Sermons

March 8, 2015 Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Dear Friends in Christ,

Patrick Morley, author of The Man in the Mirror books, writes about the God we want and the God that is. People by nature expect something else from God and create in their minds something different from what He offers them. We have expectations of what we want God to be, how He should act, when He should act, and even what He should look like. We want Him to fit neatly into our plans. We have made our little god in our minds that fits our plans and purposes. This of course goes directly against the First Commandment from our Old Testament Reading. There is the god, with a small g, we want and the God that is.
The God that “is” is the God of the Bible, the one true God, who used what seemed to be pure folly to most of the world – a cross – as the instrument of salvation. Are you willing to leave the god you want behind and trust fully in the God that is, no matter how foolish that might seem to those around you?
“THE FOLLY OF THE CROSS”
What kind of fool do you take me for? Aaron Neville sang the song, “Everybody Plays the Fool.” Remember this line, “Everybody plays the fool sometimes, there is no exception to the rule.” Have you ever played the fool or done something foolish? About five years ago during the winter we had I believe an Evangelism Board meeting scheduled on a Tuesday evening. We had snow the previous days that had built up and the temperatures had stayed below freezing. The city snowplow had left a nice trail in front of our south entrance. It wasn’t that large but I thought I could drive through it. Wrong! My car got stuck. Some folks came along with a shovel and I crawled on my belly to remove the snow and finally extricated the vehicle. I showed up late for the meeting and felt quite foolish. Have you ever done something similar?
We look at others and their actions and find it easy to label them as fools. Just this week another group of people were stranded on an interstate in a snowstorm. We think to ourselves what are they doing out in that weather. We find it easy to judge others’ actions and words as foolish.
Would anyone here today be bold enough to stand up and state that something God has said or done is foolish? It would seem blasphemous, especially in this setting, surrounded by other believers. But the truth is that we often do that by accusing God of not caring, of not working within our time frame, and by allowing His Word to become outdated for these modern times. Are we any different from the Jews and Greeks whom Paul is referring to in our text?
One man’s folly is another man’s treasure. We join the Jews of Paul’s time in demanding signs. Where are you Lord, I’ve been praying? Where is your sign? We join the Greeks of Paul’s time in looking for worldly wisdom in our God, whose kingdom is not of this world. Just listen to how we all talk. We think humans can solve of our most pertinent issues. Benjamin Franklin said something that still fits, “A learned fool writes his nonsense in better language than the unlearned, but still ‘tis nonsense.” Read any government edict and you’ll see what I mean.
We preach Christ crucified. Can we demand signs and look for earthly wisdom when we are dealing with the treasure of the cross and God’s wisdom found in Scripture? Preaching Christ crucified. Why is it a stumbling block and foolishness to so many?
The city of Corinth who Paul is addressing was destroyed in 146 B.C. A hundred years later, Julius Caesar sent a group to rebuild Corinth. Corinth was a center for shipping and trade giving it a diverse population. In Paul’s day it had a population of almost 500,000 made up of free persons and slaves, Jews and Greeks. Over time, the city became known as a wicked place. There were many divisions within the city, the church followed suit.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Paul needed to bring the focus back, in the church especially, to Christ crucified. That is where we need our focus. We get caught up in all the fluff and foolishness and miss the main message. Christ Jesus who died so that we might live. We might understand the offense of the cross within governmental decisions, but what about churches that refuse to put up a cross. Isn’t that foolish?
You see, the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. Holy Scripture is God’s Word to the wise. It tells us of the God who is, not the god we want. The God of the Bible is the only true God. Through Jesus’ death on a cross and his resurrection, he has brought us the only way to eternal life in heaven.
Because of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection three days later and our Spirit-created faith in that seemingly foolish way of salvation, we are forgiven fools. We are fools for Christ’s sake. If proclaiming Christ crucified and living under the truth of Christ’s cross and outside the freedom of his empty tomb is foolishness, then call us fools – forever, forgiven, and fruitful fools for Christ!
Amen.

