Restoring Those Who Cause Grief

For my morning quiet time with God today, I considered 2 Corinthians, chapter 2. There, the apostle Paul refers to someone in the Corinthian churches who had brought grief to the Christians in that area by saying harmful things about Paul himself.

But after the churches had admonished and dealt with the Christian who had done this, Paul said this to the Corinthian Christians:

"...you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him." (2 Corinthians 2:7-8)

There's a difference between sisters and brothers in Christ exercising church discipline, holding each other accountable to their mutual community in Christ on the one hand, and judging others unworthy of the grace in Christ which we claim by faith despite our sinful natures, on the other hand. The former is appropriate and loving. The latter is sinful.

If we Christians use the faults and sinful actions of others as a pretext to withhold the forgiveness that Christ wants to give to those who are repentant and who believe in Him, we put ourselves in places higher than God Himself. We judge God to be too soft on sin. We judge ourselves to be holier than God. Not a good idea!

We are as Christians to speak the truth to each other in love (Ephesians 4:15), but always with the idea of bringing restoration between Christ and the person who has caused us (or Christ or the Church) grief. As Jesus famously puts it:

"I tell you that...there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." (Luke 15:7)

And, by the way, there ARE righteous people in this world, people made righteous by grace through faith in the only righteous One, God incarnate, Jesus.

But there are also NO human beings without the need of repentance and forgiveness. That includes those made righteous by God's grace through their trust in Jesus. Christians are simultaneously saints and sinners, in daily need of repentance and renewal in Christ's power, until the day of Jesus' return when He will make all things right.

Today, every time a sinner repents, that is, turns from their sin and turns to Christ for forgiveness, restoration, and life, there's a party in heaven.

Paul is saying that when that happens, the Church needs to join Jesus in forgiving and have a party too!

If you're a Christian:

(1) Ask God: Who in the Church might you need to lovingly confront--with the aim of reconciliation and restoration--today? (Jesus gives the guidelines for how Christians, who should always be mutually accountable to Christ's community, the Church, are to do this in Matthew 18:15-20.)*

(2) Ask God: Who do you need to release from the grudge you've been holding onto? (Jesus teaches us to pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

(3) Remember that when we (or others) honestly own our sins before God through Jesus Christ, we are forgiven and heaven throws a party.**

*Jesus always speaks of Christian faith as a group activity. The Bible knows of no way that a person can be a Christian apart from the Church. 

**Now there's nothing in any of this to suggest that after we've forgiven people who have hurt us, we should have the same relationship with them that we had before. Years ago, I had to tell a woman caught in the snares of alcoholism and self-destructive behaviors, that, for the foreseaable future, she couldn't lead one of the ministries of the church I was then serving. A spouse or child of a repentant abuser is not expected to re-enter into the same kind of relationship they had with the abuser before confrontation and restoration take place. A school should not place someone once guilty of pedophilia alone with kids. Here, I think that Jesus' words to the devil after the devil had tempted Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem because God promises in Psalm 91 to faithfully uphold His people should they fall, are appropriate; Jesus told the devil that believers are not to tempt (or test) God. In other words, God doesn't call us to take absurd measures to test our faith. 

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

Where to Turn in the Crisis

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

Luke 12:49-56
During the recent Lutheran Week in Indianapolis, I tried to eat a sandwich made with the kind of crumbly, disintegrating bread that used to give gluten-free a bad name. After lunch, Wayne asked me about the diet I had to keep in light of Celiac Disease and a heart attack I had nine years ago. As we rode down an escalator, I told him, “You know, some days I can’t wait to be with Jesus in eternity, partly because I’ll be able to eat whole wheat bread and run and play baseball again.” 

Some people near us on the escalator giggled when they heard me say that. And it is funny. I chuckled too. But don’t all Christians sometimes fantasize about the things we’ll do in eternity with Jesus once we’re free of the constraints of sin, death, and darkness that pervade this life?

But there’s a danger to our lives as Christians in focusing too much on eternity: It may cause us to ignore what Jesus calls the crisis of living each day in this world, in this life, as followers of Jesus Christ. 

We can get so accustomed to thinking that Jesus is on our sides, taking Him and the free gift of eternal life with God He gives to all who believe in Him, for granted, and thus, feeling free to do, say, and live any way we decide to. 

Listen: Jesus has not set us free from sin and death so that we can ignore His will. 

He has not set us free from sin and death so that we can ignore the needs of our neighbors or the injustice, bigotry, or hatred with which the world treats them. 

Jesus has not set us free from sin and death so that we can view our church membership as a get-out-of-hell pass while ignoring the need our neighbors have for Jesus’ salvation, ignoring that about a quarter or more of our neighbors have zero religious belief.

