I've shared this before, but we're celebrating Reformation Sunday this weekend. So, here it is again.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Certainty Among Mysteries
There are mysteries beyond fathoming. But one thing that is not mysterious, because God has clearly revealed Himself in Jesus, is that God loves us. God stands with us in all of this life's mysteries and has revealed the new, everlasting life belongs to all who trust in Christ. Read today's installment from Our Daily Bread.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
The Leap That Brings Hope
[This was shared during the Celebration of Life Service of Worship and Holy Communion for the family and friends of Glenn, a member of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. The service happened in the Saint Matthew sanctuary on October 25.]
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
John 14:1-7
I first met Glenn over the telephone. He called me in June of 2007 about interviewing for the call to become pastor of Saint Matthew. Glenn was president of the congregation and chair of the call committee.
That first phone call, of course, was hardly a getting-to-know-you conversation; it was little more than setting the day and time for my interview. But very quickly, in several personal meetings and telephone calls, I came to form an impression of Glenn, an impression that only grew stronger after we came to Logan.
Glenn was a people person with a quick wit. He loved his wife, his family, and his friends.
He loved getting together with people, especially when getting together entailed food. “Meet to eat,” I learned early on, was one of Glen’s favorite mottos.
He cared about the Church and its mission. (Boy, did he care about the mission of the Church!)
And he had a strong and informed faith in Jesus Christ.
Now, it’s one thing to have a strong faith in Christ when things are going relatively well in your life. It’s another to still have that faith when hard times come.
The day that Glenn let us know he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I spoke with him. “We know, of course,” he told me evenly, “that this cancer will eventually take my life.” But, he explained, he and Sue were committed to fighting together for the ability to life to the full for as long as he could.
Then he said, “I’ve had a good life. And I have no doubt about where I’m headed. So, we’ll just go from there.”
Now, it seemed to Ann and me as we absorbed Glenn’s news, that if any two people had a right be bitter or to rail at the rotten hand this fallen world had dealt them, it was Glenn and Sue.
They’d had little time to savor their retirement. First, Glenn had required a major surgery. Then, sharing the care for Sue’s father with her sister occupied much of their time until his death shortly before Glenn learned of his cancer. And I know that there were times when Glenn had questions, when he felt overwhelmed. The same things will happen to you who mourn his passing in the weeks and months to come: You’ll have questions; you’ll feel overwhelmed.
But every time I visited with Glenn, no matter how tired or out of sorts he was feeling, the enduring, compelling traits of his personality remained and, in one way or another, he would affirm what he had told me the first time we talked about his cancer, “I’ve had a good life. I have no doubt where I’m headed.”
It was because of these things about Glenn’s (and Sue’s) life and character that the words of Paul from Thessalonians seem so appropriate for us today. “We do not want you to be uninformed,” Paul wrote to the church at first-century Thessalonica in Greece, “about those [believers] who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”
You see, the Thessalonian Christians were worried because when they first came to faith, they’d been sure that the risen and ascended Jesus was going to quickly return to the earth and fully establish His kingdom. As the first century after Jesus’ resurrection moved on, believers in Christ everywhere were starting to become edgy. Persecution for their faith was intensifying, all the signs that Jesus had said would presage His return had appeared, and yet Jesus hadn’t come back. Paul wanted to assure the church at Thessalonica that the One Who had died and risen for them had not forgotten them. I’m sure that Glenn would want you to know that too. Jesus, Who died and rose to give new and everlasting life to all who believe in Him, has not forgotten you or His promises to you.
Because of Jesus Christ, Paul was convinced—Glenn was convinced—that believers in Jesus Christ could grieve, of course. But we don’t need to grieve as others do who have hope. Followers of Jesus Christ have hope. Glenn always had that hope!
At one level, that a man like Glenn, who was a businessperson with an inquiring mind, read history, and considered the evidence on all sides of arguments, trusted in a risen Savior he could not see, is something of a miracle.
Faith in Christ is always a miracle of God’s mercy and grace.
“No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit,” the New Testament teaches.
God gives faith in Christ not to those who marshal the most religious facts, or satisfactorily answer all their questions, or, who through science or logic, eradicate all their doubts.
Faith comes to those who look at the Bible’s witness about Jesus and the evidence of His presence in the lives of believers they may have known or observed and who then, dare to take the leap of the faith into the waiting arms of Jesus.
Glenn took that leap. That was why he could say, “I have no doubt about where I’m headed.” It’s why today, you can grieve that Glenn will no longer be with you in this earthly life, but you need not grieve as people without hope.
In the lesson from John’s gospel, which we read a moment ago, Jesus consoled the disciples. He had just told them that He would soon be leaving them. Jesus said: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
I believe that on Sunday morning, October 16, when Glenn leapt into what appears to be only darkness to us, he landed in the nail-scarred arms of Jesus, Who then took Glenn to that place He has prepared for all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus alone as their God and Savior.
Today, Sue (and all your family), I hope and pray that you will be comforted and strengthened in knowing that Glenn is today with Jesus. You will remain in our prayers and we ask you not to hesitate to ask us for any help or comfort we can provide. (And you may expect us to provide these things even when you don't ask for them!)
And to those here this morning who may doubt that Jesus can raise the dead to new life, I ask you to consider the evidence of Glenn’s life.
Glenn would have been the last person in the world to claim to be perfect. But I think that if you look at Glenn, you’ll conclude that Jesus—the real, risen, living Jesus—made a difference in his life.
If Jesus, Who can’t be seen by us today, can make a difference in the lives of people living in this sometimes tough and challenging world right now, aren’t you willing to entertain the notion that maybe this Jesus is alive and waiting for us all to turn to Him, waiting to give us the strength and humor and faith we need to face this life, waiting to give us the places He has prepared for all who are willing to leap into His loving arms?
Today and every day, dare to put yourself in the arms of Jesus. He will catch you and He will never let you go. I know that Glenn would love nothing better than for every person in this sanctuary to rest easy and rest eternally in the arms of Jesus. Tell Jesus you’re willing to be taken into His arms and to let Him be with you now and for eternity. Even as we enjoy and live this life, it’s good to know where you’re headed. Amen!
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
John 14:1-7
I first met Glenn over the telephone. He called me in June of 2007 about interviewing for the call to become pastor of Saint Matthew. Glenn was president of the congregation and chair of the call committee.
That first phone call, of course, was hardly a getting-to-know-you conversation; it was little more than setting the day and time for my interview. But very quickly, in several personal meetings and telephone calls, I came to form an impression of Glenn, an impression that only grew stronger after we came to Logan.
Glenn was a people person with a quick wit. He loved his wife, his family, and his friends.
He loved getting together with people, especially when getting together entailed food. “Meet to eat,” I learned early on, was one of Glen’s favorite mottos.
He cared about the Church and its mission. (Boy, did he care about the mission of the Church!)
And he had a strong and informed faith in Jesus Christ.
Now, it’s one thing to have a strong faith in Christ when things are going relatively well in your life. It’s another to still have that faith when hard times come.
The day that Glenn let us know he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I spoke with him. “We know, of course,” he told me evenly, “that this cancer will eventually take my life.” But, he explained, he and Sue were committed to fighting together for the ability to life to the full for as long as he could.
Then he said, “I’ve had a good life. And I have no doubt about where I’m headed. So, we’ll just go from there.”
Now, it seemed to Ann and me as we absorbed Glenn’s news, that if any two people had a right be bitter or to rail at the rotten hand this fallen world had dealt them, it was Glenn and Sue.