March 4, 2015 Text: Isaiah 44:1-5

Dear Friends in Christ,
Shelly Jackson is not only an author, she’s a walking piece of literature. She has a tattoo on her right wrist that reads, “S-k-i-n” yes, Skin. It is actually the title of Jackson’s latest project, which she calls “A Mortal Work of Art.” The plan is that her 2095-word story would be published exclusively in tattoos, one word at a time, on the skin of volunteers. Once a volunteer is accepted into the project, they are known only by the word they bear on their skin.
At last count, Shelly Jackson was still looking for people to bear her final three hundred words. Just think, we could contact her after church, offer our human hides, and be a part of a counter-cultural narrative.
Isaiah also wants people to be marked with one word and be part of a counter-cultural narrative. He writes in our text, “another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s.’” This Lenten truth tonight, we are . . .
“MARKED”
One of the ancient Near East’s most dominant narratives in the sixth century BC was the Babylonian creation epic called the Enuma Elish. The Enuma Elish narrates Marduk’s defeat over Tiamat. He cut her in two and built the universe out of her remains. Read during the annual Akitu festival the pinnacle was the acclimation – in the Akkadian language – “Marduka ma surru,” which translated means, “Marduk is King.”
Connected to the pomp and pageantry of Babylonian religion was the empire’s program of changing people’s names. Just ask Hannaniah, Mishael, and Azariah. You may know their VeggieTale names, “Shach, Rach, and Benny.” In Daniel 1:7 the chief of the eunuchs changes their names to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The goal? Mark the Judeans with a new name that will entice them into worshipping Marduk.
But Judean exiles in Babylon didn’t line up. They weren’t interested in being marked by their Maker. Because, you see, there was another text in town.
The dominant story of our day is peddled by the young and beautiful who guarantee we can be young and beautiful, just like them, if we buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t even like.
Their story is hammered into our heads at an alarming rate. From the moment you open the morning paper, or flip on your phone or computer until we fall asleep to another rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond, we will encounter more than 2,000 advertising images. And they portray the same thing over and over – “You can buy lasting happiness!”
In league with this American consumerism is the enemy’s program of changing our names. His goal? Mark us with a new name that will entice us into seeking fulfillment in things. Deemed beloved through water and the Word, Satan renames us cheap, dirty, and worthless. Deemed washed and cleaned in the name of Jesus, he whispers to us, “Guilty as charged.”
Put together, the dominant narrative and the dominant devil create in us a slowness to be part of the counter-text. We convince ourselves, “I can sell my soul to the American dream and claim its promises of prosperity while, at the same time, professing the name of Jesus.”
We’ve all tried the dominant narrative. We are all worn out from believing the dominant American story. Lord, we need an alternative narrative.
Enter Isaiah 40-55, where the prophet takes aim at the empire. Babylon is a drop in the bucket. Babylonian leaders are nothing. Babylonian gods are an empty wind. Marduk is a fantasy, a fake, a fraud, and a huge phony.
The alternative narrative in Isaiah 40-55 is just getting revved up. “Comfort, comfort My people, says your God” (40:1). “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, God is doing a new thing” (43:18-19). God is stirring Cyrus to get Israel out of Babylon. He is raising up the Suffering Servant to get Babylon out of Israel. The Lord promises that His story does what it says. Isaiah 55:11, “so shall My word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to Me empty.” We are the subject of God’s story, so much so that we line up, each one, and “write on our hand” not “belonging to Babylon,” but “belonging to the Lord.”
God has always told His story on people’s bodies; call it Skin! In Genesis 4:15, the Lord marks Cain. In Genesis 17, the Lord gives Abraham and his offspring the covenant mark of circumcision. Deuteronomy 6:8 describes people tying God’s words on their hands and binding them on their foreheads.
It all points to the greatest story told on human skin. Isaiah describes this body, “His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man, and his form marred beyond human likeness…Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not…We all, like sheep, have gone astray. And the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all” (Is. 52:14; 53:3,6). One spear, three nails, and a crown of thorns left their marks on Jesus.
But first the Ten, and then climatically Thomas, saw Jesus alive; and what shall we call that story? Call it Skin. Our Savior showed His skin. He is forever marked with scars announcing for you, right here, right now, His loyal love and His free forgiveness and His everlasting grace. And so people began lining up to be marked.
Eyes marked with tenderness and kindness; a smile marked with delight and friendship; a mind marked by toughness and truth; hands marked with helpfulness and humility; and a mouth marked with Jesus and joy.
To be part of this counter-cultural narrative, all we need is one word: leyahweh – in English, “belonging to the Lord.” How does that happen? Recall the water, remember the Word, and forever cherish the liturgical rite when you were baptized. “Receive the sign of the holy cross, both upon your forehead and upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.”
Just because we live in Babylon does not mean we will live like the Babylonians. My life and your life tell another story. We are consumed with another narrative. And what is that called? Jesus . . . with skin.
Amen.

