Sept. 8, 2024 – Christian Education Texts:  Ge. 22:1-14, Hebrews 1:1-3a, John 1:1-5

Dear Friends in Christ,

Are things ‘ok’ in your life?  In our speech we tend to ask people, “How are you doing?”  We get answers from “living the dream” to “better than I deserve.”  Many times, we get the “not bad,” “pretty good,” and then the proverbial “I’m doing ok.”  You have to listen to the tone of their voice, but it has been my experience that many of the people who answer this way are not ‘ok.’  They tend to have something that is troubling them.

How long do you think ‘ok’ has been around?  On March 24, 1839, the Boston Morning Post first published the initials “O.K.” – the abbreviation for “oll korrect,” a popular slang misspelling for “all correct.”  Eventually, OK would become part of everyday speech in the United States.  At the time, misspelling words intentionally was a favorite pastime for the younger, educated crowd.  They would often take words, misspell them as slang when conversing with one another.

Today is Christian Education Sunday.  The three readings serve as the texts.  We look at our world and wonder, “what’s next?”  We question if we are ok.  Thank God for His Holy, Life-Giving Word!  We can walk confidently when asked . . . 

“ARE THINGS ‘OK’ IN YOUR LIFE?”

How might Abraham and Isaac answer that question?  In our Old Testament lesson, Isaac asks his father, “Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”  You’re the parent how are you going to answer?  In some form, we are going to let our child know things are ok.  Abraham answers, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”  Simple, concise, even while his heart must be aching.

We have always admired the faith of Abraham in this scenario.  But what about Isaac?  He could have overpowered his father, but he didn’t.  When things didn’t look ok, both father and son trusted.  God will provide.  And He did.  A Son who became our sin offering.  Wood that was cut into a Roman Cross where God offered His Son.  God literally took the fire and knife, so to speak, when He had His Son beaten, whipped, mocked, and crucified at Calvary.  For you.  For me.  It is what God did: provided.

God spoke to Father Abraham.  In our day He speaks to us through His Son.  That is in our Hebrew reading.  God speaks through Law and Gospel.  The Law shows us a need for a Savior.  We are not always ok.  We have problems, challenges, sins we can’t shake.  The Gospel shows us a Savior.  Christ is the Word (we’ll get to that in a minute from John).  God promises that His Word will accomplish His will in your life.  God sends this Word to you in the person of Jesus.  His does it in various ways – sermons, worship, bible studies, prayer, sacraments, the support of a friend.  Where one path is blocked, He opens another.  God’s Word can forgive and heal.  God spoke to our ancestors in days past, He still speaks that same Word to us today.

John writes, “The Word was God.”  Did you catch this part?  “In the beginning was the Word.”  Christ has always been.  Christ is eternal.  God was thinking about us long before the creation of the world.  He was already making plans for our salvation.  He knew life wasn’t always going to be ok.  We never tire of sin, or if we do, we can’t stop it.  Confession and absolution are not just a Sunday “to do”, they need to be a part of our daily lives.  The Lord hears our pleas.  He sends the light into the darkness.  It’s not, “I’m OK, You’re OK.”  It is forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ.

I am going to share with you one of my favorite sermon illustrations.  Maybe you have heard it in another church.  In over 25 years I have never shared it with you.  Maybe you’ll see why.

John Griffith was a man who lost all in the stock market of 1929.  He took a job in Mississippi tending a drawbridge over a railroad trestle.  This happened in 1937.  He took his 8-year-old son Greg with him to work.  They joked around in the office, but then John got back to work.  He heard a train approaching with around 400 passengers.  He couldn’t find Greg.  When he saw him, he was climbing on the gears of the drawbridge.  He yelled, but the train noise made it impossible.  John Griffith faced a horrible dilemma.  He could try to rescue his son, but 400 people would probably die in the crash.  If he closes the bridge, his son gets crushed.  He pulled the lever and closed the bridge.  The train went by, and nobody realized he had sacrificed his son their behalf.

God knows we are not always ok.  We struggle in mind and body.  The devil plays on our impatience.  Sometimes, we can’t see an end.  But you see things are OK.  They are “all correct,” because God pulled the lever.  He gave His Son for the life of the world.  Our journey has a happy ending.  So, how ya doin?  God’s Word tells us, “OK, I am doing OK.”

Amen.     

August 25, 2024 Text:  Mark 7:1-13

Dear Friends in Christ,

You have heard the expression “lip service,” and you probably know what it means.  You probably do not know that the expression was inspired by our text for this morning where Jesus quotes from Isaiah.  Paying lip service is saying one thing and doing another.  Remember during Covid when politicians told us we couldn’t get haircuts and then they were sneaking underground for a clip and a perm?  Made you mad, didn’t it?  

Let’s welcome the Pharisees to the party this morning.  They would like you to wash your hands.  And if you don’t, well, you can’t really be a follower of God, because you are not keeping his law.  Throughout Scripture, these men are known for . . . 

“PAYING LIP SERVICE”

Are you a regular hand washer?  Are you as anal about it, as I am?  Every Sunday, after all the handshakes.  Soap and water in the vestry.  Get to the office, wash.  Go home, wash.  Shoot baskets, wash.  In a hospital or nursing home, wash.  I am not trying to keep up with the Pharisees, but I do believe my hand washing is a reason for my many years now of not being sick.  

Ok, you are going to a private audience with Jesus.  What are you going to ask him?  Anybody here going to ask him how to wash before a meal?  Didn’t think so.  You’ll never make it as a Pharisee.  Look what they do.  “The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands.’” (v. 5). Jesus’ opponents have completely lost sight of what matters to God.  They have put human concerns before and above what is important in God’s eyes.  

Does Jesus play nice with this question?  No, he calls them “hypocrites” and then he quotes from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, “’This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (v. 6-7)  The Pharisees are more concerned about whether people’s hands are clean than whether their bodies have been cleansed of disease by the words of Jesus and whether their hearts have been filled with the peace that Jesus is proclaiming.  That is exactly the sort of thing that happens when we stop asking what is important to God.

For the Pharisees their lips are close, but their hearts are distant.  They are paying lip service to Jesus.  If Isaiah’s words are prophesied about us, and if Jesus’ warnings speak to us, we had better examine our own lips and hearts and heads and hands to see how we are doing.  How have we lost sight of what’s really important?  What traditions of men, what traditions of our own, have we let crowd out God’s Word from its proper place as the Word that demands our total obedience?  

If we say we are followers of the Word but call out our neighbor for dirty hands, what are we doing?  We are paying lip service to our beliefs.  Don’t miss the dirt behind your ears or the dirt in your eyes or the dirt that clogs your heart.  God doesn’t just tell us we are dirty, rather our Lord calls us from human tradition to God’s Word and His priorities.  His voice declares us clean.  He forgives our lip service.  

We pray that the Holy Spirit will help us live this way.  Even young children pick up on telling them one thing and doing another.  Jesus tells us from the cross, “Come to me and I will make you clean.”  Our hypocritical behavior was washed away at Calvary.  We can come into His presence with clean hands and clean hearts.

When I have gone to neo-natal intensive care units, I must wash my hands like a doctor.  Hot water, soap and do it for at least a minute.  Then you glove and gown up to go in.  Those hands are pretty clean, but put them under a microscope and what are we going to see?  A least a few germs.  The cleansing that Jesus gives takes the tiniest microbe away.  His cleansing lasts for an eternity.  He didn’t just pay us lip service, He was obedient to the Father and finished the plan of salvation.  You can walk away clean . . . hands and heart.

Amen.