Sermons

March 26, 2017 Text: John 9:1-41

Dear Friends in Christ,

U2 is an Irish rock band that was formed in 1976. Their lead singer is Paul Hewson, better known to the world as Bono. Bono is known for his humanitarian work throughout the world. Asked what drives him, what makes him tick, Bono answered, “It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between grace and karma.”
We are with Jesus this morning as he heals a blind man. What is the reason for the healing?
“KARMA? I’LL TAKE GRACE!”
Now, it’s no small thing to take on karma. John Lennon sang about instant karma. Radiohead warned of the karma police. But what is it? It’s the idea that what goes around comes around. Did you catch the video some time ago with a man in a pickup truck who tailgates a woman, and then passes her, while triumphantly displaying his middle finger? And just after that, his trucks spins out, and he crashes into a ditch. That is karma and people love it. He got what was coming to him.
On the other side is the pay-it-forward campaign. You know where you buy someone’s Egg Mcmuffin in the car behind you or pay for someone’s parking at a sporting event, something that actually happened to Toni and I when we were dating. It is suppose to be good karma. It sets the universe in motion in your favor.
As the prophet Bono puts it, “You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; in physical laws every action is met by an equal and opposite one.”
So it happened that Jesus was walking along, and came across a man born blind. And the disciples asked the karma question, “Who sinned? This man or his parents?” (v. 2) And we are comfortable with this question because it helps us make sense of the world. A man has cancer? Well, yeah, he smoked for over forty years. Kidney problems? Drank too much. Heart attack? Not enough diet or exercise. Car accident? Drove too fast or were texting. And I would never do that, we are pleased to say.
So, why was the man born blind? Was it because of his sin? Or perhaps the sin of his parents? I know what I would say to the karma question and it wouldn’t be the karma answer. I would say that one sin infects us all. Yes, certain sins have specific consequences, built into the way the world functions, but death is going to happen to each and every one of us, no matter how well we live, no matter how righteous and good we think we might be. We’ve all sinned and all creation suffers. The world is broken.
Give an answer like that and you can get an A in your dogmatics class at the seminary. But Jesus doesn’t just offer that simple answer, instead, he says, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (v. 3)
Talk about mind-blowing. Sin, in all its negativity, has actually set in motion a chain of events that ends, not with disaster, but with mysterious blessing. Is that possible? And do we really want to gloat? To take pleasure in someone getting his comeuppance? “If karma was finally going to be my judge,” Bono said, “then I’d be in deep doodoo.”
Paul Hewson Bono then added, “I’m holding out for grace; I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.”
It was never God’s plan that man fall into sin. It was never God’s intention that there would be illness and death, or that men would be born blind. And yet, in the mystery of his grace, in the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, our Lord took a fallen situation and not only restored it, but made it better than it ever was. By the mystery of the incarnation and the glory of the cross, we have come to see God as we never could before: face-to-face, in full and sacrificial love. A paradise better than Eden awaits us.
We have experienced a love that has been tested, a love that has been challenged, a love that goes beyond a mutually beneficial relationship. And having been forgiven much, what can we do but fall to our knees?
Yes, God loves the angels. But the angels are good. And it’s easy to love those who love you in return. Even the pagans do this. But we have received a greater love. We have been shown a more beautiful grace. He has taken us creatures and turned us into children. And no, the world still hasn’t found what it’s looking for. The world in its worldliness is blind; the world looks at the font, and they don’t think it’s worth a bucket of spit. But we, whose eyes have been opened, see a crystal fountain, a river of life flowing from the throne of God, and the Lamb who has been slain.
Bono’s right. It is a miracle that the God of the universe is seeking out the company of folks like us. But that’s what he’s done. What happened to the man born blind? We know he became an outcast and even his parents distanced themselves from him. But our Lord sought him out. Our Lord took friendship and mercy and turned it into full communion.
So, yeah, karma sounds cool. But on this one, I’m with Bono. I’d rather have grace. We’ll never be rock stars, but we can join together with him in another band and sing together the song of the Lamb, the song of love unknown.
Amen.

