April 13, 2025 Palm Sunday Luke 19:28-48

             Ever called anybody, “dumb as a rock”?  It’s not a compliment to be sure!  We usually use the word “dumb” to refer to a lack of intelligence.  (Rocks certainly lack intelligence!)  But of course the word dumb really means the inability to speak.  Perhaps a person is unable to speak because they lack the intellectual ability to do so.  It should be noted that it does actually take quite a bit of mental power to be able to: form thoughts, translate them into language, and then have the muscle coordination to be able to create recognizable sound patterns called words.  (Although given how much many unintelligent people have to say, one could wonder how much brain power speech actually does need!)

            We should note that highly intelligent people may be technically dumb.  The late Stephen Hawking was brilliant scientist, but disease rendered him wheel chair bound and unable to speak for much of his life.  I had a neighbor growing up who was probably a genius, but he frequently spoke with a stutter.

            Whatever link there may or may not be between intelligence and speech, we can all agree that rocks don’t talk.  They are truly dumb in every sense of the word.  Or are they?
            When Jesus comes in to the city of Jerusalem on that Sunday centuries ago a crowd of disciples welcomed him in by spreading their cloaks on the road and spreading palm branches.  They cried out, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”  Some Pharisees took issue with this.  They told Jesus to tell his followers to stop.  But Jesus responds, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

            But of course stones don’t shout out!  Yet let’s note that stones play a role quite often in Luke’s gospel.  Jesus mentions stones crying out right here.  Later in today’s gospel reading Jesus will be lamenting the future of Jerusalem and say, “…they will not leave one stone upon another.”  Indeed, almost 40 years later the Romans did completely level the entire city.  In Luke 20:17 Jesus says, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”  And there also, “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush everyone on whom it falls.”

            In the gospel reading for next Sunday we’ll encounter the stone that seals Jesus’ tomb.  We’ll discover that that stone acts in a very un-stone-like way.

            Near the beginning of Luke’s gospel we read about the ministry of John the Baptist.  John said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “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.” 

            We know full well that stones can’t talk, as Jesus said they could.  And we certainly know that stones can’t become children to Abraham, as John the Baptist said they could.  Yet Luke is making a point about God’s power here.

            Let’s also note that stones show up twice in testing of Jesus by the devil in the wilderness.  There the devil tempts Jesus to do a major spectacle by throwing himself off the temple with the quote, “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”

            And finally, the devil says to Jesus, who is famished after not eating for 40 days, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”  After all, the wilderness is full of stones.  What’s one more or less?  Who will know?  Well, if we consider the perspective of Luke’s gospel, the stone will know!

            As we consider all these stones that have the power to: talk, become children, crush things, or become a loaf of bread let’s remember the story from Exodus 19 where God meets the people of Israel in the wilderness after they’ve left slavery in Egypt.  Moses is commanded by God to go up Mount Siani.  Limits are set all around the mountain so that no person or animal approaches it lest they die.  On the day Moses is to go up there is thunder and lightning as well as thick clouds.  The mountain trembles and quakes with the presence of God upon it.  It is as if the very molecules the mountain was made of were trembling with their proximity to God.

            Reformation theologian Martin Luther was not a pantheist.  Pantheists believe that everything is God; or that God is everything.  He was, however, what we’d call a panentheist.  That is, that God is present in all things; or all things bear God’s presence.  This is certainly true as we remember that to exist is to be in God’s presence, for apart from God existence is not possible.  Stones are the presence of God.

            Certainly stones cannot speak.  That’s a scientific reality.  They also cannot think.  They do not have brains.  And yet, as Luke suggests to his readers, stones do bear God’s presence …with a certain sensibility.  The stones along the road the day Jesus entered Jerusalem recognized the presence of the Savior of the universe entering the city.  The stones that the city was built with, all of which would be thrown down into rubble forty years later, recognized that God incarnate was there.

            How about the Pharisees who witnessed the praises of the crowds of disciples Jesus as he entered the city and told them to be quiet?  How about the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people as they look for a way to kill Jesus?  How come these intelligent, highly educated, well-spoken experts in theology didn’t get it?  Were they dumber than rocks?  Apparently so.

            Perhaps the better question to ask is, are we?

            The religious leaders who opposed Jesus had a lot on their minds that week.  Jerusalem was jam packed with people for the Passover holiday.  The place was bursting at the seams.  Pontius Pilate, who preferred to be at his sea-side home on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, had probably come into Jerusalem some days before with perhaps a legion of troops as a show of force, and to keep the peace should the Jewish crowds become unruly.  If you were a Jewish religious leader you feared a riot.

            You also feared unorthodox teachings.  You feared that the strong and strict teachings that preserved Jewish faith and identity would be forgotten or watered down.  Keeping faith strong was an ongoing battle.

