Ten Healed, One Saved

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio on Sunday, October 13.]

Luke 17:11-19

Our gospel lesson for this morning, Luke 17:11-19, is particularly well-known among Lutheran Christians, I think because it often serves as the text for our Thanksgiving celebrations.

The lesson does talk about being thankful.

But if we come away from this passage thinking that if we’re thankful, Christ will save us from sin and death, we completely miss the point. 

Such an interpretation would turn Jesus into a lawgiver who demands that we earn salvation. 

But, good Lutherans that we are, we know that we cannot be saved and will not be saved by anything that we do. Nor can we be made holy by anything that we do. 

To those tempted to think that we can be saved by works, the Scripture speaks clearly. 

Romans 3:21-22, for example: "But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” 

Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

If we could be saved from sin, death, and futility by good things that we do or by the attitudes we adop, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to go to the cross to offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. 

And we would have no need of the Word that makes it possible for us to trust in Him or to be claimed by Him in Holy Baptism, where the Word of Jesus meets the water, or to receive Him in Holy Communion, where that Word meets the bread and the wine to yield the body and blood of Jesus Himself. 

Christ has done everything needed to save you and me from sin and death in His own death and resurrection. 

Then the Holy Spirit, preaching the Word about Christ to us in the Word and in the Sacraments, brings us the gift of faith, the capacity to believe that Christ did this even for you and me. 

This is how we are saved and how we are set apart to grow as people of God: by God’s grace through a faith in Christ constructed within us by the Holy Spirit. 

Listen: God doesn’t need our thanks. 

God doesn’t need our faith in Christ. 

But when we have been saved by grace through faith in Christ, we will be thankful. 

Thankfulness to God will be present in those who have been saved from sin and death, saved to live with God for all eternity.

I remember seeing this movingly exemplified in a man at a funeral visitation years ago. I watched him as he showed particular empathy to a young widow whose husband had died suddenly and tragically. Later, this man and I talked. He himself was a widower who had lost his wife about ten years earlier. He had been a devoted husband and her death had devastated him. But he had the hope of the gospel. I remember him telling me, “Pastor, every night before I go to bed, I kneel down on my bedroom floor and I thank God that He loves me and saves me even though I’m a sinner.” 

This man wasn’t trying to earn brownie points with God (or me). He wasn't abasing himself and serving up a fake humble pie. His words were the expressions of a man in whom God’s great grace given in Christ had created a great faith in Christ that resulted in great thankfulness to Christ.

We see this very phenomenon happen in a seemingly unlikely person in today’s gospel lesson. Take a look at it, please. Verse 11: “Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!’”

In those days, you know, lepers were forced to move away from their families and communities for fear that others might be afflicted with the same often disfiguring skin condition. They lived in colonies on the edges of towns, dependent on people who, from a distance, might bring them food or other necessities. This particular colony of ten included both Jesus’ countrymen and at least one Samaritan. Samaritans were, as you know, often hated and disdained by Jesus’ fellow Jews. But when people go through common horrors, the petty prejudices we stoke when we don’t feel vulnerable often evaporate. I have often seen bigoted people with loved ones hovering on the point of death in hospital ICUs bond with the families of other ICU patients despite differences in their colors or religions that would have, under different circumstances, have had nothing to do with each other. When life knocks you down and reacquaints us with the fact that we are not invincible, it’s easier for us to see that we are all human beings made in God’s image. So, it was with these lepers all desperate for Jesus’ help.

Verse 14: “When [Jesus] saw them, he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.” Jewish ritual and civil law required that a priest had to certify that a leprous person had been cured before she or he could resume their normal lives or be in worship at the temple or the local synagogue. That’s behind Jesus’ directive to the men.

But more to the point of today’s gospel lesson, we should ask ourselves, “What exactly did the lepers do to deserve to be healed?” 

We might all ask: “What did I do, what could I do to be saved from sin, death, and darkness?” 

I could ask myself a similar question: “What did I do that God spared me from a heart attack that should have killed me?” 

The answer to these questions and others like them that we might ask is the same: NOTHING! 

There is nothing that we can do to earn God’s grace, His undeserved favor, or any of His blessings. 