March 12, 2017 Text: Romans 4:1-8, 13-17

Dear Friends in Christ,

Back in the eighteenth century, the mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg sarcastically described the Lutheran as a man locked up in a dark room pacing back and forth repeating to himself: “I am justified by faith alone. I am justified by faith alone. I am justified by faith alone.” Justification by faith alone – is it really such a big deal? Or is it a merely a threadbare mantra chanted with monotony with no real purpose? After all isn’t there more than one entrée at the biblical buffet. This morning the Apostle Paul asserts that . . .
“JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE REALLY IS A BIG DEAL”
For us justification by faith alone means either being under a curse or blessing. Justification by faith alone means condemnation or acquittal. Justification by faith alone means it is a matter of life or death.
To bring this all home to his hearers, Paul showcases Abraham. Was Abraham made righteous because of his faith or his works? Here is the forefather of the Jews who had done works that were worth boasting about. But not before God.
The question of justification is quite inescapable for Abraham and for us. If you are not justified by faith, you will seek it elsewhere. Pay attention to the way people speak. Pay attention to your own language. No one wants to be wrong. We will find whatever words we can to declare ourselves and our actions and our attitudes as right. All of us are continuing to justify ourselves to each other that we talk right past one another.
Listen to eulogies at the funerals of unbelievers. Isn’t it curious that those who claimed not to believe in God are so pressed in the face of death to declare that the life now ended was right and good? They are feeble attempts to reckon the deceased as righteous with an appeal to his virtues as a husband and father, his athletic allegiance to The Illinois State University, his membership in the Kiwanis and his work on the board of the local bird sanctuary. Eulogies like this are empty and shallow at best; they do nothing to account the person as righteous before God. It works well in the obituary, but obituaries never get the dead out of the grave.
Here are just a few snippets from one day of obituaries in The Pantagraph. “He greatly enjoyed helping others, serving on the ESDA, camping, and gardening.” “He was an avid White Sox fan. He was a high school star athlete in football, basketball, and baseball. He coached Little League and was also a Boy Scout leader for many years.” “She enjoyed playing games with her grandchildren, quilting, and spending time watching wildlife at her home in Wisconsin.” “She was a hard worker who loved to make others happy with her delicious meals and helpful nature.” What would go in your obituary? Ours would read the same way. But how many of them have anything to do with saving faith?
Circumcision would not cut it for Abraham. Faith was there before circumcision. It is by faith, not the cutting of the flesh, that Abraham is reckoned righteous. Likewise to us, the righteousness that is ours is through faith in Christ Jesus and not by works of the Law.
And what is this faith that justifies? Trust, not in our works, which we sometimes use as measuring rods to make it clear we are in the right. Faith lets go of that and throws it in the garbage heap. In its place is trust in God, who justifies the ungodly. Listen to verse 5, “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”
Please remember this is not faith in faith. Faith must have an object outside of itself. It is faith in the promise. Abraham was the model of one who believed in the coming Messiah and so his faith was credited to him as righteousness.
It does not end with Abraham. For God who accounted him righteous does the same for you. Paul says these things were written not for Abraham’s sake alone but also for us, for the promise extends through Old Testament history into your hearing right now, for faith comes by hearing and the hearing, not of any word, but the Word of Christ, the words of the cross.
Faith in the cross of Jesus counts where our work as parent and spouse does not. Faith in the cross of Jesus counts where are allegiance to a university does not. Faith in the cross of Jesus counts where are work in a service organization does not. Faith in the cross of Jesus counts where our helpful nature and meal making and athletic skills do not. Faith in the cross of Jesus counts where were always having to be right does not. Faith in the cross of Jesus counts today in our daily life and tomorrow in our life to come. The cross of Jesus points to our righteousness.
Let’s make a deal – a big deal – out of justification by faith alone!
Amen.

March 5, 2017                                                                       Text:  Genesis 3:1-21

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

The marquee of a theater showed a man dressed as the devil because the current movie was about Satan.  The man was dressed in red, had a long tail, pitchfork, and horns.  A little girl, walking by with her mother, looked at the figure and was frightened.  “What’s that?” she asked her mother.  “Oh,” mother replied, “don’t be afraid.  That’s only the devil.”

That is our world.  Make the devil a caricature and he becomes less real, less frightening, and does he really exist?  Hell and damnation are not on many people’s radar so they can easily live the life they want.