            And then you have Jesus of Nazareth, an uneducated itinerant preacher from up north somewhere unimportant, who comes riding into down with disciples proclaiming him Lord and king.  He’s known to have teachings that are questionable.  Then, as Luke tells it, as soon as Jesus gets into Jerusalem, he heads into the temple and starts driving the merchants and money changers out calling it a den of robbers.  From that perspective, what would you do?

            When you hear of tariffs and stock market tumbles, what occupies your mind?  When you think of inflation and interest rates, what world view dominates your thoughts?  Federal workforce restricting, tax rates, immigration, wildfires, climate change, mass extinctions, floods, earthquakes, wars in: Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, and many other places, instability in Haiti; not to mention your own personal overstressed: finances, schedule, medical needs, and who knows what all else…

            I think we could rightly claim that all of that is important.  None of it should be shrugged off or ignored.  And yet, in the midst of all of that; and in the midst of all of our education and talents and abilities and intelligence, could we recognize the presence of Jesus entering?  Or are we also dumb as rocks?

            I suspect we very well might be.

            There is good news for us.  All four of the gospels record the crucifixion of Jesus.  Of the four only Luke’s gospel records Jesus saying from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  He doesn’t say it to anyone in particular.  I think he meant it for everyone – even people who are as dumb as rocks.

            Quite likely the stones that pave the church parking lot, and the concrete under the carpet that is under our feet, or the foundation of the home you are in for those of you who are watching online, would do a better job of recognizing Jesus than we can.  But our God loves us.  Jesus didn’t die to save the stones.  They’re smart enough not to sin.  Jesus died to save us.

            We can live and move and be with a sense of joy and delight, despite our failings.  We should live with the perspective that all things that fill our minds are relatively unimportant clutter that keeps us from recognizing Jesus.  We are stronger, and we are more loving, when we keep God truly at the center of our lives, and we can build from there.  And maybe, just maybe, we’ll even be smart enough to be like the stones who can recognize the presence of God and respond.

April 6, 2025 Miracles and Grace Luke 8:22-56

             Today’s gospel reading is a quite a collection of miracles:  A storm is calmed.  A man who is violently demon possessed is cured and a herd of pigs is drowned.  A woman is healed.  And a girl is restored to life.  In these miracles Jesus shows he has power of the forces of nature.  He has the power to cure people’s mental and physical problems.  He even has the power to bring people back from the dead.  It’s enough to make us jealous.  Why can’t we have such things in our lives today?

            In the first book of the Harry Potter series Harry is told by Hagrid, a failed wizard, that he has magic powers and is to go to school to be trained on how to use them.  Harry asks that if there are still magicians everywhere why do they stay secret?  Hagrid replies, “Blimey, Harry, everyone’d be wantin’ magic solutions to their problems.  Nah, we’re best left alone.”

            Indeed, I would go for magic solutions to life’s problems.  I’d love to be able to wave a magic wand and have someone be cured from a painful ailment.  I’d love to have some magic that would make the check engine light go off in my car when it comes on.  It would be great to be able to fix a broken glass or clean up a mess with an incantation and the wave of a wand.  Also, wouldn’t it be great to be able to prevent earthquakes, calm hurricanes, and put out wildfires?

            I think we have every right to look at the biblical stories of Jesus’ miraculous powers and wish we could experience them ourselves.

            There have long been attempts to dismiss Jesus’ miracles.  For centuries rational thinkers have dismissed them as made up stories or wishful thinking.  They point out that many people in the ancient world across many faiths have been credited with miraculous abilities.  Jesus is just one more of them.

            They make a good point.  And yet, many critically thinking scholars do point out that given the diversity of sources and the variety of miracles Jesus is credit as doing, there has to be at least some measure of historical reality behind them.  In other words Jesus really did have the power to perform miracles.

            So our jealously is well founded.  When we see others hurting, or when we’re hurting ourselves, we want help.  Perhaps the problem has been caused by our own greed or stupidity.  That’s one thing.  We can accept that we’re not going to get help from God.  We’ll learn our lesson the hard way.  But there are too many things that are not at all our fault.  I’m reminded of the news story recently about a Rochester area high school senior who was hit by a drunk driver who was traveling at a high rate of speed.  The car was so badly damaged that it took emergency crews over an hour to get him out of the vehicle.  The boy was severely injured and went into surgery.  He is expected to recover fairly well, but he’s a track star and had received an athletic scholarship to a Division 1 school.  Those days are over.  The accident has ruined his athletic career and will impact the rest of his life.  If God has miraculous powers, where were they?  Why didn’t God prevent the accident?  Why didn’t God tweak the circumstances so he wasn’t injured as badly?  Or why didn’t God fix his injuries fully and completely?  And why should he suffer so much pain when it is in no way shape or form his fault?