They’d had little time to savor their retirement. First, Glenn had required a major surgery. Then, sharing the care for Sue’s father with her sister occupied much of their time until his death shortly before Glenn learned of his cancer. And I know that there were times when Glenn had questions, when he felt overwhelmed. The same things will happen to you who mourn his passing in the weeks and months to come: You’ll have questions; you’ll feel overwhelmed.
But every time I visited with Glenn, no matter how tired or out of sorts he was feeling, the enduring, compelling traits of his personality remained and, in one way or another, he would affirm what he had told me the first time we talked about his cancer, “I’ve had a good life. I have no doubt where I’m headed.”
It was because of these things about Glenn’s (and Sue’s) life and character that the words of Paul from Thessalonians seem so appropriate for us today. “We do not want you to be uninformed,” Paul wrote to the church at first-century Thessalonica in Greece, “about those [believers] who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”
You see, the Thessalonian Christians were worried because when they first came to faith, they’d been sure that the risen and ascended Jesus was going to quickly return to the earth and fully establish His kingdom. As the first century after Jesus’ resurrection moved on, believers in Christ everywhere were starting to become edgy. Persecution for their faith was intensifying, all the signs that Jesus had said would presage His return had appeared, and yet Jesus hadn’t come back. Paul wanted to assure the church at Thessalonica that the One Who had died and risen for them had not forgotten them. I’m sure that Glenn would want you to know that too. Jesus, Who died and rose to give new and everlasting life to all who believe in Him, has not forgotten you or His promises to you.
Because of Jesus Christ, Paul was convinced—Glenn was convinced—that believers in Jesus Christ could grieve, of course. But we don’t need to grieve as others do who have hope. Followers of Jesus Christ have hope. Glenn always had that hope!
At one level, that a man like Glenn, who was a businessperson with an inquiring mind, read history, and considered the evidence on all sides of arguments, trusted in a risen Savior he could not see, is something of a miracle.
Faith in Christ is always a miracle of God’s mercy and grace.
“No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit,” the New Testament teaches.
God gives faith in Christ not to those who marshal the most religious facts, or satisfactorily answer all their questions, or, who through science or logic, eradicate all their doubts.
Faith comes to those who look at the Bible’s witness about Jesus and the evidence of His presence in the lives of believers they may have known or observed and who then, dare to take the leap of the faith into the waiting arms of Jesus.
Glenn took that leap. That was why he could say, “I have no doubt about where I’m headed.” It’s why today, you can grieve that Glenn will no longer be with you in this earthly life, but you need not grieve as people without hope.
In the lesson from John’s gospel, which we read a moment ago, Jesus consoled the disciples. He had just told them that He would soon be leaving them. Jesus said: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
I believe that on Sunday morning, October 16, when Glenn leapt into what appears to be only darkness to us, he landed in the nail-scarred arms of Jesus, Who then took Glenn to that place He has prepared for all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus alone as their God and Savior.
Today, Sue (and all your family), I hope and pray that you will be comforted and strengthened in knowing that Glenn is today with Jesus. You will remain in our prayers and we ask you not to hesitate to ask us for any help or comfort we can provide. (And you may expect us to provide these things even when you don't ask for them!)
And to those here this morning who may doubt that Jesus can raise the dead to new life, I ask you to consider the evidence of Glenn’s life.
Glenn would have been the last person in the world to claim to be perfect. But I think that if you look at Glenn, you’ll conclude that Jesus—the real, risen, living Jesus—made a difference in his life.
If Jesus, Who can’t be seen by us today, can make a difference in the lives of people living in this sometimes tough and challenging world right now, aren’t you willing to entertain the notion that maybe this Jesus is alive and waiting for us all to turn to Him, waiting to give us the strength and humor and faith we need to face this life, waiting to give us the places He has prepared for all who are willing to leap into His loving arms?
Today and every day, dare to put yourself in the arms of Jesus. He will catch you and He will never let you go. I know that Glenn would love nothing better than for every person in this sanctuary to rest easy and rest eternally in the arms of Jesus. Tell Jesus you’re willing to be taken into His arms and to let Him be with you now and for eternity. Even as we enjoy and live this life, it’s good to know where you’re headed. Amen!
Monday, October 24, 2011
Don't Hold It In!
I really like today's piece from Our Daily Bread. It's based on Jeremiah 20:7-13. Be sure to read the Scripture passage, then check out the post in ODB by Dennis Fisher.
Both the the Scripture passage and Fisher's piece set me to thinking.
The prophet Jeremiah can be hard to read, as those of us involved in Read the Bible in a Year at Saint Matthew are seeing these days.
But imagine how hard it was for Jeremiah to live with the messages God commissioned him to bring to Israel. He and his prophecies from God didn't exactly put him on the A-list for party invitations. In fact, quite the opposite.
Yet, Jeremiah said that God's Word so burned within him that he had to share it. The fate of Israel rested on his countrymen turning from sin and trusting in God once again. How could he keep from sharing that truth with people he loved?
Jeremiah's feelings were echoed seven centuries later by Peter and John, after they'd been ordered by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious authorities, never to speak again in the Name of Jesus. Peter and John said, "Whether it is right in God's sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:19-20).
What they had "seen and heard" was Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. They had seen the sinless Savior of the world take the punishment for sin that every human being deserves. They had seen Him risen from the dead, affirming that Jesus can give new and everlasting life to all who will turn from sin and trust in Him as their only God and Lord. How could they not share that?
Christians today experience the power of the risen Jesus in our lives and, as was true for Jeremiah, this power--the power of the Holy Spirit Who enables us to confess our belief in Jesus in spite of the outlandishness of the claim that Jesus rose from the dead--burns like a fire in us.
The truth about Jesus must be shared by word and actions with all the world. Failing to do so would be deeply unloving, worse than knowing the cure for AIDs and deciding not to share it! Lots worse. Eternally worse.
That's why Jesus gave us the Great Commission! The whole world needs to know Jesus.
Don't tamp down the fire of your faith in Christ. Let it out, so that in lifting Jesus up to others, old sin is burned away and the light of new life that comes only from Jesus can be seen!
But watch out! The more you share Jesus, the more empowered God will make you to do it again.
Both the the Scripture passage and Fisher's piece set me to thinking.
The prophet Jeremiah can be hard to read, as those of us involved in Read the Bible in a Year at Saint Matthew are seeing these days.
But imagine how hard it was for Jeremiah to live with the messages God commissioned him to bring to Israel. He and his prophecies from God didn't exactly put him on the A-list for party invitations. In fact, quite the opposite.
Yet, Jeremiah said that God's Word so burned within him that he had to share it. The fate of Israel rested on his countrymen turning from sin and trusting in God once again. How could he keep from sharing that truth with people he loved?
Jeremiah's feelings were echoed seven centuries later by Peter and John, after they'd been ordered by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious authorities, never to speak again in the Name of Jesus. Peter and John said, "Whether it is right in God's sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:19-20).
What they had "seen and heard" was Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. They had seen the sinless Savior of the world take the punishment for sin that every human being deserves. They had seen Him risen from the dead, affirming that Jesus can give new and everlasting life to all who will turn from sin and trust in Him as their only God and Lord. How could they not share that?
Christians today experience the power of the risen Jesus in our lives and, as was true for Jeremiah, this power--the power of the Holy Spirit Who enables us to confess our belief in Jesus in spite of the outlandishness of the claim that Jesus rose from the dead--burns like a fire in us.
The truth about Jesus must be shared by word and actions with all the world. Failing to do so would be deeply unloving, worse than knowing the cure for AIDs and deciding not to share it! Lots worse. Eternally worse.
That's why Jesus gave us the Great Commission! The whole world needs to know Jesus.
Don't tamp down the fire of your faith in Christ. Let it out, so that in lifting Jesus up to others, old sin is burned away and the light of new life that comes only from Jesus can be seen!