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March 1, 2015 Text: Romans 5:1-11

Dear Friends in Christ,

Exactly six months from today, the whole world will celebrate again one of the greatest days in human history. On Sept. 1 we’ll reach the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Peace. Of course, that peace left millions dead, including over 400,000 Americans, many of whom are buried in Europe or the Pacific in cemeteries marked by rows and rows of white crosses.
Many of these grave markers bore the initials “R.I.P.” for the Latin requiescat in pace, meaning, with the same initials in English, “rest in peace” – words written and spoken on the dead. Is that really peace? Can there be peace when someone lies in the grave – whether death has come violently in war or peacefully in one’s own bed? And what about while we live? Since the world never lives in peace, can we?
“R.I.P. – REST IN PEACE?”
Paul had stated earlier in Ephesians that apart from Jesus, we have no hope and can expect only eternal death. Now here in our text, he continues to describe how desperate we were: “we were still weak” (v. 6). There is never a good time to be weak. Weak in sin, weak in moral fortitude, weak in faith. That does a nice job of describing you and me. Paul goes on to say, “we were still sinners” (v. 8) We know that’s true, don’t we? We still sin. Sometimes it seems as if our lives have wandered into one of those survival shows on television and we are about to be eliminated, or at least have questions about lasting longer than a few more weeks or months. Too many false calculations, too many wrong-headed decisions. Too much time spent looking out for ourselves to the detriment of others.
But it gets worse. We aren’t just weak and sinful; we were enemies of God. Verse 10, “we…were…enemies.” Enemies of God.
Enemies? But God is so nice. He’s the “Big Guy Upstairs,” the doting uncle who gives you daily treats of bread and breath. It’s hard to imagine being a screaming-in-your-face enemy of God. But look at the crowd in front of Pontius Pilate. “Crucify him! Crucify him!” goes the shouting. (Matt. 27:22-23) Yeah, like I said, we’d never do that. Enemies of God?
Yeah, world war. The whole world has been at war with God since the time of Adam and Eve. Enemies. Not buds who occasionally step on each other’s toes. Not allies who occasionally disagree about foreign policy. Enemies. Every one of our sins puts us at war with God. False calculations – enemies! Wrong-headed decisions – enemies! Looking out for ourselves – enemies! Our sin means war. Our indifference isn’t neutrality; it’s opposition. Jesus says, “Whoever is not with me is against me” (Mt. 12:30). Enemies of God. No resting in peace for us.
But…but. “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (v. 6) Despite our weakness, Jesus became weak in death. To see in Scripture the almighty Lord and Savior sweat blood and stumble down the street with a cross on his torn back and then his weak hands and feet nailed to the cross – what wondrous love. Jesus wrested the keys of death from the devil and now Jesus holds them in his strong, resurrected hand. You are “died for” by Jesus. Weak and ungodly, yes, but washed in the peace-giving blood of Jesus.
And if he couldn’t preach enough good news, Paul continues, “While were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8). While you were weak, the death of Jesus became your death in Baptism. You did nothing, have done nothing, to be saved. Jesus takes the weak you and makes you strong and redeemed. Is that not a peaceful message, one that can give you rest even in the worst of times?
And while we were also enemies, Jesus in his great love for you defeated your enemies – devil and sin and death. When “R.I.P.” is said of you at death it will be true. But that peace is also yours right now. Reconciled by Jesus, you now have “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, which will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7).
Wherever we may be buried – in a military cemetery or the plot next to a country church – whatever may mark our grave – polished marble or weathered wood – if our lives have been marked with the cross, we will most surely rest in peace.
Today, Paul celebrates the end of the world war, and we rest in peace because Jesus ended the world war. “R.I.P.” – Rejoice in the peace of Jesus, dear people of God. Fear not, and rest in His peace.
Amen.