            Even if we weren’t the recipients of miracles, wouldn’t credible stories about them strengthen our faith?  Wouldn’t it be great if living a faithful life made a measurable difference in a person’s health, well-being, standard of living, and all of that?  At best you can reach some slight conclusions to that effect, but you can also argue that authentic Christian faith is just living by healthy life-principles, and so statistically you could expect marginally better lives for people who live that way.

            Let’s put a philosophical twist on this.  We’ve traveled down this path in sermons before.  We’ve all been born.  There’s no debating that.  And somewhere along the line a sense of consciousness developed within us.  We know that we exist, and we can think about what it means to exist.  We also know that we are individuals, but in community with individuals.  And then like Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, God has given us a sense of time and eternity.  We know that the world existed before us.  It will exist after us.  We did not create it.  Something or Someone has created this universe and us in it.  We have no power over any of it.  We just came to be without any say so on our part.  But is there existence after death?  Is there eternal bliss?  Is there eternal damnation?  How do we please God so as to be sure God will be good to us?

            Good luck coming up with sure answers about any of that!  From a critical thinking perspective, we know we owe our eternal existence to a Being we cannot understand, control, or even influence in any certain way.  Yet all of this is ultimate for us!  Eternity depends upon it!

            Our American society today is a mess beyond all measure.  I’m not talking about the world of politics.  I’m saying that our society is a secular, wealth-oriented, shallow, pleasure-seeking pit of filthy over-consumption.  In the midst of this septic tank of vileness that we swim in, how do we know what is right and what is wrong?  Our society no longer has roots for meaningful ethical conversations.

I recently heard an interview with a former politician.  He was asked what he thought of President Trump undermining so much of current environmental protection policies.  He said it didn’t really matter all that much because we’ve never had meaningful environmental policies.  We just do token things to make us feel better about ourselves and ignore the mess we make.

So, how do we even know what is right?  How do we even know what God wants?  We regularly pray, “Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done,” but what does that mean?  How do we live that out?  Martin Luther’s morning prayer in the Small Catechism includes, “I ask that you would also protect me today from sin and all evil, so that my life and actions may please you.”  But what does that mean?  With our limited knowledge and the complete mess that we are as a species, how can we even begin to know that we are pleasing God?

Yes, we have every right to want miracles, and to want clear teachings from God.  And we have every right to be scared or mad because of the absence of them.  But unless you have an inside track into the mind of God that I don’t have, we’re all in the same boat here.

So thus enters the real truth that we need.  It is the truth of God’s grace.  God knows our needs and our yearnings.  God knows they are deep and that they are ultimate for us.  And yet God, in God’s infinite wisdom (or perhaps foolishness depending on your point of view) does not give us magic solutions to our problems.  Yet God does not let us wallow around abandoned in our mess either.

Grace is defined as unearned, or unmerited favor.  If God gave us miracles to turn us to Him, we’d be missing the whole point.  We’d turn to God because we wanted more, not because we felt loved.  And if God gave us clear answers to everything and the will-power to do it all on our own, then we’d be able to earn our way into deserving God’s love.

The only way our faith can be truly authentic and not coerced, is if it is based on grace.  Ironically we need to realize that we are in a mess that we cannot get out of.  We need to know that we are absolutely deprived of the ability to reach God or to do things that God wants.  If we could do those things we’d pat ourselves on the back for how good we are, or were capable of being.  But as it is, the only thing we can say for sure about the human condition is that we can mess things up particularly well.

What God truly wants from us, and what truly brings about God’s kingdom is not a righteous set of actions or a superior ethic, or a truly good environmental protection policy.  It is a relationship with God based on knowing that the goodness only ever flows one way – from God to us.  In the midst of our powerlessness, God invites us to trust in the power of his love.

Miraculous solutions to problems only builds a shallow consumptive love and a weak faith.  Crying to God in helplessness opens us to the amazingness that God loves us unconditionally.  If you plan to exploit that unconditional love you’ve missed the point.  If you can be in awe of it, then it becomes powerful in your life.  It is a source of true life and energy.

Yes, on one level I deeply want miracles to happen all around me.  But at a deeper level I’m glad they don’t.  Jesus performed miracles to prove that he indeed was the Son of God.  He was both divine and human.  But he did not perform miracles in order to convert people.  Over and over again he rejected those who wanted miracles and deeds of power from him.

Instead, well, you know the story well.  Instead he died in the midst of the mess we people make.  There was nothing miraculous there.  It is actually the powerlessness of our faith that is the strength of our faith.

So, cry out to God with the broken mess we live in.  Use that as a foundation to receive God’s grace.  And then, discover what it is to be truly fully human and alive.