As the ten lepers should have learned that day on the frontier between Galilee and Samaria, the blessings God gives through Jesus are not deserved and cannot be earned.

Ten lepers were cleansed--or healed--that day. But only one of them, it seems, came to believe in Jesus as God the Son, the One and the only One we need for salvation from our sins and life with God that starts now and goes on in perfection beyond the grave. Nine seemed to view their return to normalcy as only their just due, taking good health as something God or the universe owed them, even though this is a fallen world in which ill-health or tragedy or difficulty can strike any person at any time. But one man had a different perspective.

Verse 15: “One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’”

Those last words of Jesus in this passage are the key to understanding the whole thing. 

Jesus tells the Samaritan first, “Rise…” Here, in the original Greek in which Luke and the other New Testament writers composed their works, Jesus tells the man, “Ἀναστὰς…” This is a variation on a noun commonly used in the New Testament, anastasis. It often means resurrection. Jesus is telling the thankful Samaritan more than to rise up from the ground. “Rise,” Jesus is telling him, “from sin and death and futility. Rise!” And then Jesus says, “go,” go about your new life.

Now comes the absolutely most important thing Jesus says in this whole passage: “your faith has made you well.” 

Now, we may think, “Weren’t the other nine made well too?” 

No, they were only purged of their leprosy. 

The word Jesus uses of the end to all ten men’s leprosy is ἐκαθαρίσθησαν, meaning they were made clean. But when Jesus tells the grateful Samaritan man “your faith has made you well,” He actually says, “Your faith has saved you.” The word our translation renders as made you well is sozo, which means save. 

Friends, you can bet your whole life on this fundamental truth: WHETHER YOU ARE IN GOOD HEALTH OR BAD, WHETHER YOU LIVE OR DIE, YOUR FAITH IN CHRIST SAVES YOU!

Ten of the lepers were healed, but only one of them was saved. 

Ten received grace; one had faith. 

Ten heard the saving Word of God in Christ; one believed. 

Ten had the kingdom of God come to them; only one entered that kingdom. 

The thankful Samaritan wasn’t saved because he was thankful; he was thankful because Christ had saved him by giving him the gift of faith. He came to faith in Christ the same way we come to faith in Christ: His Word comes to us and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we believe!

Thankfulness is a hallmark of all disciples of Jesus. The Samaritan was so overwhelmed by God’s grace and goodness that not giving praise to God and falling at Jesus’ feet would have been unthinkable to him. 

Is it that way for us? I know that it isn't always for me.

In speaking of Psalm 147:12, which directs God’s people to “Extol the Lord...praise your God,” Martin Luther observed, “We have to be yelled at before we start praising the Lord. Even animals don’t live that shamefully! Pigs recognize the person who gives them their food. They’ll run after her and cry to her. But the world doesn’t even recognize God, let alone thank and praise him…”

It was based on these words of Luther that we used to tell our kids that the reason we prayed at mealtimes was so that we wouldn't be less than pigs. One day when our kids were about seven and four, we were out at some restaurant. The server brought us our food and Ann and I set out, as you do with younger kids, to cut up their portions and just get them generally ready to eat. Then we dove in. At that point, Philip, the older of the two realized we hadn't prayed and said, "We're pigs!"
When the Word of God came to the leprous Samaritan, he was desperate enough, helpless enough, and vulnerable enough, that when God’s undeserved grace came to him through Jesus, he proved to be precisely the kind of good soil that Jesus says elsewhere is needed for the seed of faith to take root and grow. 

The gift of faith in Christ made him thankful for being healed and that faith made him well; it saved him. 

May we always be desperate enough, helpless enough, and vulnerable enough for faith to take root in us, to grow in us, to make us eternally well, right with God. 

And may we always be thankful. Amen

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

When the Bit Breaks, Drill Somewhere Else (Quiet Time Reflections)

These notes encompass what I feel the Lord said to me through His Word during my quiet time with Him today. For an explanation of quiet time and how I listen to God through it, look here.

Look: “Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: ‘We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.’” (Acts 13:46) 

I find it striking the way in which Paul and Barnabas respond to the rejection by their fellow Jews of the Gospel message in Pisidian Antioch. 

