February 5, 2023 Text:  Isaiah 58:3-9a

Dear Friends in Christ,

A big thing for people is that they want “their voices heard.”  They want people in authority to give credence to their ideas and suggestions.  An employee would like it from their employer.  A child would like it from their parent.  A player would like it from their coach.  A citizen would like it from their government.  The subordinate would like the authority to hear them and not just pay lip service to their thoughts.

In the church how do we get our voices heard?  Through worship, and prayer, and praise.  Through these means we bring our cares and concerns to our Heavenly Father.  He doesn’t just give us “lip service” but He genuinely cares about what we have to say.

In our text for today Israel wanted to be heard but they went about it all wrong.  They think that their fasting will be a means of motivating God to answer their prayers and petitions.  The Lord wants more than that.  He doesn’t just want us . . . 

“PAYING LIP SERVICE”

The people of God in our text make a great pretense of loving the Lord.  They think that their fasting ought to earn them something.  The Lord should really hear their voices now because they are following His commands.  They have been deceived into thinking they are a righteous nation and an obedient people who can expect God’s deliverance and blessings.

God only required one day of fasting and that was the Day of Atonement.  The people thought if “one day is good, why not make it all the time.  God will really love us then, right?”  What was to be an occasion for self-denial became an opportunity for self-advancement at the expense of others.  Their fasting only led to “quarrel and fight.”  The fasting put them in an ugly mood.  Their fasting was not a day acceptable to the Lord.  The Lord calls for acts of righteousness and justice, and all the people are giving Him is lip service.

Do we ever pay the Lord lip service?  Do we have an attitude that infiltrates our relationship with the Lord?  Maybe we are especially gracious or kind or loving or we sacrifice for others and then we start to think that God owes us.  Shouldn’t we earn a little extra credit with the Lord for being such a shining light to those around us?  We can’t just pay lip service.  Religious observances cannot substitute for moral integrity.  A day acceptable to the Lord is not filled with empty worship, but a day of self-denial.

Such a self-denial was first accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.  He went to the cross without revenge but with obedience to the will of the Father.  He offered up to our Heavenly Father an acceptable day.  Jesus didn’t pay lip service to our sinful plight as humans.  He did what He said He was going to do.  Pay for our sins.  Forgive our lip service.  The day of His crucifixion He became our righteousness.  Self-reliance gives way to faith and trust in His sacrifice.  Our Lord’s victory overcomes our self-righteousness.  We humbly accept this gift and claim the new life He offers through His death on the cross and His resurrection.

Because of all that He has done for us, we don’t just pay Him lip service.  We give Him a life of service.  The prophet Isaiah shows us the shallowness of the people.  They thought they could draw near to the Lord through their own righteous worship.  What the Lord wanted was for the bonds of wickedness to be loosened, the oppressed to go free, to share bread with the hungry, bring the homeless into a home and to cover the naked.  Through these acts of self-denial Isaiah writes, “Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.  Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’” (vs. 8-9a)

A day acceptable to the Lord, a life where we don’t just pay Him lip service, is when we embody the servanthood of Christ and look first to the needs of others.  We share the bounty of our blessings with those who struggle along life’s journey.

Look at our Gospel lesson in Matthew this day.  We “are the salt of the earth.”  We “are the light of the world.”  Light comes from doing the work of the Lord.  It keeps us out of the darkness.  “Others…may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

That always has to be our motivation.  We don’t shine so that the world will give us glory.  We don’t share for a pat on the back.  We don’t self-deny so we can take in all the accolades.  We do it as a fruit of our faith.  The Holy Spirit uses us to further the work of the Lord’s Kingdom.  By not just paying lip service our sacrificial service advances the cause of Christianity.  The good works of the Christian is still the go to play in the world’s playbook.  Where would we be if the Lord didn’t allow us to make a difference?  

Jesus didn’t pay lip service.  He paid life service.  His sacrifice became our ours.  His grace and blessing allows us to be salt and light.  Here “I am” because of the great “I am.”

Amen.