February 22, 2015 Text: Genesis 22:1-18

Dear Friends in Christ,

Recently Toni and I found out about a tragedy in different ways. She learned about it while talking with her mother. Members of the Jirovec family informed me when I was helping pack the truck for Dawn’s move. It involved a 17-year-old young man who was killed by a drunk driver around the community in Minnesota where Toni grew up. She was familiar with the family.
The other night as I was doing the dishes Toni read me the obituary from her phone. As she did all I could think about was that obituary could have been for either of our sons. Star athlete, popular at school, homecoming king, helped out at his church, good student, got along well with everybody. I will admit it got me a little emotional.
That is what having children can do to us. I once received a letter from a friend who said they never understood love until they had a child. Many of you are blessed this morning to have your child or children next to you in the pew. Many more of you can think about your child or children as I relate these stories. For our children they don’t fully understand the love a parent has for their child. But they will – oh they will!
Abraham is that parent. Isaac is that son. It tugs at our heartstrings. It is emotional. The parents of the young man killed in the accident could have thought this. Abraham would have been justified if he asked God . . .
“WHY ME?”
Abraham might surely have asked, “Why me?” when God asked him to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. This request from God was an amazing test of faith. Isaac was the son given to Abraham and Sarah in their old age. He was the heir who would continue God’s covenant promise to Abraham. For this and the fact he was the boy’s father Abraham loved Isaac. Oh the heartache of this parent as God makes his request.
But this test was met with faith and obedience. Abraham trusted God. He trusted in spite of the past challenges in receiving a son. He trusted in spite of future plans God predicted through that son. Abraham did as God commanded. He obeyed in spite of the three-day journey to change his mind. He obeyed in spite of the emotions he must have felt as he heard Isaac’s questions. We’ve been there, haven’t we? You hurt when your child hurts. Our empathy is strongest with our children. We completely understand the “Why me?”
While Abraham may have been asking the “Why me?” God was answering “I will” provide the lamb. God provided the lamb for Abraham. God provided the lamb for all people. God does what he would not allow Abraham to do: Not “Why me?” from Abraham, but “I will” from God.
Rembrandt painted Abraham just as he is about to thrust the knife into Isaac. In the painting, as Abraham looks up in response to God’s call, the knife is actually flying out of his hand into the air as if he had been waiting for the voice. Rembrandt portrays a mixture of awe, amazement, and relief on Abraham’s face. The painting is even more poignant when we learn that the same model used for Abraham’s face was used for the father in the return of the prodigal son. Both paintings capture the Father-heart of God.
He is our blessed Father and God’s “I will” is the result of and a demonstration of his love for sinners. And “to this day” God does work in the midst of our “Why me’s?” to provide his “I will.” God will provide for the one enduring the trials. The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who was faithful for us in all trials and temptations, now offers forgiveness freely, including those times when we prove unfaithful in the midst of life’s trials. With joy and thanksgiving, God’s words to Abraham can be spoken to him concerning his own Son, Jesus Christ: “You have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” In this way, “Why me?” can become an expression of wonder and astonishment in the face of God’s grace toward sinners.
Sometimes we pooh-pooh the fact that God sacrificed His son Jesus. We don’t get to the same place emotionally for one reason or another. His though was the ultimate sacrifice because it paid the price for all of us. He lived perfectly, yet was tortured, beaten, and killed. His resurrection gives us hope in the midst of the “Why me’s?” when we are undergoing life’ trials.
Abraham remained faithful to the words of God in the midst of what seemed illogical and contrary to reason. This faithfulness is ours through the Holy Spirit. We trust the promises of God in the midst of what seems to us illogical and contrary.
God’s people have received and continue to receive encouragement through the example of Abraham remaining faithful and obedient to God. That is why this incident is cited in Hebrews 11:17 and James 2:21. In the same way, faithfulness on the part of God’s children today can be a source of great encouragement for others, even encouraging unbelievers to inquire as to the source of their steadfast hope in the midst of life’s trials. Martin Luther wrote this, “One Christian who has been tried is worth a hundred who have not been tried, for the blessing of God grows in trials. He who has experienced them can teach, comfort, and advise many in body and spiritual matters.”
The story of the young man killed by the drunk driver made it from small town Minnesota to the big city newspaper in Minneapolis. In the article, the mother of the young man was quoted as saying, “We were blessed to have Colton for 17 years. We want you to pray for the man who was drunk and caused the accident. He has a wife and family as well. They need your prayers.” Wow! That can only come from a Christian who knows the hope we have through Christ. What a witness.
May God give us the faith by which He will work in us and through us, especially during those times we are tempted to ask, “Why me?”
Amen