But watch out! The more you share Jesus, the more empowered God will make you to do it again.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
You Get to Love!
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]
Matthew 22:34-46
This morning, I want to speak with you about love.
Every Christian knows that “God is love.” And we all know that it was God’s love that caused Him to send God the Son, Jesus, into the world to die and to rise so that all who entrust their lives to Jesus will have eternal life with God.
But what is love?
Jesus gives us the answer to that question today. Please pull out today’s Celebrate bulletin insert and look at the Gospel lesson, Matthew 22:34-46.
Let’s set the scene. It’s the Tuesday after the first Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday, a jubilant crowd had welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem. The crowd was sure that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed king promised by God through the prophets.
This roused the concern and jealousy of religious elites, influential people like the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in a resurrection of the dead; like the Pharisees, who were confident that their own righteousness, superior to that of other people, made them favored by God; and the Scribes, also sometimes called lawyers, scholars who were knowledgeable of all 615 laws laid down by God in the Old Testament.
For three days, these religious leaders had peppered Jesus with questions designed, not to learn anything or to engage in respectful discussion, but to trap Jesus. They wanted Jesus to say something they could use to convince their country’s Roman occupiers that Jesus ought to be executed.
But every question they raised, Jesus answered in ways that were consistent with God’s revealed Word in the Old Testament. Nothing He said gave them the ammo they needed.
They had nearly given up on their efforts when we come to our lesson. A “lawyer” asked Jesus what the greatest of God’s commandments is. The Gospel of Mark suggests that this question was asked in earnest. Matthew seems to say that it was another attempted trap. Whatever the case may be, Jesus’ answer is well known to us. Jesus says that the greatest commandment of all comes in two parts.
I ask that question because if you were to ask the average person on the street, “What is love?,” they’d say something like, “Love is a strong positive feeling you have for somebody.” And if you asked this same average person how we come to love someone else, they might say, “You don’t have control over love. It just happens to you. You fall in love with somebody of the opposite sex, for example. Or, you just love your family because that’s who you live with. Or .you like your friends because their niceness wins you over.”
Love is seen, by most people, as a passive thing you cannot keep yourself from doing. But if love comes so naturally to us, why does God have to command us to do it?
Maybe it’s because the average person’s definition of love is wrong.
Maybe God has a different definition of love.
In fact, we’d be right to suspect that the love that God commands us to bear for Him and for every human being on earth—even for Moammar Gaddhafi’s and Osama bin-Laden’s—doesn’t come naturally to us.
We see how different Jesus’ idea of love is when we read what He says about the two parts of the Great Commandment in verse 40: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
“The Law and the Prophets” is basically, the phrase that the people in Jesus’ day used for what we call the Old Testament.
Since March, many of us at Saint Matthew have been reading and discussing “the Law and the Prophets” together. Repeatedly, we’ve read about God telling His chosen people Israel some tough things. We’ve read that God had given His people a land that they didn’t deserve, then commanded them to honor Him and His commandments. Instead, they treated foreigners like slaves, worshiped other gods, relied on arms and foreign allies instead of Him, sacrificed their children to foreign deities, and engaged in all sorts of sexual practices outside of God’s will.
And so, through His law and prophets, God reminded His people that He had chosen them not because they were better than others, but because He chose to love them and He wanted them to choose to honor Him in response, by loving Him and loving others.
When Israel fell into sin, God sent His law and prophets to call Israel back to Him. (Just as Jesus would later tell the world, “Repent and believe in the good news” about Him.)
Through the Law and the Prophets, God told the people that if they didn’t turn back to Him the life that only He can give would be lost; their soil wouldn’t produce crops; they would suffer drought and famine; their promised land would be taken from them; they would be taken as slaves by foreign conquerors; and their kings would become eunuchs held as servants in the palaces of foreign kings. These hard words sound nothing like the average person's mushy, involuntary, can't-help-loving-you version of love.
But God insists throughout the Law and the Prophets that in saying such hard things, He was being loving. God was warning His people, as He warns all people today that when we choose disconnection from the only One Who can give us life and meaning to the lives we live, there are inevitable consequences. But if we choose to turn back to God, there are also consequences. Wonderful consequences! God wanted Israel to turn back to Him and live. God wants all people to turn to Jesus, God in the flesh, and live!
Today, the love of God may compel us, like it compelled the prophets before us, to say some very hard things.
Paul describes the love Jesus commands in 1 Corinthians when he writes, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, bur rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
In other words, loving God and others as the Great Commandment mandates is impossible! Yet, there it is in our Bibles and on our Celebrate inserts in black and white, Matthew 22:37-39, the Great Commandment. And if we can’t obey this impossible commandment, can any of us have the hope of living with God in eternity?
Relax!
Next in our Gospel lesson, Jesus asks a question of His questioners: “Whose son do you think the Messiah is?” He asks.
The Pharisees and the Scribes say, “The son [or the descendant] of David,” Old Testament Israel’s greatest king.
Now, earlier Matthew’s gospel does say that Jesus is a son of David. But that’s not all of Who Jesus is! That’s why Jesus next asks who King David was talking about when he wrote in Psalm 110:1, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’…” Jesus goes on to say, “If David…calls Him Lord, how can He be [David’s] son?”
You see, Jesus is claiming that He is more than a man raised by descendants of King David; He is also God, the author of love, the one Who, in three days, would do the hardest thing that love has ever done. He would die on a cross which His sinless life did not deserve.
Because Jesus is God, He's able to do the impossible: He can love the unlovable; He can give new life to the dead and the mortal.
You and I are incapable of loving God or loving neighbor as Jesus commands us to do. But Jesus has kept this commandment perfectly for us and gives to all who believe in Him the power to love beyond their own human abilities.
I couldn’t stand one of my seminary professors when I first met him. I thought his lectures were boring. I frittered through his class the entire quarter and failed it. I liked him even less after that. Two years passed. Then, there was a class I had to take to graduate. Guess who was teaching it?
I prayed: “God, I don’t like this guy. But I don’t like this feeling, either. Please, in spite of my feelings for him, love him through me.”
It didn’t happen instantly, but things began to change and I found that gradually, I came to love this man.
If we are serious about keeping Jesus’ greatest commandment, the one that sums up and includes all the others, we need, first of all, to go to God and admit our inability to love either God or neighbor as He commands we do.
“Lord,” we might pray. “I’m upset with You right now. You seem so distant and so uncaring to me at this time. Yet, I know that Jesus died on the cross because of Your love for me. Because of this, I choose to love You. Give me the power to serve you in spite of what I’m feeling right now.”
Or, we could pray, “Lord, I see nothing good in this person. He or she has hurt me. I can’t muster any pleasantness toward them. Yet Jesus died and rose for them too. Despite my feelings, give me the faith to do some tangible acts of caring and service for them. Love them through me!”
Jesus does command us to love God and to love others. And it is a commandment we cannot keep without inviting Him to control our lives and wills.
But what we learn from the Savior Who is Son of God as well as Son of Man is that love isn’t what we feel. Love isn’t primarily about emotions. Love is often what we do in spite of how we feel. Love is constituted by the acts of service and kindness, the attitude of kind hopes that, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we choose to bear toward God and others and that God brings to life within us!
I've told you before about the seasoned Methodist pastor who once said, "For forty years, I've gotten it wrong. I've preached to people, 'You've got to love.' In fact, what I should have preached is, 'You get to love!'" Jesus gives us permission to ask for His help in loving God and others the way He loves us. You get to love. Don't miss out on the privilege of that.
Matthew 22:34-46
This morning, I want to speak with you about love.