Adam and Eve know the devil is all too real.  He comes to them today in the form of a snake created by God.  Do you ever think to yourself, “How could they be so dumb?  They had perfection as husband and wife.  No arguing about finances or who takes out the garbage or where on earth will we vacation this year.”  Would you or I have given in?  10 chances out of 9, we would!  Satan’s temptations are hard to resist.  That sneaky old snake is a forceful factor in the world.  He can deceive and seduce the best the human race has to offer.  Until Christ comes again this is our predicament.  Let’s take him seriously . . .

“THAT SNEAKY OLD SNAKE”

Satan has several descriptions in Scripture:  accuser, slanderer, adversary, enemy, opponent.  Jesus calls him a murderer, a liar, and the father of lies.  The Catechism reminds us that the devil was once a holy angel but then fell away from God.  He and his cohorts were created holy, sinned and are forever rejected by God.  They are great in number.

“That sneaky old snake” still challenges and seduces. Talking snakes?  Are you serious?  Who would be dumb enough to believe that?  That’s just some writer’s way of explaining how this world ended up as it is now.  Besides, do you believe Adam and Eve were real people and the only people in the world?  That’s just a way of describing the origins of the human race.  Satan doesn’t seduce today?  Satan laughs and laughs and laughs if we think like that.

What he did in the garden was to get our first parents to doubt God’s Word.  He lies to them.  The lying continues in our day.  People brought up in the church and who know God’s Word still think living together before marriage is not a sin.  Wake up!  Satan is winning.  He lies and tells men and women that gay marriage is just about love, not unnatural relations as described in the Bible.  Wake up!  Satan is winning.  He slithers past us and mentions we can be like God, because what does He really know anyways.  Wake up!  Satan is winning.  He turned Cain against Abel and he did quite the number on David and Bathsheba.  No one is off limits.  He even tries his seduction with Jesus as we see in today’s Gospel.

Be on guard, because he attacks all Christians, including you and me.  The noose of sin strangles and suffocates.  Take the sneaky old snake seriously.  Adam and Eve didn’t and it cost them and us death.  I’m naked, where can I hide?!

When preaching on this text it always is a reminder that we want to make the message of how to overcome simplistic.  Things like, “resist Satan’s assaults. Don’t do what Adam and Eve did.  Be strong against the wily one.”  Does this ever work?

We need help.  We need powerful, perfect help.  We need the strongest of the strong.  We need someone who overcame the sneaky old snake.  What’s that, someone did triumph over the devil?  Someone did resist and watched the devil walk away with his head in shame.

Isn’t the symmetry of the Scripture lessons beautiful this day?  Christ met the foe and he slithered away.  In His human nature he resisted the taunts and the goading and the challenge.  In His human nature He took the verbal punches and the subversive tactics to a place called Golgotha.  There for all the world of sinners to see He gave His life so that the old evil foe would be defeated.  Before His glorious resurrection, He took a little trip to tell Satan that He had won.  Satan would still have power but it would be limited and it would not last forever.  Through the one man free grace and righteousness is ours.  Grace reigns eternal.  While Satan is winning small battles here, the Eternal One passes on the eternal victory to us.

To resist this sneaky old snake we daily need these reminders.  Where are those found?  In the Holy Book.  Jesus used it.  Each time Satan came to attack him he said, “It is written.”  It is not enough to know the Scriptures so well that you can quote them.  Anyone – including Satan – can do that.  We must know what the Scriptures say and mean for us.  We must believe their message.

Take the devil seriously.  He is not some goofball in a 10 cent costume straight from a Hollywood back lot.  He is a formidable foe and his crafty and cunning seem to be working the world over.  Remember Christ holds the power.  Christ lived the perfection.  Christ is the ultimate snake handler and this belly crawling despot has met his match.  Good riddance sneaky old snake – now crawl away from here – I’ve got a Savior watching over me!

Amen.

February 26, 2017                                                                Text:  Matthew 17:1-9

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

One of the things I’ve learned in over 25 years of being a Pastor is that the church year has a certain flow to it.  There are the high feasts of Christmas and Easter.  Pentecost/Confirmation time in our church has an expectation feel.  Even the beginning of fall and a new year all have something the worshipping community can grasp on to.