On a sabbath, they had gone to the synagogue there and then Paul, after he was invited to do so, addressed both their fellow Jews and Gentiles who were together worshiping the God of Israel. He shared the Gospel and there was initial interest.  

So much interest was shown, in fact, that the next week, they were asked to speak again. But this time, they encountered heckling from jealous synagogue leaders who turned the Jewish worshipers there against Paul, Barnabas, and their message.

I’m struck by what Paul and Barnabas say in answer to those rejecting the Gospel about Christ. They say that the rejection is rooted in a belief that they aren’t “worthy of eternal life.”

It’s always sad when people reject Christ and His Gospel. In doing so, they’re spurning the forgiveness, life with God, and purpose that only Christ can give.

There are many different reasons people might reject Christ.  

For me, when I was an atheist, the biggest reason was that I couldn’t accept someone being bigger or more important than me or the human race.  

I also felt that our knowledge of many of the mechanics of the universe and the lack of empirical evidence for God meant that there was no God. 

Above all, it was my egotism that led me to my atheism.

There are some people though, who reject faith in the God revealed in Jesus Christ and the truth of His death and resurrection not because of their egos, but because they don’t feel worthy of eternal life.  

They’ve moved from legitimate guilt, the kind of guilt that can lead to repentance and new life with God through Christ, to shame.  

It was no doubt to this shame and the certainties of a legalistic religious system that the opposing synagogue leaders were able to appeal to among their fellow Jews in in Pisidian Antioch. In other words, they played upon shame and tradition to convince people that, even if the good news of justification by God’s grace through faith in Christ, was true, it was too good for them. They weren’t worthy of the life that was being offered to them in Jesus’ name. They were so conscious of their inadequacies that they couldn't accept the free gift of new life God offers to all who repent and believe in Jesus. 

The sense of shame and unworthiness from which some people suffer is the hardest, most resistant rock for the Gospel message to drill through.  

For Paul and Barnabas, addressing their fellow Jews in this place, the bit broke.
Jesus tells us: “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet” (Matthew 10:14). That’s exactly what Paul and Barnabas ended up doing in this chapter (Acts 13:51).

Listen: We should be lavish and inefficient in sharing the Gospel with others. This is what Jesus’ parable about the seed scattered on the different soils (Matthew 13:1-23) tells me.
And we should never stop lifting people up in prayer, asking God to send workers (disciples) to them so that there can be a harvest of the seeds of the Gospel that have been planted in people's minds and wills (Matthew 9:38; 1 Corinthians 3:6).

But loving witnesses for Christ sometimes reach the point at which they can’t drill past the resistance. They must pray that the witness they’ve given has not been in vain and that at some point later, the resistance will disappear and that even those who don’t count themselves as being worthy of God’s grace or salvation given in Christ, will embrace the Gospel.

When the bit breaks, change things and drill somewhere else.

Respond: God, help me to be lavish in spreading the Gospel with others. But help me to accept that there are some rocks of resistance on which you won’t use me to break through; that task will be someone else’s. Help me to pray for and to love those I haven’t reached and to move onto the next person with whom You call me to share Your Gospel. In Jesus’ name.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Encouragement for Seed-Scatterers

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

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus gives His family, the Church, encouragement.

We need encouragement. We live in a world that is often indifferent or even hostile to the good news which you and I have been sent by Jesus to share with the world through our actions and our words.

The news--the gospel--that God the Son, Jesus, has died and risen so that all who turn from sin and surrender to Him--trust in Him, believe in Him--have life with God in this world and will have an eternally perfect life with God beyond the grave is really good news, of course.

But this message, isn’t something the world always wants to hear. That can be discouraging for Christ’s Church.

But we of Christ’s Church can also become discouraged by our own self-righteousness. We know that we are saved from sin, death, and futility not by our works or our virtues, but solely by God’s grace operating through our faith in Christ. But we get confused. Self-righteousness creeps into our hearts. We start to think we are good, the rest of the world is bad, and that we’d better just stay separated from the world, the frozen chosen hermetically sealed from this bad old planet. Living in isolation from God's will that we reach out to the world behind us, thinking of the world as irredeemable, disdaining others only brings us isolation from God Himself and that brings discouragement. 

