(My role as the conference dean required me to be at the South Wedge Mission this Sunday. I wrote this "letter" to be read in place of a sermon.)
To the brothers
and sisters in Christ at St. John’s Lutheran Church of Victor,
Grace and peace to
you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am thankful for
the way we have been handling the difficult issues arising from our national
leadership. Tension and anger are
running high across most of our nation.
I know that we hold different opinions and have different viewpoints. It is good that we have not buried our head
in the sand about these things. Thus far
we have been able to disagree in ways that feel constructive. I pray that continues. I will come back to that in a couple minutes.
First, I want to
explain my absence today. As you know, I
am the dean of the Genesee-Finger Lakes Conference. At the bishop’s request I am attending
worship at the South Wedge Mission.
You’ll remember that we used to be a financial backer of it and included
it in our prayers on Sundays.
For the last few
years the mission has been working to leave mission status and be organized as
a regular congregation. That is proving
to be difficult. Many of the members of
the mission have been hurt by churches in the past. Many do not trust the church. It is good that they have found the mission to
be a place for their faith. The problem
is that when such people try to form a congregation they discover that many of
the things they don’t like about the church are inescapable.
The present status
of the mission cannot continue indefinitely.
Bishop Miller has been in conversation with Rev. Matthew Nickoloff, the
mission developer, for the past couple of years. They have determined it would be best for
Pastor Nickoloff to resign and work elsewhere.
Today is his last Sunday. I have
been asked to go as a show of support from the larger church. There is a plan for the mission to become a
regular congregation by the middle of this year. While there are still issues to work out, there
is no reason why that will not happen.
Now to our gospel
reading. This is called the “Sermon on
the Plain” in Luke’s gospel. It’s
similar to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel. Luke’s version is shorter, and he records it
taking place on a level place rather than a mountain. Here we have Jesus’ teaching of what living
as his disciples looks like. These are
not words we like to hear though! They
upend just about everything in our lives.
Underneath all of
what Jesus teaches is our need for God’s mercy.
It is easy for us to think that we can overcome evil. Or that we can somehow become truly good by
force of will. We convince ourselves
that moral living is truly possible. All
of these are misguided ideas. The truth
is that we are inescapably trapped in sin.
There is no way out. We cannot
get out by some form of superior morality.
We can’t get out by science. We
can’t get out through any sort of political or economic system.
Jesus said to take
the log out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of your
neighbor’s eye. The image hurts to think
about! But let’s look at a few logs in
our own eyes.
Here’s one. Many people want to live environmentally
conscious lives. That’s a good
thing! But what does that look
like? Driving an electric car? Eating organic locally grown food? Recycling all that you can?
According to
geologist Scott Tinker we need to reduce our energy consumption by something
like 94% in order to be truly environmentally sustainable. More energy use than that puts the world on a
path to irreversible disaster. If he is
even remotely close to correct, then we need to say goodbye to life as we know
it: Goodbye cars. Goodbye computers and cell phones. Goodbye air conditioning. Goodbye to pretty much all medicine and medical
care.
Here's a second
log. We easily believe that we can
overcome any and every problem through science and engineering. I certainly like to believe that! But it has problems too. We are reaching the limits of many
things. Computers are a great
example. Moore’s Law is that the speed
and capability of computers will double every two years. This ‘law’ has held true for several
decades, but we’re reaching the limits.
Silicone computer chips are running up against quantum
indeterminacy. Some significant improvements
are sure to come, but this is a reminder that the fabric of the universe has
its limits. It is impossible for us
humans to get past them.
And a final third
log. I’ve shared this one in sermons
recently. Modern medicine pats itself on
the back for the way vaccines and basic health care have caused child mortality
rates across the world to plummet.
That’s great! But… consider the
African continent. Now that many more
children are growing up there isn’t enough food or water on the continent to
support them. So wars ensue which leads
them to killing each other as adults.
Here's an ugly
truth. What we humans call “progress”
always creates a vicious circle of destruction.
There’s no such thing as the ‘moral high ground’. Both conservatives and liberals; both
capitalists and socialists; both environmentalists and those who say, “Drill
baby drill!” are all unable to escape it.
Such is the way
evil wraps itself inextricably into our best intentions. Such is the nature of sin.
I don’t write this
to make us feel guilty. I write it as a
reminder to us that there’s no escape.
All sin and fall short of the glory of God. When we see another person with whom we
vehemently disagree, we still realize that we ourselves are also part of the
mess and depend entirely on God’s grace.
Theologian R. Alan
Culpepper notes, “Judging is the sin of those who are blind to their own
faults. It is the obsession of those who
seek to make themselves better, not by lifting themselves up, but by bringing
others down. It is the mock justice of
those who presume to know what others should do. The log in our own eye hardly qualifies us to
judge the faults of our brothers and sisters.”
(New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 9, Pg. 152)
Jesus preached
about building a house on sand or on rock.
The house built on rock is the house of someone who dares to dig and dig
and dig – dig deep enough to build their life on the bedrock truth of the need
for God and nothing else. When we build
from there we are indestructible regardless of what comes.
Jesus also
preached blessings to the poor and the woes to the rich. Let’s make sure we understand what being rich
means. Jesus does not have threshold of
wealth in mind based upon the value of your house or the balance of your
retirement savings. The rich are those
who have the ability to reliably provide for themselves. They can rely on money to buy them food,
shelter, clothing, and safety. In other
words, the rich are those who can fool themselves into thinking they don’t need
God to meet their basic needs.
Pretty much all of
us fall into Jesus’ category of the rich.
We make decisions based upon economic security. We vote based on which leaders will be best
for the economy. Having money gives us
choice over our living environment and the appearance we present to the outside
world. It is easy for money to become
the dominant force in our lives.
Once again, we
find that we have no way out of this. We
cannot leave the economy without becoming homeless and thus a burden upon
others. That’s not what Jesus wants from
his disciples either!
What does faithful
discipleship look like for us?
When we build from
our inescapable sinfulness it should not make us feel crippled and guilty and
bad. It is a strong recognition of
reality. It is the foundation of rock
that our house of faith is built upon.
Jesus teaches trust in God, which leads to a discipleship that is
robust.
Here's how it
works. In the sermon Jesus talks about a
tree producing good fruit or bad fruit.
The root of producing good fruit with your life is trusting God and
recognizing your need for God’s grace.
That gives you three things: humility, a good work ethic, and wisdom for
action. The answers will seldom be
easy. They may not always be clear. But if you follow them you do discover what
Jesus promises: a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing will
be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get
back.”
This is not a
wealth accumulation strategy. It is a
strategy for an indestructible sense of self that God alone provides. Nothing and no one can ever take that from
you. It is your blessing from God for
all eternity. There is no greater
blessing.
As we move forward
into the future, which is filled with uncertainties, we can be certain of God’s
grace for us. We will flourish as long
as we depend upon it. We will fail if we
do not. Through our own strength we can
share the promises of God’s strength to others who are lost and failing. God’s kingdom does indeed come, and it grows
among us. Amen.
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