This means that every day a Christian lives on this earth faces a crisis. I’m using that word as Jesus does in John 12:31, where He says, “Now is the time for judgment on this world,” which is more literally translated from the Greek in which all the New Testament writers originally composed their books: “Now is the crisis [κρίσις] of this world.” 

Here, Jesus is saying that, in this life, in each moment of this life, you and I deal with a decision point, a moment when we must make a judgment. And the judgment we must make is this: 

Will we turn to Jesus or will we turn away from Him?  

Will we turn to the world, to what’s easy, to what’s socially acceptable, to what’s safe, to what’s advantageous to us if heedless of the needs of my neighbor, to go along to get along or will we turn in repentance and faith to Jesus?

Our gospel lesson for this morning, Luke 12:49-56, finds Jesus turning abruptly from answering questions about the end of earth’s days after which all who have trusted in Him will live in His fully perfected kingdom, to the crisis the confronts us each day: the judgment you and I must make as to whether in this moment--at work, in our relationships, at home, in the world--we will turn to Jesus and live or walk away from Jesus and experience death.

Take a look at our lesson, please. Jesus begins: “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” 

These words don’t fit with the world’s usual image of Jesus, the Jesus of the sentimentalists who think Jesus was a wonderful guy, but not someone they have to answer to. 

Fire, an image that Jesus and the early Church used in talking about the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of judgment and of cleansing. 

Jesus, to be sure, has come into the world to bring salvation and peace with God to all who believe in Him. 

But He has also come to singe us in the purifying flames of God’s judgment, to burn away all that’s evil, unwholesome, and unloving, in order to refine us like precious metals, separating us from sin and death. 

To truly trust in Jesus begins with truly understanding, daily, that we are sinners who need to confess our sin, divesting ourselves of our addiction to sin. Then, purged of death and darkness, we can rise to newness of life. 

This is what happens to us in Holy Baptism: first, our old selves are drowned, then our new selves, God’s brand new creatures, rise. 

Because the old self still lurks until the days of our physical deaths and resurrections, the Christian life is composed of returning each day to the Lord of the baptismal font for this same death and resurrection to happen again and again. 

Romans 6:4 reminds us, “We were therefore buried with [Jesus Christ] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” This new life is what God wants to give to all people through faith in Jesus every single day!

Then Jesus says: “But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” 

Jesus wants to bring each person who hears His name to the crisis point to which we all need to come in order to receive Him and the life that only He can give to us. 

But before that could happen, Jesus had to undergo the baptism of death on a cross. 

His mission on earth would only be fulfilled when He did this and could say, “It is finished.” 

On the cross, Jesus shares the death that belongs to every human being from the moment we are born: the death of separation from the One Who gives life. It was from this place of separation that Jesus cried from the cross, “My God! My God! Why have You forsaken me.” 

But because God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, in the waters of Baptism, we share in Jesus’ death so that the Father too, can raise those who trust themselves and their whole lives to Jesus. It was to accomplish this for you and me that Jesus couldn’t wait--He felt constrained to go to the cross, set His face for Jerusalem--that Jesus went to the cross.

Jesus then says: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

In this life, anyone who dares to follow Jesus, who daily turns to Jesus to seek the death of their old selves and the creation of their new selves, who live in what we Lutherans call “daily repentance and renewal” can expect that even members of our own families will turn against us. 

Or that, at any rate, they won’t understand us. 

Likely, everyone here has taken shots for following Jesus from someone in their family: siblings, cousins, parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren. Or, they have experienced not being understood. I know that I have. It’s just part of following Jesus.

At this point in our lesson, Jesus addresses the end of this world when He will return to judge the living and the dead in light of how we address the crisis--the judgment points--we face every day. “He said to the crowd: ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, “It’s going to rain,” and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, “It’s going to be hot,” and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?'”

Where Jesus lived in the first century AD, if people saw clouds in the west, they knew that rain was coming in from the Mediterranean and if they felt hot winds coming from the Negev to the south, they knew were in for a heatwave. People knew how to read those meteorological signs. 

But here is Jesus, God the Son, standing right in front of these people, His identity as God and Savior repeatedly confirmed by miracles, signs, and wonders, by His words, by His compassion, by His sinlessness, yet they ignore all these signs. 

They don’t see that they need to turn to Jesus now and believe in Him. 

It’s as though they’re holding out for more proof, which will soon come in His death and resurrection, though most of the crowds who thronged to Jesus during His life on earth would never believe in Him even after He rose from the dead. 