Every Christian knows that “God is love.” And we all know that it was God’s love that caused Him to send God the Son, Jesus, into the world to die and to rise so that all who entrust their lives to Jesus will have eternal life with God.
But what is love?
Jesus gives us the answer to that question today. Please pull out today’s Celebrate bulletin insert and look at the Gospel lesson, Matthew 22:34-46.
Let’s set the scene. It’s the Tuesday after the first Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday, a jubilant crowd had welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem. The crowd was sure that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed king promised by God through the prophets.
This roused the concern and jealousy of religious elites, influential people like the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in a resurrection of the dead; like the Pharisees, who were confident that their own righteousness, superior to that of other people, made them favored by God; and the Scribes, also sometimes called lawyers, scholars who were knowledgeable of all 615 laws laid down by God in the Old Testament.
For three days, these religious leaders had peppered Jesus with questions designed, not to learn anything or to engage in respectful discussion, but to trap Jesus. They wanted Jesus to say something they could use to convince their country’s Roman occupiers that Jesus ought to be executed.
But every question they raised, Jesus answered in ways that were consistent with God’s revealed Word in the Old Testament. Nothing He said gave them the ammo they needed.
They had nearly given up on their efforts when we come to our lesson. A “lawyer” asked Jesus what the greatest of God’s commandments is. The Gospel of Mark suggests that this question was asked in earnest. Matthew seems to say that it was another attempted trap. Whatever the case may be, Jesus’ answer is well known to us. Jesus says that the greatest commandment of all comes in two parts.
- Part 1 comes from the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:5, what Jewish folks call the Shema: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
- Part 2, which Jesus says is “like” the first, also comes from the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:18, part of the Holiness Code: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
I ask that question because if you were to ask the average person on the street, “What is love?,” they’d say something like, “Love is a strong positive feeling you have for somebody.” And if you asked this same average person how we come to love someone else, they might say, “You don’t have control over love. It just happens to you. You fall in love with somebody of the opposite sex, for example. Or, you just love your family because that’s who you live with. Or .you like your friends because their niceness wins you over.”
Love is seen, by most people, as a passive thing you cannot keep yourself from doing. But if love comes so naturally to us, why does God have to command us to do it?
Maybe it’s because the average person’s definition of love is wrong.
Maybe God has a different definition of love.
In fact, we’d be right to suspect that the love that God commands us to bear for Him and for every human being on earth—even for Moammar Gaddhafi’s and Osama bin-Laden’s—doesn’t come naturally to us.
We see how different Jesus’ idea of love is when we read what He says about the two parts of the Great Commandment in verse 40: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
“The Law and the Prophets” is basically, the phrase that the people in Jesus’ day used for what we call the Old Testament.
Since March, many of us at Saint Matthew have been reading and discussing “the Law and the Prophets” together. Repeatedly, we’ve read about God telling His chosen people Israel some tough things. We’ve read that God had given His people a land that they didn’t deserve, then commanded them to honor Him and His commandments. Instead, they treated foreigners like slaves, worshiped other gods, relied on arms and foreign allies instead of Him, sacrificed their children to foreign deities, and engaged in all sorts of sexual practices outside of God’s will.
And so, through His law and prophets, God reminded His people that He had chosen them not because they were better than others, but because He chose to love them and He wanted them to choose to honor Him in response, by loving Him and loving others.
When Israel fell into sin, God sent His law and prophets to call Israel back to Him. (Just as Jesus would later tell the world, “Repent and believe in the good news” about Him.)
Through the Law and the Prophets, God told the people that if they didn’t turn back to Him the life that only He can give would be lost; their soil wouldn’t produce crops; they would suffer drought and famine; their promised land would be taken from them; they would be taken as slaves by foreign conquerors; and their kings would become eunuchs held as servants in the palaces of foreign kings. These hard words sound nothing like the average person's mushy, involuntary, can't-help-loving-you version of love.
But God insists throughout the Law and the Prophets that in saying such hard things, He was being loving. God was warning His people, as He warns all people today that when we choose disconnection from the only One Who can give us life and meaning to the lives we live, there are inevitable consequences. But if we choose to turn back to God, there are also consequences. Wonderful consequences! God wanted Israel to turn back to Him and live. God wants all people to turn to Jesus, God in the flesh, and live!
Today, the love of God may compel us, like it compelled the prophets before us, to say some very hard things.
- We may have to tell the bigoted neighbor that bigotry has no place in the kingdom of God.
- We may have to say to the child who engages in sexual intimacy with a boyfriend or girlfriend that while we love them, their behavior, contrary to God’s will that such intimacy only be shared by a man and a woman in marriage, is pushing God out of their lives.
- We may have to say to the friend who brags about cheating the government out of tax payments that no matter how we may object to government policies, God still expects us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
- And we most certainly will need to tell our spiritually disconnected friend that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that forgiveness and eternal life and relationship with God comes only to those who repent for sin and believe in Jesus Christ.
Paul describes the love Jesus commands in 1 Corinthians when he writes, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, bur rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
In other words, loving God and others as the Great Commandment mandates is impossible! Yet, there it is in our Bibles and on our Celebrate inserts in black and white, Matthew 22:37-39, the Great Commandment. And if we can’t obey this impossible commandment, can any of us have the hope of living with God in eternity?
Relax!
Next in our Gospel lesson, Jesus asks a question of His questioners: “Whose son do you think the Messiah is?” He asks.
The Pharisees and the Scribes say, “The son [or the descendant] of David,” Old Testament Israel’s greatest king.
Now, earlier Matthew’s gospel does say that Jesus is a son of David. But that’s not all of Who Jesus is! That’s why Jesus next asks who King David was talking about when he wrote in Psalm 110:1, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’…” Jesus goes on to say, “If David…calls Him Lord, how can He be [David’s] son?”
You see, Jesus is claiming that He is more than a man raised by descendants of King David; He is also God, the author of love, the one Who, in three days, would do the hardest thing that love has ever done. He would die on a cross which His sinless life did not deserve.
Because Jesus is God, He's able to do the impossible: He can love the unlovable; He can give new life to the dead and the mortal.
You and I are incapable of loving God or loving neighbor as Jesus commands us to do. But Jesus has kept this commandment perfectly for us and gives to all who believe in Him the power to love beyond their own human abilities.
I couldn’t stand one of my seminary professors when I first met him. I thought his lectures were boring. I frittered through his class the entire quarter and failed it. I liked him even less after that. Two years passed. Then, there was a class I had to take to graduate. Guess who was teaching it?
I prayed: “God, I don’t like this guy. But I don’t like this feeling, either. Please, in spite of my feelings for him, love him through me.”
It didn’t happen instantly, but things began to change and I found that gradually, I came to love this man.
If we are serious about keeping Jesus’ greatest commandment, the one that sums up and includes all the others, we need, first of all, to go to God and admit our inability to love either God or neighbor as He commands we do.
“Lord,” we might pray. “I’m upset with You right now. You seem so distant and so uncaring to me at this time. Yet, I know that Jesus died on the cross because of Your love for me. Because of this, I choose to love You. Give me the power to serve you in spite of what I’m feeling right now.”
Or, we could pray, “Lord, I see nothing good in this person. He or she has hurt me. I can’t muster any pleasantness toward them. Yet Jesus died and rose for them too. Despite my feelings, give me the faith to do some tangible acts of caring and service for them. Love them through me!”
Jesus does command us to love God and to love others. And it is a commandment we cannot keep without inviting Him to control our lives and wills.
But what we learn from the Savior Who is Son of God as well as Son of Man is that love isn’t what we feel. Love isn’t primarily about emotions. Love is often what we do in spite of how we feel. Love is constituted by the acts of service and kindness, the attitude of kind hopes that, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we choose to bear toward God and others and that God brings to life within us!
