The Journey of Here and Now

[This was shared during worship this morning with the members and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Luke 9:51-62

Christian journalist and thinker Philip Yancey has advice for Christians. “We do well to remember that the Bible has far more to say about how to live during the journey [through this life] than about the ultimate destination [beyond this life].”

That’s good advice. Jesus sets those who believe in Him free from sin and death not so that they can wait smugly for the days they die and get to be with Him. He sets us free so that, having the assurance that we belong to God forever, we can live this life differently and so that, through our lives and witness, we can invite others to join us in our journey with Jesus through this life.

In Matthew 24:13, Jesus tells us that the destination of an eternity with God only belongs to those who start living in that eternity through faith in Him today. “[T]he one who stands firm to the end [that means to the end of this life] will be saved [for the next].”

And the apostle Peter makes it clear that we are saved by Jesus not just for eternity and not just for ourselves, but for now and for others. “[Y]ou are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession,” Peter tells disciples of Jesus, “that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” [1 Peter 2:9] Our call in this life, today, right now, is to be and to make disciples out of gratitude for the grace through which God has saved us from ourselves. That’s our path, the journey Christ has marked out for us.

Our gospel lesson for today finds Jesus beginning the decisive final leg on the path, the journey that God the Father has marked for Him. Take a look at it, please, Luke 9:51-62. It begins: “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”

In the Greek in which Luke composed his gospel, that verse more literally says: “Then it came to pass, in the fulfillment of His ascension, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Ascension here doesn’t refer here to the day forty days after Jesus’ resurrection that He ascended to heaven. It refers instead to His overall mission of going to Jerusalem to suffer, be crucified, to rise, and then to ascend to heaven. 

Jesus has set His face to complete the journey that began with His birth at Christmas, to buy sinners out of our slavery to sin, death, and the devil through His death, resurrection, and ascension. 

Yesterday, we saw a re-run of an old Law and Order in which Detective Green, always a straight-shooter, faces a murder rap he doesn't deserve in order to spare someone else prison time. He turns to the prosecuting attorney who has unraveled what was going on and asks, “Why are you doing this?” “Because,” the prosecutor answers, “we thought you were worth saving.” 

You know, sometimes, on rare occasions, God graces us with clear pictures of ourselves. We see, when all self-justification and rationalization are cast aside, how we have marred ourselves and our characters with our sin and selfishness. We may see that we are, in many ways, damaged goods. 

But listen: The God Who made you and all that exists thinks you, along with every other human being without exception, are worth saving. You are worth saving. 

That’s why Jesus set His face to journey to Jerusalem. 

That’s why He calls us to journey with Him today.

But not everyone thinks they need saving. Or if they do think they need saving, they believe that they, or the gods of their choosing, or a particular way of life will save them. Verse 52: “And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.”

The Samaritan villagers didn’t welcome Jesus any more than had Jesus' fellow Jews in Jerusalem had at His birth or would in Holy Week, any more than the Romans would, any more than most people in the world today welcome Him for Who He is--God and King and Savior. Isaiah prophesied well of Jesus in the eighth-century BC: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” [Isaiah 53:3]

But the Samaritan villagers who spurned Jesus weren’t the only ones who didn’t understand Who Jesus is or what the journey of Christian discipleship is about. Verse 54: “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them.”

Luke says much more than that Jesus rebuked James and John. In the original Greek, he quotes Jesus as telling the two that they’re spiritually confused: “Οὐκ οἴδατε οἵου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεῖς”: “You don’t know of what spirit you are!” In other words, Jesus was saying, “If you guys want to torch people I came to save, you’re following the spirits of hell rather than the Holy Spirit.” 

For the person who journeys with Jesus, hatred for or indifference to those who may disagree with us are not options. 

If we insist on hating Muslims or atheists, or those who disagree with the Bible’s teaching on things like sexuality, how can we possibly introduce them to Jesus Christ? How can a Christian being hateful introduce others to the loving God we know in Jesus? 

Our call isn’t to torch others, literally or figuratively, but to touch them with the gospel of Christ, through our prayers, our faithfulness, our love, our witness. 

Though by this time James and John have been with Jesus for some time, they still don’t understand what it means to journey with Him in this life.

They weren’t alone in their lack of understanding about being disciples of Jesus. 

Verse 57: “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’” To follow Jesus means accepting uncertainty. It means accepting that He may be calling us to venture outside our comfort zones so that we may learn to rely on Him alone.

Forty years ago, the last thing I wanted to be was a pastor. I remember telling my boss at the United Way, at a time I was furtively beginning my journey out of atheism to life with Christ, “I have no use for pastors.” That’s what I’d been taught by my grandfather and it was what I still believed. Within three years, I was in seminary, no longer able to resist the path that God seemed to have in mind for me. 