Wallowing in discouragement though, will never help us to pursue the mission Christ has given to you and me.

Jesus shares a parable in the first portion of this morning’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 13:1-9. Later, He explains it in verses 18-23.

Take a look at Matthew 13:1, please: “That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake.” In Matthew’s gospel, the word house often stands symbolically for the Church. The Church is the group of people who have been called into relationship with God through the good news about Jesus.

The Church, of course, is called together to hear God’s Word, to enjoy Christian fellowship, to be baptized and welcome the newly baptized (as we did this morning), and to receive Christ’s body and blood.

But as was true for Jesus Himself, we as His people, after we’ve gathered to do these things, are called to leave the safe confines of our house, our home in Christ, and go into the world.

In fact, the entire purpose for Christians to gather in worship and Bible study and prayer is to be empowered to scatter, taking the word about Jesus into our homes, places of work, schools, the places we hang out each day, the world.

If the only place we live our our faith in Christ or talk about Christ is the church or with fellow Christians, we just aren’t fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says: “...let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,  not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another...”

In other words, the Holy Spirit gathers us in Christ's Church in order to empower us to be scattered through the world with the Good News of Christ.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus left the cozy confines of the Church and went out into the world to teach a crowd that had been following Him. Because Jesus had been reaching out in love to the world around Him, He had earned an audience for His message. We do the same today as Christians when, in Jesus’ Name, we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Beginning at Matthew 13:3, Jesus tells a parable, a story that conveys lessons about the kingdom of God Jesus has come to bring to all who believe in Him. “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Jesus’ parable is a picture of the Church moving out into the world. Like the farmer with his seeds in Jesus’ parable, you and I are meant to indiscriminately and lavishly spread the word about Jesus wherever we go, however we can.

Eleven days ago, our Conspiracy of Kindness class went to the corner of Main and Central, just a few yards from the church, and gave away 120 cans of Coke in about forty minutes. Attached to each can was a card that told recipients that this was a practical way of telling them that God loves them. As in other such outreaches, we shared with teens and twenties and little kids, with working class folks and professionals, with people who had white faces, black faces, yellow faces, old faces, young faces.

We didn’t target a particular group.

We didn’t consider how we could do our work more efficiently.

And we didn’t stop giving when some people refused the gift.

We just gave the Coke away to help people understand that the God we know in Jesus is a lavishly giving, gracious God!

As members of the Church, you and I are called to do crazy stuff like that, to keep scattering the seed, spreading the word about the gracious God we know through Jesus, who forgives our sins and opens eternity with God to all who believe. And we do that no matter what reactions we get from some people.

The apostle Paul told the young pastor Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2: “Preach [that literally means proclaim or, we might say, scatter] the word; be prepared in season and out of season...” Not everyone, when we encounter them, will be receptive to receiving the word of the gospel. It may not be the right season of their lives for surrendering to Christ.

And many of God’s people will have to scatter the seed in some people’s lives for many years before the people with whom they share it begin to understand their need of the Savior and the depths of His love for them.



This is what Jesus demonstrates in the latter part of our Gospel lesson, when He explains the parable.

He says that the seed of His Word flung along the path gobbled up by birds represents those who hear about Jesus but don’t understand its importance. The evil one, the devil, removes the seed from such people.

Others, Jesus says, will initially welcome the word about Him but their faith will be shallow and they will soon forget the gospel sort of like a fashionista flushes last year’s hemlines.

Still others, Jesus tells us, will start to grow in their faith, but then get caught up in the cares of this world and lose touch with Christ.

Jesus says that some though, will receive His Word, believe in Him, grow in their faith, and have a life of faithfulness, becoming useful servants under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

There are four things I find encouraging in Jesus’ parable.

First, the power of the Church doesn’t reside in our programs. It doesn’t reside in our people. It doesn’t reside in buildings or liturgies, wonderful as those can be. The power of the Church resides in God’s Word, the Word about Jesus, alone. That takes all the pressure off of us in sharing the word about Christ with others. The seeds God gives us to scatter are the best seeds in the universe, God’s seeds of love! But as we scatter them, we’re not even required to have a good aim. We just scatter God’s love and leave the rest to God!