I've told you before about the seasoned Methodist pastor who once said, "For forty years, I've gotten it wrong. I've preached to people, 'You've got to love.' In fact, what I should have preached is, 'You get to love!'" Jesus gives us permission to ask for His help in loving God and others the way He loves us. You get to love. Don't miss out on the privilege of that.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Let's Look Around the Garden
Today brought a perfect, crisp, clear fall day. So, I went out into the church garden to take this short video. Earlier, a group of kids had congregated there, laughing and talking, while one of their number tried perfecting jumps on her skateboard. Enjoy this slice of a sunny October Saturday!
Two Special Memorials
On November 6, All Saints' Sunday, we'll be dedicating two memorials in honor of two special Saint Matthew members.
One is an oak tree and butterfly bushes, all planted this past week, in honor of Sarah. Sarah was a twenty year old member of the congregation, who died in August after a valiant seven-and-a-half year battle with cancer. Sarah loved butterflies or more accurately, butterflies loved her. The oak tree, projected to live 200 years, is, along with the bushes, a fitting memorial to one who taught us so much about trustingly living for Jesus Christ. (For more about Sarah, see here.)
On the same day, we'll dedicate a brand new sound system at Saint Matthew in memory of Luke, a lifelong member of the congregation who died two years ago at age 87. Active until the end of his life, Luke operated the old sound system every Sunday and for every other service--when not, briefly, away on vacation--for many years. In fact, he commented shortly before he passed that he hadn't missed providing service for a funeral in the Saint Matthew sanctuary in 25 years! Operating the sound system is no small matter at Saint Matthew because it connects the congregation with a radio audience that listens to our Sunday worship every week. Saint Matthew has been on the radio continuously since 1962. Luke did a lot of other unheralded things for the congregation. He would love this new sound system, I think! (For more about Luke, see here.)
Below the new mixer board cabinet is pictured.
One is an oak tree and butterfly bushes, all planted this past week, in honor of Sarah. Sarah was a twenty year old member of the congregation, who died in August after a valiant seven-and-a-half year battle with cancer. Sarah loved butterflies or more accurately, butterflies loved her. The oak tree, projected to live 200 years, is, along with the bushes, a fitting memorial to one who taught us so much about trustingly living for Jesus Christ. (For more about Sarah, see here.)
On the same day, we'll dedicate a brand new sound system at Saint Matthew in memory of Luke, a lifelong member of the congregation who died two years ago at age 87. Active until the end of his life, Luke operated the old sound system every Sunday and for every other service--when not, briefly, away on vacation--for many years. In fact, he commented shortly before he passed that he hadn't missed providing service for a funeral in the Saint Matthew sanctuary in 25 years! Operating the sound system is no small matter at Saint Matthew because it connects the congregation with a radio audience that listens to our Sunday worship every week. Saint Matthew has been on the radio continuously since 1962. Luke did a lot of other unheralded things for the congregation. He would love this new sound system, I think! (For more about Luke, see here.)
Below the new mixer board cabinet is pictured.
[Click on the images to enlarge.]
Goodbye!
I like this post, today's installment from Our Daily Bread. Believers in Jesus Christ do have hope beyond the grave. So, we can take a different view of life and death.
But, not to be picky toward the grandfather mentioned in the Our Daily Bread piece, "Goodbye" is actually an old English contraction for the phrase, "God bless you [ye]."
I try always to make a point of always saying, "God bless" when I end a phone call or a visit. That isn't a final greeting, it's a prayer for continuing blessings.
Goodbye!
By the way, here's a link to the great passage on which the Our Daily Bread post is based.
But, not to be picky toward the grandfather mentioned in the Our Daily Bread piece, "Goodbye" is actually an old English contraction for the phrase, "God bless you [ye]."
I try always to make a point of always saying, "God bless" when I end a phone call or a visit. That isn't a final greeting, it's a prayer for continuing blessings.
Goodbye!
By the way, here's a link to the great passage on which the Our Daily Bread post is based.
Read Maria Shriver's Interview with Billy Graham
On her web site, Maria Shriver has an interview with Billy Graham. Graham has written a new book, Nearing Home. He talks about aging with faith, significance, and dignity. I like the interview, especially his discussion of the riotously funny and wise inscription Graham's late wife Ruth wanted inscribed on her tombstone. Read the whole thing.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
It Took a Heart Attack
"I had a heart attack because I'm a control freak."
That's what I told some friends yesterday. My wife will tell you that I'm not your stereotype control freak. I don't rant or rave or try to get my way. My "freakiness" has expressed itself in having certain expectations about what I'll get accomplished in the course of a week or a day or my lifetime.
My heart attack, suffered a year and a half ago, has caused me to begin to learn to practice what I've always preached: It's OK to have an agenda, as long as you realize that it may need disrupting.
James writes in the New Testament portion of the Bible: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.' Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring." (James 4:13-14). Money has never motivated me, but I have fooled myself with the idea that I could "plan the work and work the plan." Life, it turns out, is messier and less predictable than that.
Planning is fine. But we need to be flexible about our plans. Some of those things that interrupt your plans may actually be part of God's plan for your day.
Having my agenda interrupted caused me stress and stress, when sustained and unchecked, can lead to heart attacks and other negative physical reactions. Stress, of course, isn't what happens to you. It's what you do in response to what happens to you. Stress is inevitable; how we handle it is optional.
Not to be cute about it, but I'm now learning that when "interruptions" to my agenda come along, instead of being stressed, I can feel blessed. Many interruptions are more than annoying occurrences; They're opportunities God gives us to love Him, love others, and be useful to Him.
I'm learning that it's better for my health, my character, and my daily walk with God to be interruptible. I've preached it for years. It took a heart attack to get me to start living it.
That's what I told some friends yesterday. My wife will tell you that I'm not your stereotype control freak. I don't rant or rave or try to get my way. My "freakiness" has expressed itself in having certain expectations about what I'll get accomplished in the course of a week or a day or my lifetime.
My heart attack, suffered a year and a half ago, has caused me to begin to learn to practice what I've always preached: It's OK to have an agenda, as long as you realize that it may need disrupting.
James writes in the New Testament portion of the Bible: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.' Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring." (James 4:13-14). Money has never motivated me, but I have fooled myself with the idea that I could "plan the work and work the plan." Life, it turns out, is messier and less predictable than that.
Planning is fine. But we need to be flexible about our plans. Some of those things that interrupt your plans may actually be part of God's plan for your day.
Having my agenda interrupted caused me stress and stress, when sustained and unchecked, can lead to heart attacks and other negative physical reactions. Stress, of course, isn't what happens to you. It's what you do in response to what happens to you. Stress is inevitable; how we handle it is optional.
Not to be cute about it, but I'm now learning that when "interruptions" to my agenda come along, instead of being stressed, I can feel blessed. Many interruptions are more than annoying occurrences; They're opportunities God gives us to love Him, love others, and be useful to Him.
I'm learning that it's better for my health, my character, and my daily walk with God to be interruptible. I've preached it for years. It took a heart attack to get me to start living it.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
It Might Be a Good Addition to Your Library
Those who have been participating in our 'Read the Bible in a Year' discussion groups know how much I value the Eerdmans Handbook to the Bible, an informative reference book for anyone wanting to read and understand the Bible. You also know that the book is out of print.
But just yesterday, I learned about a new and similar reference book that's been put out by the same publishers. It's called The Eerdmans Companion to the Bible. I haven't read it. But I am familiar with the editors, New Testament scholars I admire. I also know that Eerdmans, the publishers, do a great job with reference works of this kind.
Amazon offers the book for just a little over half the publisher's list price. Through Amazon, it's $20.62, instead of $40.00. Just a thought.
