Listening: A Consequential Thing

[Below you'll find live stream video from this past Sunday's 8:45 AM traditional and 11:00 AM modern worship services at Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Also below is the text of the message. Have a good week!]





Luke 10:38-42

As we begin our consideration of today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 10:38-42, let’s be clear about what Jesus is not saying. Jesus is not telling Martha (or us) that hospitality is a bad thing. The Bible tells us repeatedly that it’s God’s will for us, both as an expression of our love for Him and our neighbor, that we show hospitality to others.

Our Old Testament lesson this morning, for example, recounts how three strangers showed up at the tent of Abraham and Sarah, the father and mother of ancient Israel, and how they bent over backward to welcome and provide for these visitors. Those visitors turned out to be, I believe, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It’s this incident that informs the call to we Christians found in Hebrews 13:2, in the New Testament: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” On many occasions, Jesus says that in our hospitality toward strangers, more than anything, we extend hospitality to Him. We welcome Him. And that’s a good thing.

But, friends, there are different ways to welcome Jesus. 

One way is exemplified in today’s lesson by Martha, who is busily involved in seeing to it that everyone is fed, everyone’s glass is filled, and everyone has a place to sleep. 

Another way of welcoming Jesus is exemplified by Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to His Word.

There are times and places for us to show each kind of hospitality to Jesus, times to get busy with serving, and times to sit and listen to God’s Word. 

Martha did a good thing by inviting Jesus and His entourage to the home she shared with her sister Mary and her brother Lazarus. 

But Jesus says that Mary did the better thing, chose “what is better,” by sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to His Word. (Luke 10:42)

Mary seems to understand that when Jesus, the Word of God, came to the place she lived speaking His Word, telling all who will listen that He has brought the free gift of forgiveness and new life for all people and calling all to trust in Him, it’s time to set down the pots and pans, time to forget about the roast, time to forgo even treasured leisure time activities and listen. 

It was time, in the words of Psalm 46:10, to “Be still, and know that [Jesus is] God…”

Martha seems to think–in the same way that we modern Christians, concerned about the apathy or even hostility toward God that exists in our world, sometimes think: that she had to serve Jesus, that she had to prop Jesus up, that Jesus needed her to throw herself into frenzied action. 

But there are times when the greatest act of service and worship we can render to God is to hear His Word, receive the assurance of His love and forgiveness, and receive the bread and wine of Holy Communion. In Mark 10:45, Jesus says: “...the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) God transforms us from His enemies to His friends and brings His grace into our lives not by what we do for Him, but by what He has done and still doing for us!

Jesus didn’t need a scrap of the food that Martha was preparing for Him; but she needed the Word of life He was serving up as a free gift right there under her roof! So do we…week in and week out.

So what about us? 

Are we too busy to listen to Jesus? 

Are we so involved in activities and projects, at work, at home, even good and laudable ones, that we can’t keep still long enough to hear from Jesus and His Word? The fact that you're here, placing yourself under the Word of God is a very good thing!

That we need Jesus and His Word is a central teaching of the Bible. In the demands of daily life and in the face of overpowering temptation, it can become hard for us to remember that Jesus, God the Son, has already conquered our sins, conquered the power of temptations to separate us from God, and conquered death. It becomes easy when we become absorbed in mountains of activity, some of which may be designed to prove how wonderful we are or even to lift Jesus up to the world that, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) 

At the Mount of Transfiguration, the voice of God the Father told Peter, James, and John (and us), “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” (Luke 9:35) 

Both for our own salvation and to lend the power of God to our witness and service to others, we need to push the pause button on our sometimes frenzied lives to just listen to Jesus and His Gospel Word. “...faith comes from hearing the message [the message that Jesus, God in the flesh, took our punishment for sin on the cross, then opened up eternity to all who turn to Him], and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17) 

Listen, friends: It’s the Word of Jesus and the Word about Jesus, not our work or our serving or our good deeds, but the Word of Jesus and the Word about Jesus alone, that creates and sustains and grows the gift of faith in Jesus that saves us from sin, death, and hell and saves us for life with God that never ends.

This is why God created the Sabbath day for His ancient people. God wanted them to hear His Word of Law that reminds us of His will and His Word of Gospel by which, through the crucified and risen Jesus, He saves us from the consequence of our complete inability to keep His Law. God commanded ancient Israel in the Third Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” (Exodus 20:8) 

Even though today Jesus has liberated the Sabbath so that the grace and new life He brought into the world on the first Easter Sunday is ours every single day of the week, we still need, like Mary, to sit at Jesus’ feet to hear His Word. Regularly.

