You may remember that the Apollo 13 mission was to continue exploration on the moon’s surface.  But along the way to the moon something went wrong.  The command module was damaged to an unknown degree.  The mission to the moon was scrapped and the goal became just getting the three astronauts back to earth alive.  But how to do it?  Lots of stuff was going wrong.  There wasn’t enough energy.  There wasn’t a way to keep breathable air for the astronauts.  The computer guidance systems necessary to get them back weren’t working.  The whole thing became shooting from the hip.

            Tempers in the Houston control center were running high.  There was lots of finger pointing and hand wringing.  At one point the mission commander bellows to the flight leaders, “I don’t care what it was designed to do.  I want to know what it can do!”          It took a lot of creativity, and skills, and some luck but ultimately the astronauts made it back to earth safely.

            I don’t think life doing God’s work is about living as if you have some preset design and skills.  If it was that way then if you see you have the skills to do something then you do it, and if you don’t have the skills then you figure it’s for someone else. 

That’s not how life works.  There is a task to be done.  Skilled or not, we creatively engage it. 

            Remember, God is about love.  Love doesn’t follow preset rules.  Love is dynamic.  It knows no bounds.  It has no limits.

            “Lord, will the those who are saved be few?”

            Wrong question.  Wrong way of understanding life.  Don’t think that way.

            Jesus’ response seems self-contradictory, but it is not.

            He is moving people beyond thinking about pleasing God and instead moving them into how God’s love works.

            Will you go to heaven?  I know that’s a big question for many.  But don’t worry about it.  God loves you.  Focus on that.  When you mess up totally and feel like a shame-filled failure, God still loves you.  God still wants you.  God still intends to work with you.  God is pleased with you.  God still sees and intends to work with the possibilities within you.  So we care about God’s work because God cares about us.