Thank God, not everyone is called to be a pastor, but He calls every Christian to journey away from what makes them comfortable to do what points others to Christ. 

To what uncomfortable place is Jesus calling you today?

Verse 59: “[Jesus] said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But [the man] replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ [In Jewish custom, there was no higher responsibility than taking care of a parent’s burial...preferably after they died.] Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’” The call to follow Jesus is to set our faces toward whatever He may call us to be and do. Sometimes families will understand. But only sometimes. 

Verse 61: “Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” 

All farmers knew in the centuries before air conditioned tractor cabs outfitted with GPS guidance, that if you looked back while sowing or plowing, you’d either have crooked rows or torn up crops. To journey with Jesus is to look to where He’s leading us and not to torment ourselves over the sins and mistakes of our past and not to look back nostalgically on a lost past. 

When we turn to Jesus, we realize again, damaged or goods or not according to the world or our own dark imaginings, that we are children of the King. We belong to the One leading us through our individual journeys of discipleship, now and forever. 

Following Jesus can be uncomfortable and it would be impossible to do if following Jesus didn’t also mean journeying with Jesus by our sides, here and now, every day. 

To Christians on their journey of discipleship, the apostle Paul wrote, “...he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 4:6] Through all the days of this life, with their challenges and joys, tragedies and triumphs, may this be our one certainty as Jesus’ disciples: As we set our faces toward Jesus, He will bring the completion and fulfillment that He has in mind for us. 

And though I sometimes forget it, that’s all we really need to know. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Called to Be Gentle, Respectful...and Never Squeamish

[This was shared today during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

John 20:19-31
This Good Friday, after we had confessed our sins to God in Jesus’ name, I did something that always makes me feel a bit squeamish. I turned to the congregation and declared, “I forgive you.”

A voice inside of me asks who am I, a sinner who daily violates God’s will as I mindlessly follow the lead of my corrupt human nature, to tell you (or anyone else), “I forgive you”?

And what about the Church as a whole? “What right does the Church have to tell me what’s right and wrong?” more than one person has asked through the centuries.

We all have known self-righteous legalists who, in the name of Jesus, make telling others how bad they are their hobby. They’ll tell people that if they dance or play cards or drink beer, they’re going to hell. 

Some so-called Christians say that if you’re even tempted by sin, you’re going to hell. (They say this even though Jesus, the sinless Son of God, was tempted by sin.) 

These legalists say that even an orientation to sin, whether your sin orientation is to gluttony, taking God’s name in vain, covetousness, idolatry,  engaging in sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage, bearing false witness against others (a favorite sin among church members, by the way), or whatever violation of God’s moral law might most appeal to us, if we are tempted by these or any other sin, these self-righteous Christians tell us, it means we are damned by God.

So, it’s probably good for us to be just a little bit squeamish about telling people, “In Jesus' name, I forgive you” or, “In Jesus' name, I don’t forgive you.” 

But listen: Just because some Christians are self-righteous legalists--and others are equally unfaithful to God by being “anything goes libertarians” when it comes to sin--just because there are those kinds of people calling themselves Christians, doesn’t mean that we should avoid fulfilling the responsibility Christ has given to us as the Church, to pronounce forgiveness to the repentant and condemnation to the unrepentant. 

As the Church, the body of Christ in the world, we have both the right and the responsibility to do just that.

This all comes into focus in today’s gospel lesson, John 20:19-31. It begins on the first day of the new creation, Easter Sunday, when Israel’s calling to be God’s light to the world was fulfilled in the risen Jesus and when believers in Jesus, filled with Him and His love, were given this same call. 

To see what this means, we’re going to look at just the first five verses of the lesson, verses 19 to 23.

Verse 19: “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.”

The disciples’ Easter morning skepticism about Jesus’ physical resurrection from the dead is blown away when Jesus, alive and breathing, shows up in the midst of the locked room in which they’d been quaking in fear. Jesus met their fear with His peace. We have that same peace as we trust in Jesus.

Verse 21: “Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Genesis 2 tells us that “...the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being…” (Genesis 2:7). 

On the first Easter, Jesus, the risen Son of God, creates again, a new humanity, one that shares in Jesus’ death, daily submitting to the crucifixion of their sins and daily rising to newness in Him by daily repenting and daily receiving forgiveness through Jesus. He does this by breathing the Holy Spirit into the first disciples. 

When you and I are baptized, we receive the Holy Spirit, the breath of the new life that Jesus died and rose to give to all who belong to Him. “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

As stewards of this old creation, human beings were charged by God back in the garden of Eden, to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:7) Human beings were to reproduce children of God and to rule over this creation while trusting in God. God wanted to human beings to join Him in multiplying the blessings of His love with an ever-growing human family.