But just yesterday, I learned about a new and similar reference book that's been put out by the same publishers. It's called The Eerdmans Companion to the Bible. I haven't read it. But I am familiar with the editors, New Testament scholars I admire. I also know that Eerdmans, the publishers, do a great job with reference works of this kind.
Amazon offers the book for just a little over half the publisher's list price. Through Amazon, it's $20.62, instead of $40.00. Just a thought.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
A Church That Doesn't Do Funerals?
I agree with Rick Warren, the pastor of a megachurch in Orange County, California, that "the church that doesn't want to grow is telling people to go to hell."
We have a commission from Christ to "make disciples," helping others to know and follow Jesus into eternity with us. Depending on what the Holy Spirit does in the hearts and wills of those with whom we share Jesus (and a lot of other factors we may never know about), obeying Jesus' commission may bring numerical growth to our individual congregations. And it would be foolish and faithless for congregations to turn away people just because they didn't want the hassle or the grief of growth.
That's why I've never been among those Christians who disdain megachurches just for being big. That's silly! (As silly as those who attend big churches who disdain smaller churches.)
But, according to one blogger, Richard Hunter, at least one megachurch is more mega than it is church. He writes:
Death is where the rubber hits the road for Christian faith. If our proclamation that Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death and offers resurrection victory to all who repent for sin and believe in Christ isn't true when believers die, then it isn't true.
The truth that Jesus is Lord and is risen from the dead and the comfort it brings needs to be remembered and shared with family members and friends when death hits. The Church, in fact, is never more the Church than it is at funerals in which Christ is confidently and lovingly proclaimed!
Churches that pass on the chance to share the Gospel--the Good News--of Jesus Christ during a funeral are missing out on a tremendous opportunity to be Christ's open arms of love to people who need Christ.
Frankly, I wonder if a church that refuses to do weddings or funerals is really a church any longer. Isn't it just more of an arena where preaching and performances happen than it is a church body in which "if one member suffers, all suffer together...if one member is honored, all rejoice together..." (1 Corinthians 12:25)?
I hope that the no-weddings-or-funerals policy isn't widespread among megachurches.
As it turns out, the funeral for Hunter's nephew happened at the Methodist church of which his brother's family had been members for fifteen years. Two pastors from the Methodist congregation worked with the family in planning for the funeral and brought comfort to the grieving. Hunter writes:
We have a commission from Christ to "make disciples," helping others to know and follow Jesus into eternity with us. Depending on what the Holy Spirit does in the hearts and wills of those with whom we share Jesus (and a lot of other factors we may never know about), obeying Jesus' commission may bring numerical growth to our individual congregations. And it would be foolish and faithless for congregations to turn away people just because they didn't want the hassle or the grief of growth.
That's why I've never been among those Christians who disdain megachurches just for being big. That's silly! (As silly as those who attend big churches who disdain smaller churches.)
But, according to one blogger, Richard Hunter, at least one megachurch is more mega than it is church. He writes:
Last week my nephew was in a motorcycle accident that left him brain-dead. My brother and his family had been attending a mega-church known for large, inspiring worship services, great music and autonomy for attendees. The family contacted the church to ask a pastor to come and plan a funeral with them. The church office replied that they did not do weddings and funerals...I was particularly shocked to learn of a church that refuses to do funerals!
Death is where the rubber hits the road for Christian faith. If our proclamation that Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death and offers resurrection victory to all who repent for sin and believe in Christ isn't true when believers die, then it isn't true.
The truth that Jesus is Lord and is risen from the dead and the comfort it brings needs to be remembered and shared with family members and friends when death hits. The Church, in fact, is never more the Church than it is at funerals in which Christ is confidently and lovingly proclaimed!
Churches that pass on the chance to share the Gospel--the Good News--of Jesus Christ during a funeral are missing out on a tremendous opportunity to be Christ's open arms of love to people who need Christ.
Frankly, I wonder if a church that refuses to do weddings or funerals is really a church any longer. Isn't it just more of an arena where preaching and performances happen than it is a church body in which "if one member suffers, all suffer together...if one member is honored, all rejoice together..." (1 Corinthians 12:25)?
I hope that the no-weddings-or-funerals policy isn't widespread among megachurches.
As it turns out, the funeral for Hunter's nephew happened at the Methodist church of which his brother's family had been members for fifteen years. Two pastors from the Methodist congregation worked with the family in planning for the funeral and brought comfort to the grieving. Hunter writes:
Next time you are tempted to give up your local church and go get lost in one of the mega-churches, remember that one day you will need a personal touch...Read the whole thing.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
The Book That Can Change Your Life
[This was shared this morning during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Today’s sermon is a rerun and I think I would have preached it whether I’d spent Thursday and part of Friday at the hospital to get my defibrillator. That’s because the topic for today is something about which I am passionate. It’s about the object of an ongoing love affair in my life and it isn’t with Ann. (How’s that for grabbing your attention?)
To start, I'd like to show you a few books from my personal library.
This first one is a paperback version of the New Testament in the Good News translation. It was given to me by my parents’ church in Columbus when I graduated from Ohio State in 1975. This Bible is especially important to me because this was the very one I read when I first fell in love with Jesus Christ!
It was on these pages that I came to learn more about Who Jesus is and the depths of His passion for you and me and everybody in the world.
Acts was the first book of the New Testament I read in this edition. I remember being especially stirred when I read this verse, which comes after an account of how the apostles, the leaders of Jesus' post-resurrection Church had been beaten for their faith in Christ. It says: “The apostles left the Council [that had beaten them and told them to never speak in Jesus' Name again], full of joy that God had considered them worthy to suffer disgrace for the Name of Jesus.”
To this day, I can hardly read that passage without choking up. Imagine it: These followers of Jesus derived joy from having the privilege of suffering for their allegiance to Jesus! By contrast, I sometimes complain about being inconvenienced by people for whom Jesus died and who Jesus has called me to love.
After I left atheism to become a follower of Jesus, my early mentor in the Christian faith, Martha Schneider, got a hardback version of the whole Bible in the Good News translation. As you can see, it's gotten some wear.
When I went to seminary four years after becoming a Christian, I was required, along with all of my classmates, to have a copy of the Oxford edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. It’s no longer in print, but I used this Bible throughout my seminary career and into my early years as a pastor. After it got worn out and had nearly fallen apart, no matter how much Scotch, masking, or duct tape I put on the binding, I bought another one just like it to replace it. As you can see, after awhile, this second came to look like the first one, too.
It was from this edition of the Bible that I read on the night before my family and I headed to the first congregation I served as a pastor twenty-seven years ago. Just before I went to bed, I read Paul’s letter to a young pastor named Timothy. In the book called First Timothy, Paul gave Timothy advice that I felt that I needed as a then-young pastor myself: “Command and teach these things. Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity…attend to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you…Practice these duties, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Take heed to yourself and to your teaching; hold to that, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
Later, I bought this Study Bible, which I still use sometimes. And later still, I bought this Life Application Bible. Like the others, it’s now showing its age. I’ve had it for about thirteen years and still use it every day.
A few years ago, I added The Message translation to my arsenal of Bibles. And, within the past year, I’ve gotten two wonderful editions: The Orthodox Study Bible, with notes by Greek Orthodox scholars, and The Lutheran Study Bible, from the publishing house of Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Though I have differences on many issues with both of those Christian traditions, these are wonderful study Bibles.
Now, I’m not showing you my Bibles to impress you. My point is this: Since 1976, reading the Bible has been an almost daily part of my life. And if you were to open most of my Bibles, you’d find underlines and notes all over them. You'd find questions in the margins, too, because there are still many things I don’t understand about God.