Being in worship regularly when we could be tailgating at a Bengals game, sleeping in (like I did in the early years of Ann's and my marriage when, she would go to worship, and I'd stay at home worshiping at Saint Mattress of the Springs), or catching up on chores around the house can seem onerous. 

But one pastor pushes back on all that with a little scenario. Imagine, he says, that you’re part of a family that’s had a long day without the time to eat. You’re famished. Then, back home, a family member takes the time to go to the kitchen and fix a meal. Eventually, you’re told, “Come and get it.” It’s unlikely that you’d say, “Do we have to eat again? I ate yesterday.” No, you’d gladly come to eat up the food offered to you because you know you need it to live! At one level, the call to "Come and get it!" may be a law, a command: "You need food. Here it is. Now start eating." But in reality, it's a gracious word of promise, of good news: "Here's the food that I've prepared for you to give you strength and good health." That's why the Sabbath call to worship with God's people and to welcome the Word and Sacraments isn't onerous, but life-giving!

No matter what else happens in your week, you know that on at least one day of the week, Jesus will come to you and His Church just as He came to the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. 

And, as was true then, He will come to you through His Word: read, proclaimed, and even imparted to us in, with, and under simple elements like water, bread, and wine. 

He invites us to feed each week on His grace, forgiveness, and love. 

This is why in his explanation of the Third Commandment–to keep the Sabbath day holy–Martin Luther writes not of a day of grim obligation, but of a day of stillness and humble receptivity to Jesus. “We should fear and love God,” Luther says, “so that we do not despise His Word and the preaching of it, but acknowledge it as holy, and gladly hear and learn it.” 

When we worship with God’s people as often as circumstances allow, whether here in our home church or at another church when we’re on vacation, we join the apostle Peter who once said to Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

Friends, let’s be fair to Martha. 

There are times for the kind of hospitality she wanted to exercise the day Jesus visited her home. 

But every Sunday, in the Word and the Sacraments, Jesus comes to His Church to call them, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. “ (Matthew 11:28) 

In His Word, Jesus works the gift of faith in Him within us. 

He gives us rest in Him. 

He gives us the assurance that He has died and risen for us. 

He announces that He has already done everything needed for our eternal salvation. 

In the end, there is only one thing we really need–Jesus and His Gospel. 

We need His Word and His Sacraments. 

Sunday worship may not seem like much to an unbelieving world. Sometimes, it may not seem like much to us. But, friends, joining our sisters and brothers to sit at Jesus’ feet and welcome Jesus and His Word into our hearts and minds and wills each Sunday is the most consequential thing we can do during this and every week we live in this world. Martha’s sister Mary knew that. May we always know it too. Amen

Authority

[This was shared during this morning's worship celebrations with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio.]

Mark 1:21-28
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright tells the true story of an incident that happened at sea. The operators of a tourist boat, filled with cars and people on their vacations, failed to close the boat’s doors properly. After the boat had shoved off, water began to pour into the boat. People were thrown into panic. They were terrified and their shrieks of fear filled the air.

Suddenly, a passenger--not a crew member--took charge of the situation. In clear and confident tones, he told people what to do. A sense of relief began to replace the panic as the man’s fellow passengers realized that someone was taking charge. Many were able to get on lifeboats that they might otherwise have missed in the dark and the frenzied rush. The man who took control also went down to find people trapped in the hold, then formed a human bridge, holding onto a ladder with one hand and the mostly submerged ship with the other, enabling more people to cross to safety.

Later, this man was found drowned in the boat’s hold. As Wright puts it: “He had literally given his life in using the authority he had assumed—the authority by which many had been saved.”

In today’s world, we don’t much care for the whole idea of authority. We don’t want anybody telling us what to do, even when the person in authority seems to know what they’re doing and to have our best interests at heart…even when the authority figure in question is God. It’s so hard for us to trust even the God we meet in Christ. Yet Jesus tells us (and backs up the authority of His words through His death and resurrection): “I am the way, and the life, and the truth. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” That’s authority!

Do we truly believe that Jesus has the authority to make that command and that promise?

Or do we repose greater trust in ourselves, our families, our work, our wits, or our pleasures?

The choice between heaven or hell, life or death, purpose or futility, connection to God and others or utter, stark eternal aloneness resides in the issue of who we will give authority over our lives: Jesus Christ or ourselves.