Second, as Christians all we have to do is spread the Word. We don’t have to be innovative. We don’t have to make up a new message. We don’t have to be marketing geniuses. God's Word about Jesus Christ doesn't mean additions or subtractions. It doesn't need to be made more palatable or politically correct. It doesn't need to be made cute. God is the only true innovator anyway: He makes new, eternal beings out of sinners otherwise destined for eternal death simply by calling them to trust in the crucified and risen Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Third, Jesus’ parable tells us that we shouldn’t be discouraged when the seeds we scatter don’t all grow.

The farmer in Jesus’ parable found that only 25% of his seeds survived, grew, and thrived. But that 25% grew like crazy and had an impact on the world in which they grew.

Whenever we invite people to events like Our Own Backyard, or serve others on our mission trips, or house the homeless, we may only plant the seed of faith in 25% of the people we touch. But what’s wrong with that?

If only 25% of the people we touched in that Kindness Outreach a week and a half ago are nudged closer to Christ, that's 31 people!

If just 25% of the men we served at Saint Vincent a few weeks ago grew closer to Christ because we served in Christ’s Name, that’s still 38 men!

And if a quarter of the 168 people served through yesterday’s kindness outreach have their wills cracked open a bit to Christ, that's 42 souls drawn closer to Christ’s orbit.

And just imagine how many people may be having the seed of faith in Christ planted in their lives through Upward, Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN), our mission trips, and the work Dan Mershon does with our community’s young people--our "parking lot kids"--day-in and day-out!

Christ depends on us. If we Christians never scatter the seed of Christ’s gospel in the world, we are guaranteed to fail. Nobody will ever know about Christ if we in the Church don’t tell others about Him, His cross, and His empty tomb.

If we do scatter the seed, we’re guaranteed that often we will fail from the world's point of view. But we are also guaranteed that we will reach some people with the news about Jesus that can change their lives for eternity.

Jesus says in Luke 15:7: “...there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” I totally dig the idea that by sharing Christ with others, I can be part of getting a party started in heaven!

The fourth encouraging thing I take from Jesus’ parable is that when we scatter the Word of God, we are fulfilling the highest calling of our lives! You and I were formed in our mothers’ wombs to give glory to God in this way!

1 Peter 2:9 says: “...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.”

As Christians, we’ve been born and reborn to be seed-scatterers!

Today, I think, Jesus wants us to learn one thing and to do one thing.

We’re to learn this: As His followers, you and I have been saved for all eternity by Jesus so that we can be indiscriminate seed-scatterers, sharing Him all the time.

And the one thing He wants us to do is to live that lifestyle, spreading the seed of God's Word about Christ everywhere.

Sign up for serving with Saint Vincent or IHN.

Show up for the next Kindness Outreach or do one yourself with some friends from the congregation.

Look for opportunities to develop relationships with spiritually disconnected people and ask God to help you share the Good News.

Share the Savior Jesus, Who loves you completely, with others He loves completely in all your words and all your actions.

That’s it.

That’s the message.

As Jesus says in our lesson, “Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

Amen

Needed: People to Scatter Seeds

[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Mike Herman was a Saint Louis Cardinals baseball fan. From the time he was a little boy, he went to ball games hoping that he could catch a souvenir baseball. Grown to adulthood, he’d go to batting practices before games just to have a shot at grabbing a big-league ball.

Back in the mid-90s, during one batting practice, Herman got to know a five year old boy named James. James was on the same quest for a souvenir and after a time, Herman found himself telling James “he could have my ball if I caught one.” The promise may have been hollow in light of the fact that Mike Herman had been unsuccessful at retrieving a big league baseball for twenty-eight years! But, five minutes later, Herman explains, “I caught a ball, and yes, I gave it to James.” “I wonder,” Mike Herman asks, “how often God waits to give us something until we are willing to give it away?”

Today, Jesus tells one of His most famous stories. It’s called the Parable of the Sower. You know it well. A farmer, representing Christ or you and me with Christ working in us, sows or scatters seeds. Farmers planted seeds back in Jesus’ day by simply tossing them everywhere. This method of farming wasn’t so efficient, as you can imagine. Even top-notch seeds flung in the wrong places aren't likely to grow.