Some people might find all my markings on the pages of my Bibles offensive. But if the Bible is God’s Word, as I believe it is, then what you would see in those notes and underlines and questions is the record of my ongoing dialog with God, the conversation to which God invites all of us on the pages of the Bible.
This morning, I confess that I sin every day of my life. I do things that are wrong and say things I shouldn’t say. And I think things which, if any of you were mind-readers, would cause you to want to avoid me at all costs. The Bible hasn’t made me perfect. But it has introduced me to the God Who loves imperfect people like me and is committed to helping those who daily surrender to Him.
It's shown me the God Who's committed to changing us into all that God made us to be in the first place.
You see, unlike Lady Gaga, God doesn’t think that we should pursue sinful lifestyles just because we were “born that way.” In the Bible, God teaches us that we’re not to live as the slaves to sin, which is what we all are when we are born; instead, in Christ we are born again and set free to live God’s way!
When we spend time reading God’s Word, it brings changes to our lives, usually in ways we can’t readily articulate.
I love a story about an exchange of letters to the editor that once appeared in a newspaper in England. It started with a disgruntled church member who wrote something like this: “I’ve been in worship virtually every Sunday for the past thirty years and I have recently realized that I can’t remember a single sermon I’ve heard in all that time. Therefore, I’m going to quit going to worship. It’s obviously a waste of time.” Several days later, another letter to the editor appeared. It began: “My wife has always cooked the meals in our family these past thirty years. Recently, I have realized that in scanning my memory, I can’t really remember more than a handful of specific meals she has prepared. Therefore, I’m going to quit eating.”
Daily taking the time to read God’s Word, like weekly worship, is another way God feeds us and nourishes us. I certainly don’t remember every specific conversation I’ve had with God as I’ve read and written on the pages of my Bible these past thirty-five years. But I do know that when I take the time for this daily discipline, I remember that God is with me and that He is waiting to help me that day.
I receive God’s counsel.
I find what displeases God and the things for which I need to repent and receive the power of His Holy Spirit to change.
I see how God provides for me and how God wants to be with me forever.
I’m encouraged in my down times, guided through life’s mysteries, and brought down to earth when my ego is riding high.
I remember that Jesus died and rose for me.
But it takes time spent reading and paying attention to God's Word for all of these things to become apparent in our lives.
I'm a slow-learner when it comes to almost anything in life. That includes learning what it means to follow Jesus and trust in God. The moment God begins forming faith in Christ within us—something we Lutherans believe starts at Baptism—we are part of God’s kingdom.
But growing up in the faith, living in the confidence that God willingly gives His children, being able to face whatever life throws at us, and becoming the high-impact people of faith we’re made to be, that is a process.
It happens bit by bit as we surrender our lives to Christ. It happens through things like regular worship, regular prayer, regular service, regular giving, regularly encouraging others with the love of Christ, regularly inviting others to worship with us, and regularly reading God’s Word.
This is what Paul is talking about in our second lesson for this morning, composed of the opening passages of his first letter to a church in the Greek city of Thessalonica. He begins by saying how thankful he is that the Christians in this Aegean Sea-coastal city are so faithful to Jesus Christ.
He writes: “For the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Acaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known... [And then Paul goes on to write:] For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, so that we have no need to speak about it.”
Do you see what happened? The Thessalonians had daily feasted on the Word of God. It had become integrated into the very marrow of their souls. The results were predictable. People who lived miles away heard about how Jesus Christ was at the center of their lives and how His Word made a huge positive difference in how they lived and faced each day.
When we daily take in God’s Word, each verse becomes like one of those time-released medicine capsules that, at just the right moments, work. God's Word works within us and then bring into being things like joy, compassion, hopefulness, a commitment to justice, and deep faith.
This, in turn, is seen by others and, as was true of the Thessalonians who influenced other people, we will bring God’s Word to those around us. God’s Word enters us and our lives become God’s Word for others, speaking God’s truth and God’s call to repentance and belief in Jesus.
I urge you to make reading the Bible a daily part of your life.
Wear out your Bibles!
Make notes in the margins!
Memorize verses that are meaningful to you!
Ask God to explain passages that you don’t understand.
Ask God to help you apply the things that you do understand.
Consider joining in with the remaining readings and weekly discussions as we read the Bible together in a year.
And ask God too, to set off the power for living with joy, peace, and hope that comes to all who let God’s Word act as their guide through life. Amen
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Today’s sermon is a rerun and I think I would have preached it whether I’d spent Thursday and part of Friday at the hospital to get my defibrillator. That’s because the topic for today is something about which I am passionate. It’s about the object of an ongoing love affair in my life and it isn’t with Ann. (How’s that for grabbing your attention?)
To start, I'd like to show you a few books from my personal library.
This first one is a paperback version of the New Testament in the Good News translation. It was given to me by my parents’ church in Columbus when I graduated from Ohio State in 1975. This Bible is especially important to me because this was the very one I read when I first fell in love with Jesus Christ!
It was on these pages that I came to learn more about Who Jesus is and the depths of His passion for you and me and everybody in the world.
Acts was the first book of the New Testament I read in this edition. I remember being especially stirred when I read this verse, which comes after an account of how the apostles, the leaders of Jesus' post-resurrection Church had been beaten for their faith in Christ. It says: “The apostles left the Council [that had beaten them and told them to never speak in Jesus' Name again], full of joy that God had considered them worthy to suffer disgrace for the Name of Jesus.”
To this day, I can hardly read that passage without choking up. Imagine it: These followers of Jesus derived joy from having the privilege of suffering for their allegiance to Jesus! By contrast, I sometimes complain about being inconvenienced by people for whom Jesus died and who Jesus has called me to love.
After I left atheism to become a follower of Jesus, my early mentor in the Christian faith, Martha Schneider, got a hardback version of the whole Bible in the Good News translation. As you can see, it's gotten some wear.
When I went to seminary four years after becoming a Christian, I was required, along with all of my classmates, to have a copy of the Oxford edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. It’s no longer in print, but I used this Bible throughout my seminary career and into my early years as a pastor. After it got worn out and had nearly fallen apart, no matter how much Scotch, masking, or duct tape I put on the binding, I bought another one just like it to replace it. As you can see, after awhile, this second came to look like the first one, too.
It was from this edition of the Bible that I read on the night before my family and I headed to the first congregation I served as a pastor twenty-seven years ago. Just before I went to bed, I read Paul’s letter to a young pastor named Timothy. In the book called First Timothy, Paul gave Timothy advice that I felt that I needed as a then-young pastor myself: “Command and teach these things. Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity…attend to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you…Practice these duties, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Take heed to yourself and to your teaching; hold to that, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
Later, I bought this Study Bible, which I still use sometimes. And later still, I bought this Life Application Bible. Like the others, it’s now showing its age. I’ve had it for about thirteen years and still use it every day.
A few years ago, I added The Message translation to my arsenal of Bibles. And, within the past year, I’ve gotten two wonderful editions: The Orthodox Study Bible, with notes by Greek Orthodox scholars, and The Lutheran Study Bible, from the publishing house of Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Though I have differences on many issues with both of those Christian traditions, these are wonderful study Bibles.
Now, I’m not showing you my Bibles to impress you. My point is this: Since 1976, reading the Bible has been an almost daily part of my life. And if you were to open most of my Bibles, you’d find underlines and notes all over them. You'd find questions in the margins, too, because there are still many things I don’t understand about God.
Some people might find all my markings on the pages of my Bibles offensive. But if the Bible is God’s Word, as I believe it is, then what you would see in those notes and underlines and questions is the record of my ongoing dialog with God, the conversation to which God invites all of us on the pages of the Bible.