In first-century Judea where Jesus lived, there was no shortage of people who claimed to have authority. Roman governors and soldiers, priests, Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes, tax collectors: They all barked out orders, religious and secular. And while they might gain outward submission, none could command true respect. None of them acted like the passenger who saved so many on that tourist boat, a man many of his fellow passengers had probably never met, but were willing to follow.

And none of the would-be authority figures people encountered in Jesus' day spoke or acted like Jesus.

All of this may help to explain our Gospel lesson for today, where we’re told that Jesus’ fellow Jews in the synagogue at Capernaum were “amazed” by Him, because, verse 22 says, “He taught them as one who had authority, and not as the teachers of the [religious] law.”

What made Jesus so authoritative to these people? Two things possibly.

First, Jesus taught as one who wasn’t looking out for himself. In Mark 10:45, Jesus: “...the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

We don’t know if Jesus used words like those in the synagogue at Capernaum, but the worshipers there that day would have clearly sensed that when Jesus called them to follow Him, He wasn’t doing it to feed His ego, fill His wallet, or gain political power.

Philippians 2:5-11 says that though Jesus was equal to God the Father, He “emptied Himself,” became a slave for our sins and died on the cross for them so that the Father could raise Him up, opening eternity to all who move away from sin and turn in trust to Jesus. Jesus had authority because He was looking out for you and me, not Himself. And so He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, “Father...not what I will, but what You will.”

Here’s the other thing that may have given Jesus’ teaching authority that day: He taught as one with un-derived authority. By that, I mean when Jesus spoke, He clearly wasn’t just quoting the God of the Old Testament. Jesus was and is the God Who spoke to the world into existence, founded the nation of Israel on the barren womb of Sarah, led His people out of slavery in Egypt, and promised that Israel would fulfill its mission to be a light to all the nations by being the birthplace of the Savior of the nations, Jesus Himself.

Scholars say that when rabbis taught in the synagogues of Jesus’ day, they would preface their points with phrases like, “Moses said…” or “Rabbi So-and-So taught…” While He sometimes quoted from the Old Testament, Jesus had no need to resort to citations or footnotes to buttress the power of His words. He spoke with the clarity and authority of God’s own voice. Often, when Jesus cited passages of the Old Testament, He would say things, "You have heard it said...but I tell you." He spoke with the authority of God Himself.

Though the worshipers at Capernaum could not have articulated a confession of Jesus as God in the flesh, the Messiah King yet, they knew that there was something more authoritative about Jesus’ teaching than the teaching they ordinarily heard.

But someone in their presence knew the facts. Please look at verses 23 and 24 of the Gospel lesson. Mark says: “Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’”

The demon understood that Jesus was God in the flesh.

The problem, from Jesus’ viewpoint, was that the people of Capernaum didn’t yet understand the full truth about Jesus. And unless we understand that following Jesus means submitting to the daily crucifixion of our sins and our inborn desire to be the ultimate authorities over our lives, we’re not ready to follow Jesus.

Jesus would later say in Mark 8:34, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

There are many people today--many of them filling up the membership rosters of churches--who don’t follow Jesus, but simply hover around Him because they see Him as a cosmic rabbit’s foot or a dispenser of blessings for which they can make deals.

They aren’t Jesus’ disciples. Jesus never makes deals. Instead, He’s in the gift-giving business.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” But we know that in order to take hold of this gift, we must let go of the old sinful self. Our old sinful selves must be crucified...every day!

And, even when we do that, day-in and day-out, Jesus doesn’t promise that all will go smoothly. Think about this: Even after Jesus brought His friend Lazarus back to life, Lazarus had to die again! Bummer!

But Jesus does promise to be with us always and, as He said to Lazarus’ sister on the day He called Lazarus from the grave: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Jesus couldn’t risk seeing the people of Capernaum come to hover around Him on the testimony of a demon. When the enemies of God define what it means to follow Jesus, they always get it wrong, either turning Christian faith into a spiritual Disneyland without difficulties or a painful struggle to please a cruel God. In Jesus’ cross and empty tomb, we see that neither picture of God is true.

But, at Capernaum near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, neither cross nor empty tomb had happened yet. So, Jesus did something that, afterwards, His early disciples would see as a sign—an epiphany—of His identity as God in human flesh.

Look at verse 25. Jesus rebuked the demon. “‘Be quiet!’ said Jesus sternly. “‘Come out of him!’ The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.’” Later in His ministry, Jesus would still wind and waves, causing His disciples to ask a similar question, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Both are good questions! Who is this guy with authority over demons, wind, waves, and, as we’ll see, life and death?