Some of the seeds flung by Jesus' fictional farmer, He says, fell along a path and birds quickly ate them up.

Other seeds fell onto rocky ground and warmed by the stones, sprouted quickly and died just as quickly for lack of soil depth and the sun being able to fry them, roots and all.

Another bunch of the seeds fell among weeds and thorns. As the thorns grew, they choked the life out of the good seeds.

Finally, one last batch of seeds fell into good soil and Jesus says that they gave yields of thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.

To show you how impressive that is, in first century Judea where Jesus lived, harvests of four- to tenfold were the norm. Harvests yielding fifteen times the seeds sown were considered really great. So, the seeds that landed in good soil in Jesus’ story gave a bumper crop!


Later, Jesus explained His story. The seeds are the message about Him, the good news that, because He died and rose for us, we can have our sins forgiven and enjoy right relationships with God and live with Him forever. That happens when we entrust our lives to Him.

The different spots in which the seeds in Jesus’ story lands represents different sorts of reactions you and I may receive when we share the Good News of Jesus with others. We may encounter people who simply refuse to listen; those who who will be enthusiastic about Christ at first and then leave Him behind; those who allow themselves to get preoccupied with other things like money or family worries; and finally, those who receive the Good News of Jesus and strive to live for Him from that moment forward.

Jesus is telling us that the Word about Him is always a good seed, whether people let it take root in their lives or not! We’re to keep spreading the word about Jesus all around us, no matter what reaction we may get.

One evening back when I was in seminary, Ann and I had dinner with two other couples, all people with whom we’d gone to high school. We were being silly when the conversation turned serious. “Mark, what do you think needs to happen for a person to go to heaven?” one person asked me.

I have to tell you that I was afraid. I wanted these people to accept me and I was fearful of being written off as some religious fanatic. What would they think of me if I said that getting to heaven involved simply entrusting your life to Jesus Christ and letting Him be their Lord and King? So, instead of telling them this truth, I made a joke.

About a year-and-a-half later, the man who asked that question of me left his marriage. I have often wondered what might have happened had I planted the seed of Jesus’ message in his life that night. Maybe nothing. Maybe his heart and will would have proved to be bad soil. But I’ll never know this side of heaven because I chickened out and failed to scatter the good seed among my friends!

I guess that I was waiting for a "better time." I was hoping that maybe later, I would have a little more courage and "success," whatever that is. But Jesus tells us that we should keep scattering His Word, whether it’s convenient or even if we see little prospect of our message being welcomed.

I try to always remember that. Just this past week, I was talking with a person I’ve gotten to know here in Logan. I’ve sensed that he and God haven’t exactly been on speaking terms. But I’ve been praying for him and his family and have tried to treat him with Christian friendliness and dignity. “Do you think that it would be okay if I came to your church sometime?” he asked me the other day. “Absolutely!” I told him.

Like the farmer in Jesus’ parable, we’re to recklessly scatter the Word about the God Who is for the whole human race! I pray that in God’s good grace, I never blow an opportunity to share the message of Jesus again. First Peter 3:15, one of my favorite passages of the Bible, says: "Be prepared always to give an account for the hope that is in you, but do it with gentleness and reverence." In other words, 'Don't beat people over the head with the message of Jesus; but never be afraid to share it! Just as it gives life and hope to you, it can give life and hope to others!'

When we commit ourselves to scattering the Word about God, God will orchestrate amazing coincidences that give us the opportunity to do that.

Just yesterday, I got an email from a blogging buddy, Andy. A resident of Arizona, he’s spent the last four months in Turkey and is getting ready to return home soon. In Istanbul on Friday, he ran into a group from Arizona State University’s School of Global Management and Leadership. Andy explained that he’s working on a book comparing Christianity and Islam a bit like an earlier book he wrote comparing Christianity and Mormonism. The professors, one Buddhist and the other Jewish, asked him to teach a class on Saturday on Islam. Andy did that. “You have a gift for teaching,” one of the professors said and at dinner that night, Andy was able to further scatter the Word about Jesus Christ!