Of course, you know what happened. Humanity fell into sin, ushering death, darkness, and futility into God’s good creation. But even as God banished Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden, He put the serpent on notice that He was going to bring a new creation into being through a Savior. He told the serpent that a Son would be born to the human race Who “will crush your head.” (Genesis 3:15) Jesus is that Son, God in human flesh, Who can breathe new life into dead bones.

That’s what He did the first Easter in that locked room. “...he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” 

But Jesus doesn’t give new life or make us part of His new creation just so we can sit back and be pleased with ourselves. Whenever the God we know in Jesus gives new life, gives us a mission. 

The apostle Paul says that just as Adam was entrusted with the stewardship of the old creation, you and I are to be “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1, ESV). 

The apostle Peter says, “But you are the chosen race, the King's priests, the holy nation, God's own people, chosen [What? To sit around and think how wonderful we are or to tell others how bad they are? No!] to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) 

Jesus says that we are to reproduce ourselves by sharing His gospel and His truth with others: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) 

If we’ve been saved by Christ, we have a purpose, exactly as Jesus said on the first Easter evening: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Quite simply, our call is to be God’s new creation, people pulsing with the new life God gives to those who trust in the risen Jesus. 

And we’re to use every part of the lives God gives to us--our brains, our brawn, our lives, our money--to help others know and see Jesus. 

That means getting out of Jesus’ way, letting Him be he burning center of our lives so that the whole world can know not just what’s a sin and what’s not, but so that they can, through us and the ministries of which we are a part, meet the One Who has conquered our sin, Who can keep conquering our sin as we live in daily repentance and renewal.

In honesty, I can say that I am a sinner and that I daily, often many times a day, feel the need to confess my sins to God and seek forgiveness through Christ. 

But in Christian love and filled with the Holy Spirit as a child of God’s new creation, I can also declare God’s forgiveness to the repentant and His condemnation to the unrepentant. 

Peter says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Peter 3:15).

I believe that if you and I speak God’s truth--His sometimes hard truth--in love, with gentleness and respect, that even when people reject the Savior we represent, they won’t have a legitimate reason to think that we’ve been unloving toward them. 

“I’m gay,” a man who loved the Lord told me one Sunday after worship in a previous parish. He was afraid this meant that God wouldn’t have anything to do with him. “Being gay isn’t the question between you and God,” I told him. “I have sins that tempt me too. The question is what we do with our temptations.” And then I told him honestly, “God loves you and I love you too.”

Listen: The responsibility of proclaiming forgiveness or condemnation for sin, what Jesus elsewhere calls “the keys to the kingdom,” is neither a license to kill with condemnation nor a permit to paper sin over with cheap grace. It’s our responsibility and our joy to speak the truth about Jesus so that, coming face to face with Jesus through us, He will make new disciples and growing disciples...so that, new generations will be able to say as Thomas did one week after the first Easter when he came face to face with Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28) 

May we never be too squeamish to share Jesus, the truth of God, so that, just like us, others can repent and believe in Him and be saved by grace through faith in the crucified and risen Savior of the world. Amen


[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Showing Christ (Part 3, 'Bearing Fruit for God's Kingdom')

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, during worship today.]

Luke 13:6-9
Two weeks ago, we first showed the congregation what we call a “video postcard,” displaying the pathway to the destination of full maturity as disciples of Jesus Christ. 




Now, why are we making such a big deal about growing as Christ’s disciples?

In Luke 13:6-9, Jesus tells one of His parables. He says, “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

Here, Jesus paints a picture of a vineyard-owner upset that one of his fig vines hasn’t grown. Impatient, the owner tells the caretaker to cut the tree down. The way he sees it, the tree is just taking up space, using water, nutrients, sun, and life that might more productively be used by a new tree that will actually produce figs. But the caretaker wants to give the fig tree more time to do what fig trees are supposed to do, to show the result of all that’s been put into it. He says that he wants to put more manure on it, water it, and dig some space around it to give it the chance to grow. If, after all of that effort, the tree won’t bear fruit, then it will be time to cut it down.

The point Jesus is making is clear. Through His Word, which we can read and hear proclaimed, as well as taste and see in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, we can know Jesus Christ and the new life that He brings to all who believe in Him; we can grow in Christ, as we mature as followers who daily die to self and rise to the new life God has in mind for us; and we can show that Christ lives in us and so, bear fruit. 