Not Transfiguration Sunday.  Most years it falls somewhere in the gloomy days of February, the New Year has past and it is not quite spring.  The last two weeks being an extraordinary exception.  We also tend to have people gone, vacationing down south, family obligations, winter hangover.  Attendance figures I looked back on for Transfiguration Sunday bear this out.

Plus how important can it be when we have immigration, The President vs. the media, the state failing again to pass a budget, spring training baseball and is this the year the ISU basketball team makes the NCAA tournament?  Add on to that winter health concerns, kids activities and what outlandish thing will be said on the Oscars tonight?

Well, my friends, the Transfiguration of Jesus is big.  Dr. Louis Brighton stated it well:  “It is not by accident the church has chosen the…Transfiguration as a concluding text to the Epiphany season as a transition from the glorious light of the Epiphany to the darkness of the Passion of its Lord.  The church’s mission is the proclamation of the saving presence of the Lord Christ in the Gospel.  But this mission is carried out in the midst of suffering (the very thought we don’t want to hear).  The church proclaims the Gospel while bearing the cross; it proclaims life while facing and experiencing death . . .”

Cone along up the mountain to see . . .

“WHERE WE ARE GOING”

There was a lady who was meeting with her new Pastor.  She asked if she could have a church service when she died.  “Of course,” he said, grabbing his date book, “What day do you want?”  What you have here is a failure to understand what someone else is trying to communicate.

After six days Jesus takes these three disciples up the mountain.  The question is:  “six days after what?”  It was six days after He told them of His suffering, death, and resurrection and Peter rebuked Him.  Jesus has carefully outlined for these men what was going to happen from His crucifixion, resurrection to His Second Coming.  This trip to the Mount of Transfiguration was made so they would ultimately understand who Jesus was and that God in the flesh does exactly what He says He’s going to do and He is in control of everything.

One of the things for us to see before we get to where we are going is the importance of listening to Jesus as He reveals himself in the Word.  I am talking about maturing in our knowledge and application of Scripture if we are going to deal with the problems and concerns of life and a nation that is in the painful process of decay and collapse.  Knowledge of Christ ends a lot of confusion, and a lot of unnecessary worry.  Let me elaborate . . .

We all know where we are going, don’t’ we?  Eternal life.  We are on the road to glory…just like the glory Peter, James, and John saw on the mountain.  And it is more important than your college education, your next vacation, your early retirement!  The Road to Glory!

But we need to keep this straight.  The Road to Glory requires that we first bear a cross.  Jesus teaches this to the disciples.  Jesus’ return to Glory with the father will require Him to bear a Cross…a Cross for the sin of the world.  We also bear a cross on the path to Glory.  That is why Peter wanted to build the shelters he didn’t want to leave the glory for the cross-bearing.

American Christians don’t do well with this Biblical truth, do they?  We are success oriented.  We determine God’s blessings by our abundance and prettiness and numbers.  John Tunis said, “Losing is the great American sin.”  That mindset filters into the church.  Let’s build some shelters, gets lots of people with lots of money, grow big and successful and call ourselves “The Church Inc.!”

And Jesus reminds us, “And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Lk. 14:27)  We are going to heaven someday – glory.  The truth is that here we bear the Cross for Christ.  If we are faithful to Him and His Word…we will bear a Cross.  From the world’s perspective that may make us losers.  It’s not the American way!  It is the way of Christian disciples.  And strangely enough it is the way to ultimate victory and true success – if I might be so bold as to use that secular term.  Paul said, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Rom. 8:18)

And God the Father was pleased with the Son because the mission of Christ to salvage us was well under way – as God pleased!  A mission of terrible suffering and pain and loneliness and rejection – punishment and death – for our sin – so that we would never have to face punishment and eternal damnation.

“When they lifted their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.” (v. 8)  Nothing but Jesus.  In the good times and bad times…through the smiles and tears of life…in the midst of loneliness and pain…He’s always there.  He’s in the Holy Bible.  He’s in the bread and wine.  He ‘s in the water that brings newness of life.

Are things a little clearer?  Do you see the importance of the cross and on the other side, it’s glory?  And no matter which side…there’s Jesus.  The reason we will get to where we are going.