It’s as though too, the crowd is waiting for a better offer. “Maybe,” they seem to think, “we can follow Jesus, but from a distance, getting just enough of Him to get the blessings He offers, but not close enough to actually have to give up the old sins we love so much, not close enough to actually hear Him call us to a life of love of God and love of neighbor, of worship and prayer, of witness to others for Jesus. Maybe we can have Jesus without being changed by Him, without being His disciple.” 

Folks, it doesn’t work like that. As you’ve heard me say before (and as I need to be constantly reminded myself): We will either have all of Jesus or we will have none of Jesus at all.

I’m guessing that the hesitation of the crowd surrounding Jesus that day is no different from the hesitation felt by most people in most churches in North America. They don’t perceive the crisis of each moment, the need to turn to Jesus for life and forgiveness right now in every right now of life because life in this world can end in the blink of an eye and then there will be no more opportunity to turn to Jesus and live. 

It’s because of this hesitation in the churches of the US, Canada, and Europe that, 

Today, there are nearly as many Lutherans in Ethiopia as there are in the U.S. There are now more Baptists in Nagaland (an eastern state in India) than there are in [all of] the southern states of the U.S. There [are] more Christians worshipping in China [on this] Sunday than there [are doing so] here in the U.S. or in all of Europe! 

Christians in America have largely lost their sense of urgency about being and making disciples--about turning to Jesus and inviting others, despite the possibility of rejection, to turn to Jesus too. 

We have forgotten the moment to moment crisis that is the permanent state of being in this fallen world.

But Jesus’ call is still urgent, folks. He says: “The time has come...The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” 

There isn’t a better moment to follow Jesus than right now, in this moment in which God allows you to live on this earth. 

There isn’t a better moment to share Jesus with others than right now on this earth. 

Because Jesus saves us by grace through faith in Christ alone, may this always be our prayer: 

Jesus, what do you want me to do or say, who do you want me to listen to, pray for, or serve right now?

And then may we do what He calls us to. 

We don’t have to wait for a perfect time to live in the freedom Jesus gives to His disciples.

In the crisis moments--the decision points--of each day, may we always turn to Jesus. Amen

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

How Worry is Overcome

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

Luke 12:22-34

Everyone knows what it is to worry. 

Some of our worries are entirely understandable. 

For example, there likely isn’t a parent or grandparent here or anywhere else in America who don’t worry as they consider their children or grandchildren heading off for another school year. 

There isn’t a parent, spouse, or child of an addicted loved one who doesn’t worry over whether the loved one will ever go into recovery or if this is the day they’ll get the dreaded telephone call telling them that the loved one has died. 

Some of our worries are understandable then. They are what I would call legitimate worries, worries that can be productive if they lead to prayer or to actions rooted in the wisdom and compassion God will give to people who stop whining, refrain from bellowing about their ideas, and instead listen to God’s “still, small voice” and the counsel of others who strive to walk with Jesus.

We see that God’s New Testament saints worried about some things. 

The apostle Paul spoke of the daily “pressure of my concern for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:28). 

The New Testament book of Philippians tells us that Paul’s protege, Timothy, concerned for the welfare of the Christians in first-century Phillippi. 

These are legitimate worries, both addressed to God in prayer in Jesus’ name and both followed by Holy Spirit-led action.

But most worry isn’t legitimate. It’s just faithless. 

There are some people though, who keep worry as a hobby. I knew a farmer. Despite being in worship every single week, where he confessed his faith in the God we know in Jesus Christ, he kept worrying. His wife told me that he often stayed up all night, not to pray over his concerns, giving them to God, seeking God’s help, but just to sit and worry. Once, at about two in the morning, she heard him rustling around in the living room and went to see what was wrong. “I just can’t stop worrying about the federal budget deficit,” he said. “Henry,” she told him, “come to bed.” But Henry stayed in his living room, fellowshipping not with God, but with his worries.

Now, to most of us, it’s probably obvious how illegitimate a topic for worry something like the federal budget deficit is. It is a problem, a much bigger one today than it was when Henry was padding around his house anxiously thirty-some years ago. 

But worrying won’t change it. 

Nor will worry change much of anything we face in life, individually or collectively. 

Unless we pray and act in the powerful name of Jesus, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, nothing good will ever overcome the things that worry us. 

“You do not have because you do not ask God,” James 4:2 tells us. If we asked God for help with our concerns rather than worrying about them, we'd be a lot better off.

And Jesus tells we who believe in Him: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Worry is all about trying to do or solve things ourselves rather than seeking help from the One without Whom we can do nothing.

In today’s gospel lesson, Luke 12:22-34, Jesus addresses a specific kind of illegitimate worry, worrying that is unjustified, worrying rooted in our sinfulness, worrying that never thinks to pray or act on God’s guidance. Let’s take a look at the lesson now.

“Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!’”

There’s something I want you to notice right away in these words: In them, we encounter both God’s Law and God’s grace or word of promise.

The law from God is this: Don’t worry about whether you’re going to have enough money, food, or clothing. 

There are people who lack these fundamentals, of course, mostly because of the selfishness of others who have them. And that sorry reality is an issue of justice and compassion, something God also addresses when He tells us that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. And in another place, God’s Word tells us, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) 

But worry won’t bring in more money (which we may or may not need), more food (which we may or may not need), or clothing (which...you get the idea). 

God knows just what we need of these things. That’s why He teaches us to pray for “our daily bread.” 

To worry that God won’t come through is faithless, sinful. Worry unrepented and worry not given up to God is a sin. Worry is the opposite of faith. Worry says God isn’t God.

The gospel or the promise in Jesus’ words at the beginning of our lesson is this: God is intent on taking care of us as long as we draw breath in this world. “And how much more valuable you are than birds” of whom God takes care, Jesus says. 

This is why in his explanation of the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer--”give us this day our daily bread”--Martin Luther writes in The Small Catechism: “God indeed gives daily bread to all, even unbelievers, without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that he would help us recognize this so that we would receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” 

And if you’re ever tempted, as we all are sometimes, to doubt God’s promise to always be with us and always take care of us, just consider Jesus on the cross, where God bore the weight of our sin and died to bring life to all who believe in Jesus and to open up eternity with God to us. 

As Paul reminds us in Romans, no matter what it is in this world that causes us to worry or tries to rob us of our hope in life with God, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:31-39). Nothing!

Jesus goes on pointedly: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?” 

Worry that doesn’t prompt prayer and/or holy action is worthless. It solves nothing. 

But Jesus says that it’s worthless also in that it won’t add a single hour to our lives. 

Just Google “medical research on worry and mortality” as I did the other day and you’ll see that medical science agrees that worry cannot add a moment to our lives.  

But as we submit our worries to Jesus, He gives us His life and His wisdom. Medical research at a host of institutions confirms that people of faith who pray generally live longer and stay healthier than others. They also have an eternity with Jesus to look forward to as well.

On Friday, Bishop John gathered the thirty-two district deans of the NALC for one last meeting with him. Pastor Dan Powell, who has been the convener of the deans, asked us to talk about our joys. 

One colleague, Pastor David McGettigan, who is being treated for cancer, reported that he had good news and bad news about his health. The bad news is that he’s evidencing side effects that are usually associated with cancer patients much further along in their treatment regimen. The good news is that his body has shown far more improvement in overcoming his cancer than would normally be expected at this point in the treatment process. In other words, he told us, “I’m feeling worse and doing better.” His prognosis is much better than his oncologist thought it could be. 

The oncologist said, “I can’t explain it.” David told the doctor, “I can.” Pastor McGettigan knows that prayer and action in Jesus’ name always trump worry. And while we all will die, the promise of eternal life with God given to us by Jesus will add life to our years, while worry takes life away.

Toward the end of our lesson, Jesus says to His Church: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

All of us were moved, I think, by the witness of Tim and Rita Schubach in the video we saw during worship on the Commitment Sunday for our Reach Forward ministry expansion initiative. 

Until the day we saw Tim’s and Rita’s remarks, Ann and I were sure that we would be unable to give anything more to the church than our offerings for the general fund. I had explained to our Reach Forward Team why that was so. 

Then we saw Tim and Rita make the point that whatever we have isn’t ours anyway; it comes from God and it belongs to God. In the middle of the service, Ann and I conferred and God has made it possible for us to participate in Reach Forward on top of our general fund offerings. 

I don’t tell that story to make it seem like Ann and I are wonderful. We’re saints and sinners just like everyone else who is being saved by grace through faith in Jesus the Christ. But Tim and Rita  reminded us of the truth of Jesus’ words to us today: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

When you know that you belong to Jesus, you need not worry about the material things of this world. Many people do worry about them, especially, it seems, those who have lots of material things and stew about keeping them. But you and I are called to trust that the One Who makes every material blessing will supply us with what we need and will empower us, as His people, to pray and act in Jesus’ name. 

You and I are surrounded by people who crave more of this dead world’s stuff without knowing that the only thing they really need is Jesus. 

Let’s be subversives for Jesus. Let’s show them by our praying, acting, living, speaking, and even our dying that, when they have Jesus as their Lord and King, there’s no need to worry about whether they’ll have enough. 

Jesus is enough. 

Jesus is all we need. 

Now may God help all of us, including me, to trust that truth with our whole lives. Amen

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