January 29, 2023             Text:  1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Dear Friends in Christ,

In the morning fog of November 6, 1632, around 25,000 Swedish soldiers knelt in prayer.  The Swedish Lutheran king, Gustavus Adolphus, led them in singing “May God embrace us with his grace.”  The Swedes under Adolphus joined the Thirty Years War to salvage portions of Northern Europe and Germany for Lutheranism.  The fog lifted and the German city of Luetzen was set ablaze by Roman Catholic troops.  The king clapped his hands and shouted, “God’s will be done!  Jesus, help me fight to the glory of your holy name!  Forward!”  The troops engaged the enemy.  When the line collapsed, the king hurried in to rally the men.  He found himself in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.  His horse got shot and then his left arm.  He kept encouraging the men.  Then he was shot in the back, fell off his horse, was stabbed and shot in the temple.  This 38-year-old warrior king who helped to save Lutheranism was now dead.  His death passed through the ranks, the troops rallied, and the Swedes won the most crucial battle of the war.  Victory in defeat.

Gustavus Adolphus was wise, powerful, and of noble birth, but even he tasted the way God works in the world.  God works with a heavenly wisdom made perfect in “weakness” and “foolishness” according to worldly standards.  Are you . . .

“A FOOL IN THE WORLD OR A BOASTER IN THE LORD?”

To find the fools in the world is easy.  They think they are wiser and smarter than the rest of us.  “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  Paul then writes, “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles.”  The world is constantly falling all over themselves with their silliness.  Crazy what the cross can do, right?

Look at it this way.  The world is dictated by Christianity.  Always has been, always will be.  We’ve numbered our years around Christ’s birth.  We’ve numbered our days – seven days in a week – since creation.  All major holidays are because of Christianity.  We talk of sin and grace and heaven and hell and good and bad and even say things like, “amen, brother” because of Christianity.  Most of the schools and hospitals and charities of the world have sprouted up because of Christianity.  We toil in work as the Bible says and still post the Ten Commandments in many of our courthouses.  And even when it looks like the world wants nothing to do with Christ, a football player gets injured in a nationally televised game and what does society do?  Everyone prays.  Where did they learn that?  Right, you know.  You see, the Lord is much wiser than the world.  He knows men and women are going to be fools.  Oh, how He must enjoy it when they think they have all the answers.  Do you ever join the foolishness of the world?  Follow after the talking heads?  Get led by the hand to believe the food you eat, the air you breathe and the Bible you follow is toxic?  Really now, is a woman praying silently outside an abortion clinic, a danger to society?  See, how foolish the world is?

God in the person of Jesus Christ came into this foolish world. Remember how many times he made the wise people look dumb.  The Pharisees, the teachers of the law, the Roman judges.  God chose the “low and despised” who is the source of our life – Christ Jesus.  The cross looked like a disaster.  But from Calvary came deliverance from death.  The mourning that came from Jesus in the tomb, actually brought forth life when He rose again.  All of this has been revealed to us who call Christ our Savior.  The Holy Spirit helps us to boast in the Lord because we know that we have righteousness and redemption and sanctification.  Call us fools all you want because we know who we are.  God’s child, saved by Him through Jesus.  We are forgiven our foolishness as we stand before His cross and eat his body and drink his blood.  God chose us to pray for the wise and the politically correct and those that are confused and caught up in the foolishness of the world.  

In South America, there lives a curious little spider which has its home underneath the water.  It forms a tiny air bubble around itself and sinks to the bottom of the pond.  It can remain for hours, living below the water, yet breathing air from above.  When it returns to the surface it is perfectly dry.  It is in the water and yet separate from it.  The spider only survives as long as it maintains contact with the air from above.

This spider survives because of its air bubble.  As Christians we only survive in the world if we remain in contact with God’s Word and Sacraments.  It insulates us from worldly thinking.  We cannot escape the world until the day we die.  The spider lives in the water yet remains separate from it.  We live in the world, but do not follow the foolishness of the world.  They see the cross as nothing or something to be afraid of.  We see it as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  We want to boast about the Christ of the cross and the Lord allows us to do that.  As with Gustavus Adolphus, death turns to life for us as well, and apparent defeat turns to victory.  In that, let us boast.

Amen.