The fact is that, whether they try to conceal it or not, all people have a hunger to be reconciled with God, to have the God revealed to all the world through Jesus Christ in their lives. I was struck several years ago when in some of the interviews I heard with survivors of terrorist bombings in London, they reported that almost all of the passengers, fearing that their lives would end, cried out to God.

People want God in their lives, even the people who in recent polling—I’m not making this up—called themselves atheists, but reported that they believed there was a God.

When we share the Word about Jesus, we’re telling people that in every time of need and through every day of their lives, they can call to the God of love and goodness we know through Jesus and that they can do so with confidence and hope, knowing that He is with them and able to take the world's worst circumstances and turn them into heaven's best.

Through the Word about Jesus Christ, they can experience a hope that endures forever!

Keep scattering the seed of the message about Jesus, whether it seems to make a difference or not. Just as you can’t see the ways in which seeds are taking root beneath the soil, we sometimes can’t see the ways in which the Word about Jesus is taking hold and transforming people’s lives.

Are you looking for blessings in your life? Then resolve to be a blessing to others; bless people with the word about Christ! Let the seed of God's Word grow strong within you by giving it away.

As Mike Herman, the fellow who wanted a major league baseball found out, you just don’t know what blessings God is willing to give to you when you are willing to give them away. Resolve to do it this week: To spread the message of Jesus and then trust God to do good things with the seeds you scatter!

[Mike Herman's true story is contained in the book, Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion.]

A Look at This Sunday's Bible Lessons (July 13, 2008)

[I try--most weeks--to present some thoughts of the appointed Bible lessons for the coming Sunday. I do this to help the folks of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, where I'm privileged to be the pastor, to prepare for worship each week. (It helps me too.) But I also hope that these pieces will help others, since we use the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), the plan of Biblical lessons used by many Christian churches.]

The Bible Lessons:
Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm 65:9-13
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

The Prayer of the Day:
Almighty God, we thank you for planting in us the seed of your word. By your Holy Spirit help us to receive it with joy, live according to it, and grow in faith and hope and love, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

A Few Thoughts:
1. As I've explained before, some scholars believe that Isaiah was written by three different authors over an extended period of time. Because the ancients didn't have the same understanding of authorship that we have, it was considered legitimate for a writer trained by a particular teacher or trained by teachers operating in a teacher's school of thought, to write in that person's names. Scholars claim to be able to discern an Isaiah, a Deutero-Isaiah, and a Trito-Isaiah, each writing at distinctive times in ancient Israel's history.

2. According to Lutheran scholar Ralph Klein, our first lesson, from Isaiah, comes at the end of Deutero-Isaiah (Second Isaiah), a section of the book composed of chapters 40 through 55.

3. Klein goes on to say of the Isaiah passage:

• The prophet compares the sureness of Yahweh's word of promise to the regularity and effectiveness of rain and snow, which do not just bounce back to the sky, but soak into the ground and bring forth abundant crops.
• God's word too does not return to God empty-handed, but carries out the tasks God has assigned to it.
• Verse 12 returns to the theme of a new Exodus, which has emerged often in the previous sixteen chapters. The deliverance of Israel will lead to a new creation, a re-creation, of nature. The mountains and hills will hail this day with singing, and all the trees will give liberated Israel a standing ovation. Instead of weeds and other noxious plants there will be cypress and myrtle.
• These events will lead to Yahweh's honor; they will be an everlasting sign which will never lose its effectiveness.

4. Psalm 65 is a psalm of thanksgiving and praise. As the notes in the Life Application Bible point out, verses 1 and 2 indicate that this psalm came in fulfillment of vows made by the writer of the psalm, traditionally ascribed to King David. The editors of the notes write:

In Old Testament times, vows were taken seriously and fulfilled completely. No one had to take a vow, but once made, it was binding (Deuteronomy 23:21-23). The vow being fulfilled here is to praise God for his answers to prayer.

I cringe to think of how often I've prayed desperately for something and after God has answered the prayer, often in ways far more fantastic than I would have imagined, just gone on about my business, as though His grace was what I deserved, not a word of thanksgiving passing from me to God. That's nothing less than shameful! At least in this instance, David wasn't so mindless: He thanked God.