The answer can be found in Genesis 1, where we’re told that before the universe was formed, God’s Spirit moved over “the deep,” a roaring storm, and spoke to it—“Let there be light…” “Let there be dry land…” “Let there be grass and fields and trees and fruits…” “Let us make human beings in our image…”

Jesus spoke to and subdued all that is in opposition to God with the same voice God used to bring creation into being!

The people of Capernaum didn’t see this about Jesus yet. They didn't understand yet that Jesus was God as well as man. But they were amazed. It would only be after Jesus' death and resurrection that His first followers would understand what Jesus had shown and what Jesus had taught them about His identity as God in human flesh.

A friend of ours came home one day to discover that his wife had left him. For months, He tried to claim control of his life by throwing himself into long work days and non-stop busy-ness. He didn’t have a demon. But the devil was riding on his back.

Friends finally got to him though. We told him how Christ helped us through tough times and gave us hope for tomorrow. That didn’t make all his pain go away. But as he began to walk with Christ, the need for frenzy subsided. He knew he didn’t need to be in control. Christ set him free.

That’s what the authority of Christ over the chaos of this fallen universe can do for all who believe in Him. It frees us from sin and death and the need to be our own gods.

Christ wants to give that same peace to you and me every day. May Christ help us to turn each day from a self-driven life and turn instead to Him. May we learn the power that comes from surrender to Jesus, when we give Him complete authority over our days and our eternities. Amen

Let Christ Exercise His Authority to Give You Peace

[This was shared during worship with the people and guests of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, yesterday.]

Mark 1:21-28
N.T. Wright tells the true story of an incident that happened several years ago. You may remember it.

The operators of a tourist boat, filled with cars and people on their vacations, failed to close the boat’s doors properly.

After the boat had shoved off, water began to pour into the boat. People began to panic. People were terrified and their shrieks of fear filled the air.

Suddenly, a passenger--not a crew member--took charge of the situation. In clear and confident tones, he told people what to do.

A sense of relief began to replace the panic as the man’s fellow passengers realized that someone was taking charge. Many were able to get on lifeboats that they might otherwise have missed in the dark and the frenzied rush.

The man who took control also went down to find people trapped in the hold, then formed a human bridge, holding onto a ladder with one hand and the mostly submerged ship with the other, enabling more people to cross to safety.

Later, this man was found drowned in the boat’s hold. As Wright puts it: “He had literally given his life in using the authority he had assumed—the authority by which many had been saved.”

In today’s world, we don’t much care for the whole idea of authority. We don’t want anybody telling us what to do, even when the person in authority seems to know what they’re doing and to have our best interests at heart…even when the authority figure in question is God.

It’s so hard for us to trust even the God we meet in Christ. Yet Jesus tells us (and backs up the authority of His words through His death and resurrection): “I am the way, and the life, and the truth. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Do you believe that Jesus has the authority to make that command and that promise? Or do you repose greater trust in yourself, your family, your work, your wits, or your pleasures?

Do you believe that Jesus is the one and only "God and human" chain that can connect you to God and the life you were meant to live?

The choice between heaven or hell, life or death, purpose or futility, connection to God and others or utter, stark eternal aloneness inheres in the issue of who you will give authority over your life.

In first-century Judea where Jesus lived, there was no shortage of people who claimed to have authority. Roman governors and soldiers, priests, Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes, tax collectors: They all barked out orders, religious and secular.

And while they could command submission, none could command respect. None of them acted like the passenger who saved so many on that tourist boat, a man many of his fellow passengers had probably never met, but were willing to follow. And none of the would-be authority figures people encountered in Jesus' day spoke or acted or lived or talked like Jesus.

All of this may help to explain our Gospel lesson for today, where we’re told that Jesus’ fellow Jews in the synagogue at Capernaum were “astounded” by Him, because, verse 22 says, “He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

What gave Jesus authority? Two things, I think.

First, Jesus taught as one who wasn’t looking out for himself.

Later in Mark’s gospel, we learn that Jesus said of Himself, “…the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, to give His life a ransom for many.”

We don’t know if Jesus used those same words in the synagogue at Capernaum, but the worshipers there that day would have clearly sensed that when Jesus called them to follow Him, He wasn’t doing it to feed His ego, fill His wallet, or gain political power.

The New Testament says that though Jesus was equal to God the Father, He “emptied Himself,” became our slave and died on the cross for our sins so that the Father could raise Him up, opening eternity to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus.

Jesus had authority because He was looking out for you and me, not Himself. That's why He prayed in that garden, “Father, not My will, but Your will be done.”

Here’s the other thing that I think gave Jesus’ teaching authority: He taught as one with un-derived authority.

