March 3, 2024                 Text:  John 2:13-22

Dear Friends in Christ,

Have you ever been somewhere where an individual is disruptive.  A classroom?  Family gathering?  Office?  Or how about when you travel?  Each year about 60,000 flights get cancelled which costs the airline industry 3 billion dollars.  Just this week tornadoes grounded flights at Midway and O’Hare.  Haven’t we all had the experience where an illness or diagnosis disrupted our future plans?

In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus seems rather disruptive.  Sometimes this reading makes us uncomfortable as we watch the Savior in action.

“DISRUPTIVE JESUS”

Let’s get right to the text, “In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there.  And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen.  And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.” (v. 14-16)

Well, this is a different side of Jesus and deep down in our soul, which we don’t talk about at parties we kind of like it.  This isn’t a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.  He’s not the young boy in the temple with the inquiring mind.  He is not healing or telling parables.  He has a whip, and he is turning over tables.

Some of you don’t like this Jesus.  You prefer the soft, gentle-spoken, going after sheep Jesus.  He confronts sinners.  Outwits his enemies.  But this is not what we get in our Gospel for today.  Jesus is holding nothing back.

The obvious questions arise.  Did Jesus lose his cool?  What about his command to love your neighbor as yourself?  Aren’t we supposed to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us?

Yes, this is all true.  But please note that this is not a different Jesus.  He is not out of character.  This is our patient, merciful Jesus acting out of love and compassion for his people.  Was Jesus upset?  Yes.  Was he angry?  Probably.  

This is our disruptive Jesus.  A Jesus who loves his enemies enough to disrupt them from their sinful life.  He knows their sins are not good for them.  The same goes for you.  Jesus comes in and disrupts the sinful things in your life and loves you enough to hold you accountable for your sins.  Disruptive Jesus takes our sinful lives and exchanges them for his holy life.  Jesus didn’t lose his cool with the money-changers, he was staying cool enough to save them from eternal damnation.

As your Pastor, I hold you responsible out of love for your soul.  I know that when you sin it is not good for you.  The easy way is to say nothing, but both Jesus and I don’t want to see sinners go to hell.  Believe me, it is not comfortable sometimes.  You get the blowback.  But it is done in love because Jesus wants each one of us in heaven with him.

“Jesus, answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’  The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’  But he was speaking about the temple of his body.” (v. 19-21)

Jesus goes to the cross and is raised in three days for our salvation.  He comes and disrupts all things that would keep you and me from the loving arms of the Heavenly Father.  This is his Father’s house.  He wants each of us to respect his Father’s house.  He wants to see us in his Father’s house in heaven forever.

Disruptive Jesus commands us to stop listening to the lies of the devil and start doing things the Jesus way.  In our Baptism, he interrupted the corrupt plans of the devil and claimed us as his own.  Now he feeds us with his very body and blood so that faith can be nurtured and sustained.

Before getting excited about table turning Jesus, maybe we ought to examine our own tables.  We confess one truth and then turn the table and live another.  We say sorry in one breath and then turn the table and hold tight to our pet sins.  We try to play God, but he turns the table, and he loves and forgives us and then has his way in our lives.  Jesus is here today to do a little Lenten housecleaning by overturning the tables of our sinful nature.

Jesus knows what needs overturning.  There are things in our sinful hearts and minds that need to be driven out.  There are sinful things that Jesus needs to take a whip to.  So that he can forgive them by his cross.

When Jesus disrupts our lives, he is doing it out of divine love and mercy without any merit or worthiness in us.  Jesus disrupts our sinful lives so we can have eternal life in our Father’s house.  Praise be to our disruptive Jesus who stops at nothing to save us.

Amen.     

February 28, 2024 – Lent Text:  Matthew 26:57-75

Dear Friends in Christ,

“After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, ‘Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.’”  His accent gave him away as a follower of Christ.  Peter was from the north, Bethsaida by the sea of Galilee, the trial is in the south, Jerusalem.  You understand that, up north it is “Minnesota.”  Down south they ask, “How y’all doin?”  Even in Illinois.  In college I knew the kids from Chicagoland by their speech.

What Christian accent would give you away as a follower of Christ?  Your speech?  The words you use?  How you react in stressful situations?  The cross you wear around your neck?  Like Peter you cannot hide.  The necktie at the hospital might give me away, but the clerical collar surely will.  I’m not there to perform surgery.  I come representing Christ.  Do you see your vocation the same way?

Tonight, in our “God on Trial” series there are two men getting grilled.  One outside.  One inside.  Let’s listen in to their . . . .

“TESTIMONY”

Let’s start with the man inside.  A parade of liars all take their turns on the stand but give nothing but false testimony.  Jesus refuses to be dragged into the foolishness.  He says nothing, but His silence speaks loudly.  Then He gets the big question, “Are you the Christ, the Son of God?”  He confesses the truth, “I am.”  It is such shattering testimony that the chief priest tears his robes.  A little dramatic, don’t you think?  Here is the drama, “He deserves death.”

Meanwhile, we go to the man outside.  The fisherman from Galilee had been warned this moment was coming.  The pressure starts, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.”  Jesus born in the south, but raised in the north.  Pressure builds.  “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.”  Is he going to hold out?  The drama builds.  Then the verbal joust to the midsection, “You are one of them, for your accent betrays you.”  He crumbles and swears, “I do not know the man.”  The rooster crows.  His heart aches.  

Ever been cornered by a question like that?  “Boy, you aren’t from around here, are you?  I’ve seen you get up early on Sunday morning and drive somewhere.  You going to church, boy?”  It is time for your testimony.  What do you say?

Sometimes the pressure can be real, depending on your family, your friends, your workplace environment.  In a moment of pressure, we might think we are better off not being counted as a disciple of Jesus.

Matthew doesn’t record it, but Luke does.  When the rooster crowed, “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.” (Luke 22:61)  Ouch.  Have you see a face like that?  When you buckled under the pressure and lied?  The face of a parent or a teacher.  And it hurts.  Then the truth comes out, and that same face gave love and forgiveness . . . and maybe a hug.

Look at the face of Jesus.  He is calling you back to Him.  Even when you fail to claim Him, He still wants to claim you.  He shows you His bruises and his blood not to shame but to reveal how much He loves you.  What abuse He absorbs for you.  This is the Son of God, who answers to no one yet stands trial and suffers to save you.

Listen to his testimony.  He says He is the Messiah.  He is God’s anointed One, the one chosen to take your place.  You have been connected to Him through baptism.  When your testimony is weak or non-existent, He steps in and confesses as though He were you.  Consider it a gift to be put on the witness stand and be associated with Jesus.

It is an opportunity.  Peter learned this.  Jesus’ look called him to repentance.  After the resurrection from the dead, Jesus restored Peter and called him to feed his sheep.  Years later, Peter wrote a letter to some of those sheep.  They were Christian citizens who stood out in society – they honored their government, wives who submitted to their husbands, husbands who were considerate of their wives, believers who were willing to suffer for doing good.  People would ask them, “What makes you different?’  And Peter encouraged them to be ready to give a reason for their hope in Jesus.

Friends, I hope your Christian accent gives you away.  I hope people notice that as disciples of Jesus you speak and act differently.   May we be blessed if people accuse us of being with Jesus.  It will give us a chance to tell them about a man who was the Son of God and Son of Man, the Messiah, who came for us and will come again.  That is our testimony.

Amen.