5. In our lesson from the Psalm, David says that the water God sends to earth accomplishes something. It brings growth. In just the same way, our other lessons remind us, God's Word accomplishes good things in those open to it.

6. In last Sunday's lesson from Romans, Paul wrestled with the fact that the law of sin that lives in all of us thwarts even the good-intentioned from doing the right thing. (Anybody who's ever made a New Year's resolution knows all about this!) He asks, if we can't be relied on to live according to God's law of love for God and neighbor, even when we don't want to us, who can save us from futility? He answers by saying, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" We throw ourselves on God's mercy and God helps us.

How? That's the question that today's lesson answers.

7. It begins by reveling in the fact all "who are in Christ Jesus," that is, all who repent of sin and follow Jesus Christ, are free of the rightful condemnation for sin that is the common lot of all humanity.

8. Paul then draws a contrast between what he calls "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" and "the law of sin and death." The Spirit of God (also the Spirit of Christ), the Holy Spirit, enables us to trust the Good News of Jesus Christ. Once we are under Christ's lordship, we're set free from the old domination of sin which, barring what He accomplished for us through His death and resurrection, otherwise would have led to our everlasting separation from God.

9. Verse 4 makes clear that God's implacable requirement of righteousness are fulfilled in us not because of our obedience to the "first law," the laws embodied in the Ten Commandments and in Jesus' response to the young man about the greatest commands of God. When it come to obeying these laws, we have failed and failure leads to death.

But by the power of the Spirit, we are able to believe in Christ, Who has obeyed the law perfectly and payed the penalty for sin--death--on our behalf.

Belief in Christ then, is obedience to "the law of the Spirit," the means by which God graciously makes it possible for rebel sinners to be fit for eternity with God.

Those familiar with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will see how C.S. Lewis worked this element of Biblical faith into the novel. There, Edmund turns traitor against Aslan, his siblings, and the people of Narnia. According to what's called "the deep magic" of that world, the White Witch, sort of a devil figure, has right to take Edmund's blood as "forfeit" for his treachery. She demands that Aslan turn Edmund over to her. Instead, Aslan gives his own life in Edmund's place. In this way, the "deep magic" is assuaged, just as in Christ's death, the appropriate sentence of the law that all sin deserves death, is fulfilled.

In Narnia, Aslan, resurrected like Jesus, later explains, there was "a deeper magic." It held that "when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead...death itself would start working backwards..." The deeper magic of our real world is what Paul calls "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." As we trust Jesus Christ, our own death works backwards. We are made alive with Christ!

10. In the balance of the lesson from Romans, Paul talks about those who "live according to the flesh" over against those who have "set their mind on the Spirit." This is really no different from the contrast between the law of sin and death and the law of the Spirit.

Please note that when Paul talks about "the flesh," he isn't talking about sex, as many erroneously conclude. He's referring to people who have a "this world is all there is" mentality. Afflicted by this perspective, we no longer look at things from God's point of view. Life "in the flesh" can even take over among people who confess Christ as their Lord. Most frequently, it causes them to be closed-minded, to turn their churches into museums, and their faith into tales of what God did "back then," rather than relying on God to lead them through life today. Among those who don't profess belief in Christ, living "in the flesh" leads to all sorts of ills: materialism, racism, sexism, promiscuity, selfishness, traditionalism, and so on.

11. The Gospel lesson from Matthew happens on the same day that Jesus runs into opposition from the religious leaders of His nation and He claims that His true family aren't the mother, sisters, and brothers among whom He was raised in Nazareth, but all those who do the will of the Father. (See here.)

12. The great question with which we're left at the end of Matthew, chapter 12, is if Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy of a Savior, why is Israel, including it seems, His Nazareth kin, repudiating Him?

13. In Matthew, chapter 13, Jesus answers that question through a string of parables, most notably the one that begins the chapter, in verses 1 through 9, which Jesus goes on to explain to His disciples (and to us) in verses 18 through 23. For a detailed exploration of this passage, go here. There, I also explain a little bit about parables.