Amen.

February 19, 2017                                                                Text:  Matthew 5:38-48

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

            I recently ran across an article from twenty years ago entitled “The Devil is One Radical Dude.”  Here is a portion:

            “…World Industries, a California skateboard manufacturer, includes an interesting brochure with the products it sends to customers. Titled ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ the enclosure urges buyers to sell their souls to hell, according to Religious Rights Watch. 

            “On the brochure, a smiling devil explains what happened in heaven when he was banished from God’s presence, in words that might appeal to the young, who probably are the principal users of skateboards.

            “First off,’ says the devil, ‘they set up a bunch of dumb rules, and then they imposed a really strict dress code.  I’ll wager people must be quite bored up there, but hey, that’s what they get for being good.’”

            Twenty years ago.  The mockery of Christianity has been a constant drum beat since then and the sounds just keep getting louder and louder.  The vulgarity of society just keeps growing.  Everyone wants to demonize and destroy anything that gets in the way of their pursuits.  As was discussed at my Pastor’s Conference this week, we all seem to be yelling at one another but is anything constructive coming from all the whining and hand wringing?

            I am asked by the Lord to stand up in front of you today and preach on Jesus’ words in our Gospel lesson on retaliation and loving our enemies.  Not an easy task in today’s culture.  But then God’s Word is not always easily digested.

“HARD TRUTHS ABOUT GETTING EVEN”

            So we get to the hard truths right away in this section of Matthew.  If someone slaps us we are to turn the other cheek.  If we are forced to go one mile we should go two.  We shouldn’t refuse the one who wants to borrow from us.

            Right away when you hear these words, many of you are thinking “But Pastor..”  Then come your questions.  “Do I just let others beat on me?  Do I let them destroy my family?  Should I support those who are lazy and steal?”  The commentator R.C.H. Lenski writes, “The law of love is not intended to throw open the floodgates to unrestrained cruelty and crime…Love is not to foster crime in others or to expose our loved ones to disaster and perhaps death…Christ never told me to restrain the murderer’s hand, not to check the thief and robber, not to oppose the tyrant, or by my gifts to foster dishonesty, and greed…”

            Remember, in this text we are dealing with retaliation.  This is not a demand for “non-resistance”, but pictures a disciples mastery over his heart.  This is not about defending oneself or loved ones.  This is about getting even.  We are to walk away from it because it fills the heart with hatred and anger.  Aren’t there a lot of things we should be walking away from in today’s society?

            Jesus then tells us another hard truth.  He wants us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  Was that your first thought when you heard Madonna and some of the other speakers at the women’s march?  When you watched the University of California being vandalized did you begin praying for those committing the destruction?  When I ask someone to stop using God’s name in vain at a ballgame and they assault with more profanities, these are not my first thoughts brothers and sisters?  What about you?  Hard truths, don’t we know it?

            Jesus wants us to love our enemies with agape love, the kind of love that God extended to us.  Love for the unlovable.  As Paul writes, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son…” (Rom. 5:8, 10a)

            God took pity on us in spite of our separation from Him, and in some cases, hatred and denial of Him.  Here we are with anger at God for those times he doesn’t do what we think he should be doing.  But He loves us nonetheless.  He is always there to forgive and claim us as His own through Faith in Christ.

            That’s the kind of love we are to demonstrate to others.  Again, from Lenski:  “I can by the grace of Jesus Christ love them all, see what is wrong with them, desire and work to do them only good – to extend Christ’s love.”

            We can never accept the evil the world loves and pursues.  And we will always be looked upon as hateful by the world because we do not walk in its thinking and ways.  So be it.  But, regardless of what the world thinks and charges against us, we are to love them because “…God so loved the world…”

            There was a day when the great lawyer Daniel Webster was on his way home from the courts when he decided to stop by and see his daughter who was terminally ill.  As he entered the room, she looked up and said, “Father, why are you out on this cold day without your coat?”  Webster left the room and cried out, “Dying, yet she thinks of me!”

            That is what Jesus did on the Cross.  Dying, He was thinking of us; thinking of the whole world of humanity.  And we need to think about that.  Such are the hard truths about getting even.  God help us!

                                                                        Amen.