By that, I mean when Jesus spoke, He wasn’t quoting the God of the Old Testament, the God Who spoke to Abraham and Moses and the prophets. Jesus was and is the God Who spoke to the world into existence, founded the nation of Israel on the barren womb of Sarah, led His people out of slavery in Egypt, and promised that Israel would fulfill its mission to be a light to all the nations by being the birthplace of the Savior of the nations, Jesus.

Scholars say that when rabbis taught in the synagogues of Jesus’ day, they would preface their points with phrases like, “Moses said…” or “Rabbi So-and-So taught…”

Jesus had no need to resort to citations or footnotes to buttress the power of His words.

Though the worshipers at Capernaum could not have articulated a confession of Jesus as God in the flesh, the Messiah King, they knew that there was something more authoritative, something more powerful, about Jesus’ teaching than the teaching they ordinarily heard.

Like the disciples who, several years later, met the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus, not at first recognizing Him as He taught them God’s Word, the worshipers at Capernaum must have felt too: “Were not out hearts burning within us while He…was opening the Scriptures to us?”

But if the worshipers there that day couldn’t say with certainty that Jesus was more than just a carpenter from Nazareth, someone there knew the facts.

Please look at verses 23 and 24 of the Gospel lesson. Mark says: “Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’”

The demon understood that Jesus was God in the flesh.

The problem, from Jesus’ viewpoint, was that the people of Capernaum didn’t yet understand the full truth about Jesus. And unless people understand that following Jesus means submitting to the daily crucifixion of our sins and our inborn desire to be the ultimate authorities over our lives, they’re not ready to follow Jesus.

That’s what Jesus meant when He said later in His ministry: “If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross [meaning, take responsibility for your sins and ask Christ to destroy their power over us] and follow Me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”

There are many people who follow Jesus because they see Him as a cosmic rabbit’s foot or a dispenser of blessings for which they can make deals.

But Jesus isn’t making any deals.

He is in the gift-giving business: He gives forgiveness and new life to all who surrender their lives to Him.

But surrender means the crucifixion of our old selfish ways.

And, even when we do that, day-in and day-out, Jesus doesn’t promise that all will go smoothly.

Think about this: Even after Jesus brought his good friend Lazarus back from the dead, Lazarus had to die again! Bummer!

But Jesus does promise to be with us always and, as He said to Lazarus’ sister on the day He called Lazarus from the grave: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

Jesus couldn’t risk seeing the people of Capernaum come to follow Him on the testimony of a demon, though. When the enemies of God define what it means to follow Jesus, they always get it wrong, either turning Christian faith into a spiritual Disneyland with no difficulties or a painful struggle to please an unkind God. In Jesus’ cross and empty tomb, we see that neither picture of God is true.

But, at Capernaum near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, neither cross nor empty tomb had happened yet. So, Jesus did something that, afterwards, His early disciples would see as a sign—an epiphany—of His identity as God in human flesh.

Look at verse 25. “Jesus rebuked [the demon], saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of Him!” Jesus later used the same word translated as “be silent” when He commanded a roaring storm that had Jesus’ disciples fearing for their lives. “Be still!” He told the wind and waves, causing His disciples to ask, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

Good question! The answer can be found in Genesis 1, where we’re told that before the universe was formed, God’s Spirit moved over “the deep,” a roaring storm, and spoke to it—“Let there be light…” “Let there be dry land…” “Let there be grass and fields and trees and fruits…” “Let us make human beings in our image…”

The people of Capernaum didn’t understand yet that Jesus was God as well as man. But they were astonished. “What is this?” they ask one another. “A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”

A friend of ours came home one day to discover that his wife had left him to take up with another man. He was devastated.

In a vain effort to drown out his pain and claim control of his life, he threw himself into long workdays punctuated by non-stop busy-ness. He didn’t have a demon. But the devil seemed to be riding on his back.

Another friend finally got to him. He talked with him about how Christ had helped him through tough times and gave him hope for tomorrow.

Our friend finally heard Jesus telling him, “Be still and know that I am God.” Day after day, he let Christ take authority over his life.

That didn’t make all his pain or his questions go away. But as he began to walk each day with Christ by his side, the need for frenzy did go away.

He didn’t have to keep trying to assert the control over his life that he once thought he could have or needed to have. Christ had set him free. He came to know peace in the midst of the insanity and pain of life in this world.

Christ wants to give you that same peace today. Turn from a self-driven life. Turn to Christ. Jesus has the authority to change your life for eternity. Let Him do it. Surrender to Him. Amen