Some see the caretaker in Jesus’ parable as being Jesus Himself. Jesus shields us from the condemnation for sin and hard-heartedness that we deserve and keeps pouring His Word into our lives with one aim in mind: that Christ will so fill us that we will show Christ to the world. We will be people who live for Christ, serve in Christ’s name, share the good news of new and everlasting life through faith in Jesus. The people around us will know that we follow Jesus. That’s what it means to show Christ.

Let’s be honest, taken together, most people in the churches of North America and Europe are like the dormant fig tree in Jesus’ parable. Despite being able to freely receive the Word of God, the word of new and everlasting life that when embraced and trusted, fills a person with the very life of God, most church-goers are indistinguishable from the rest of the world. They’re dead stumps. They’re “go through the motion Christians.” 

And one day, such lukewarm Christians may be cut down, eternally separated from God, because they refuse to let Jesus take up residence in their lives, refuse to let the Word they repeatedly received from the crucified and risen Jesus fill them and impel them to lives of love, service, and witness to the dying world around them.

In John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” But something miraculous happens to us when we let Jesus, the blazing, luminescent Author of all life, get to us, to enter into us, when we open the door and let Him into the center of our lives. 

We become lights that show others Jesus so that He can change their lives the way He’s changing ours. “You are the light of the world,” Jesus says. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.” (Matthew 5:14-15) Are we giving light to the whole house? The whole world? The whole community?

God’s grace given in Christ is not our private possession and faith is not a private matter. We’re to show it, not with arrogance, but humility; not with pride, but with love. 

1 Peter 2:9 tells you and me as baptized believers in Jesus, “...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” In other words, God has poured all of this grace and life made available to us through faith in Jesus not just for our own personal assurance, but so that we can let others know and grow in Jesus too. That’s our purpose in life! There is no other!

This message up to this point is apt to engender two main responses. 

One is indifference. 

The other is an anxious desire to know how we can show Christ, as though showing Christ to others was an item on a holy checklist, the successful completion of which will earn us a place in eternity with God. 

Both reactions are human and understandable. And both of them are completely wrong. 

Nothing I’ve said today alters the truth that we are saved by God’s charitable grace through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. But what I am saying is that if you have been saved by Christ and your faith in Him, you will want to show others how you, although a sinner worthy of eternal condemnation, have been made a saint in God’s kingdom because of the death of Jesus on a cross and the faith in Jesus created in you by the Holy Spirit. In other words, what we should be asking is, How can we get out of God’s way so that Christ is shown through us? Here are a few thoughts on how that happens.

First: We consciously, daily invite Jesus into every part of our lives. The New Testament book of Revelation begins with the resurrected Jesus interacting with seven ancient Christian congregations, one of them Laodicea, a church filled with people indifferent to Jesus. “Here I am!” Jesus tells them. “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:20) We show Christ to others when we let Jesus in.

Second: We spend time in God’s Word so that Christ can take root in our lives. Psalm 1:1-2 uses the term law in the Old Testament sense, meaning God’s Word or the way of life God reveals to His people in His Word when it says, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.” We need to let God’s Word go deeply into our lives each day if Christ will be shown by our lives.

Third: We worship and receive the sacrament every time we can. I’m so happy to be part of a church that offers Holy Communion every Sunday. And to be part of a church that take God’s Word so seriously. We need God and we need God’s people if we’re to bear fruit for the kingdom.

Fourth: We build listening into our prayer lives. It’s a noisy, busy world. If you can, take time to let God speak to you, to assure you of His presence and His love for you, to guide you, and to challenge you each day. Psalm 46:10 famously tells us, “Be still, and know that I am God…”

Fifth: We don't ignore what God tells us. Some people spend their lives wringing their hands, wondering what God wants them to do. But there’s really no need to wonder! God calls those who trust in Jesus to love God, love neighbor, and make disciples. This is God’s will for our lives, which Jesus expressed in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. When we’re not sure what to do in situations in our lives, Martin Luther tells us to “sin boldly,” meaning seek God’s guidance, ask wise Christian friends, and then do what we think shows God’s love or helps us share Christ with others. We can’t show Christ to others if we get mired in what’s been called “the paralysis of analysis.” Think and plan, of course. But “Do not quench the Spirit,” 1 Thessalonians 5:19 tells us. In other words, be bold about sharing Jesus in your family, among your friends, and in the world.

These are steps of faith we can take in order to get out of God’s way to show the world the Savior Jesus we want everyone to know.

At Living Water, we’re committed to creating opportunities for everyone touched by the life of this congregation to know Christ, to grow in Christ, to show Christ and so, bear fruit for God’s kingdom. This is the entire reason for our being. Let’s continue to seek to follow Christ faithfully so that together we can fulfill our purpose as a church. We conclude our series next week.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]