This morning, I confess that I sin every day of my life. I do things that are wrong and say things I shouldn’t say. And I think things which, if any of you were mind-readers, would cause you to want to avoid me at all costs. The Bible hasn’t made me perfect. But it has introduced me to the God Who loves imperfect people like me and is committed to helping those who daily surrender to Him.
It's shown me the God Who's committed to changing us into all that God made us to be in the first place.
You see, unlike Lady Gaga, God doesn’t think that we should pursue sinful lifestyles just because we were “born that way.” In the Bible, God teaches us that we’re not to live as the slaves to sin, which is what we all are when we are born; instead, in Christ we are born again and set free to live God’s way!
When we spend time reading God’s Word, it brings changes to our lives, usually in ways we can’t readily articulate.
I love a story about an exchange of letters to the editor that once appeared in a newspaper in England. It started with a disgruntled church member who wrote something like this: “I’ve been in worship virtually every Sunday for the past thirty years and I have recently realized that I can’t remember a single sermon I’ve heard in all that time. Therefore, I’m going to quit going to worship. It’s obviously a waste of time.” Several days later, another letter to the editor appeared. It began: “My wife has always cooked the meals in our family these past thirty years. Recently, I have realized that in scanning my memory, I can’t really remember more than a handful of specific meals she has prepared. Therefore, I’m going to quit eating.”
Daily taking the time to read God’s Word, like weekly worship, is another way God feeds us and nourishes us. I certainly don’t remember every specific conversation I’ve had with God as I’ve read and written on the pages of my Bible these past thirty-five years. But I do know that when I take the time for this daily discipline, I remember that God is with me and that He is waiting to help me that day.
I receive God’s counsel.
I find what displeases God and the things for which I need to repent and receive the power of His Holy Spirit to change.
I see how God provides for me and how God wants to be with me forever.
I’m encouraged in my down times, guided through life’s mysteries, and brought down to earth when my ego is riding high.
I remember that Jesus died and rose for me.
But it takes time spent reading and paying attention to God's Word for all of these things to become apparent in our lives.
I'm a slow-learner when it comes to almost anything in life. That includes learning what it means to follow Jesus and trust in God. The moment God begins forming faith in Christ within us—something we Lutherans believe starts at Baptism—we are part of God’s kingdom.
But growing up in the faith, living in the confidence that God willingly gives His children, being able to face whatever life throws at us, and becoming the high-impact people of faith we’re made to be, that is a process.
It happens bit by bit as we surrender our lives to Christ. It happens through things like regular worship, regular prayer, regular service, regular giving, regularly encouraging others with the love of Christ, regularly inviting others to worship with us, and regularly reading God’s Word.
This is what Paul is talking about in our second lesson for this morning, composed of the opening passages of his first letter to a church in the Greek city of Thessalonica. He begins by saying how thankful he is that the Christians in this Aegean Sea-coastal city are so faithful to Jesus Christ.
He writes: “For the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Acaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known... [And then Paul goes on to write:] For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, so that we have no need to speak about it.”
Do you see what happened? The Thessalonians had daily feasted on the Word of God. It had become integrated into the very marrow of their souls. The results were predictable. People who lived miles away heard about how Jesus Christ was at the center of their lives and how His Word made a huge positive difference in how they lived and faced each day.
When we daily take in God’s Word, each verse becomes like one of those time-released medicine capsules that, at just the right moments, work. God's Word works within us and then bring into being things like joy, compassion, hopefulness, a commitment to justice, and deep faith.
This, in turn, is seen by others and, as was true of the Thessalonians who influenced other people, we will bring God’s Word to those around us. God’s Word enters us and our lives become God’s Word for others, speaking God’s truth and God’s call to repentance and belief in Jesus.
I urge you to make reading the Bible a daily part of your life.
Wear out your Bibles!
Make notes in the margins!
Memorize verses that are meaningful to you!
Ask God to explain passages that you don’t understand.
Ask God to help you apply the things that you do understand.
Consider joining in with the remaining readings and weekly discussions as we read the Bible together in a year.
And ask God too, to set off the power for living with joy, peace, and hope that comes to all who let God’s Word act as their guide through life. Amen
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Audio of Today's 'Read the Bible in a Year' Discussion (Isaiah 34-54)
At Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, we're reading the Bible together over the course of a year. Each Wednesday, we have two get-togethers, one in the morning and one in the evening, to discuss the readings for the week.
Today, we discussed Isaiah, chapters 34 to 54. Isaiah is an important book for Jews and Christians. Chapters 52 and 53 figure large in the latter part of the discussion.
Along the way, we also make connections to the Biblical texts to Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism, David Brooks' The Social Animal, Bette Midler, Jimmy Carter, dysfunctional families, the work of prophets, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, name-it-and-claim-it preachers, and most importantly, the redemption and hope that come only through the God revealed through Jesus Christ and foretold by the prophet Isaiah.
In last week's discussions, I pointed out that there are a variety of theories on the authorship of Isaiah. But I am persuaded that the entire scroll was authored by the sixth century prophet to whom the first thirty-nine chapters of the book are attributed without dispute.
And remember that if you're going to be a prophet, you'll never reap a profit. But God will be with you now and in eternity!
Sunday, October 09, 2011
God Says, "Come to the Party!"
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]
Matthew 22:1-14
Christians--especially I think, we Lutheran Christians--cherish the grace of God.
And we should cherish it!
Grace is God’s charitable regard for you and me and every human being. In fact, in the original Greek in which the New Testament portion of the Bible was written, the word we translate as grace is charitas, which we’ve carried over into English as charity.
This tells a lot about grace. Like charity, you can’t earn God's grace. It can be given. It can be received. It can be rejected. It can be wasted. But grace, like charity, cannot be earned.
It was because of God’s grace that God came into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ and died and rose so that all who believe in Him will not die, but have life with God, now and in eternity. No wonder we sing about God’s “amazing grace.”
But grace is not and never has been everything you and I need to know about God! The Bible teaches that God’s grace is offered to us as a free gift. But we have the freedom to reject it.
In chapter 2 of the New Testament book of Ephesians, there’s a celebration of “the immeasurable riches of [God’s] grace,” expressed as God’s “kindness toward us in Jesus Christ.” Then it says “by grace you have been saved through faith.”
Grace brings God's gift of new life to all with faith in Jesus Christ.
And faith in Jesus Christ entails trusting Him enough to turn from our sins—that is, to repent—and to turn to Him alone for life.
If you’re going to take up God’s grace, you need to be committed day-in and day-out to laying aside your sin and trusting your whole life to Christ.
The grace of God’s forgiveness, acceptance, and new life is a blank check available to everybody. But you can only cash it through repentance and belief in Him.
You can accept God’s invitation to His heavenly party that never ends or you can turn it down.
This is what Jesus is talking about today in the Gospel lesson. Please pull out the Celebrate insert from your bulletin, go to the Gospel lesson, and let’s consider it verse-by-verse.
Once again, Jesus is telling a parable. The word, parabolos, the Greek New Testament word from which we get our word, parable, literally means to throw or roll along side. In His parables, Jesus told stories. But rolling alongside the stories were other stories, of deeper significance.
The first people to hear this parable from Jesus, particularly the religious elites of first century Judea, were like many Christian denominations and leaders today: They had replaced the revealed Word and will of God with their own notions about how God should work.
In this parable, like others that Jesus tells, He describes what the kingdom of God, the reign of God, is like.
Jesus says in verses 1 and 2 that a king, clearly a stand-in for God the Father, decided to throw a party for his son, who was getting married. In the parable, Jesus is the bridegroom and the banquet is the Kingdom of God.
Then in verse 3, Jesus says, the king sent slaves to tell the already-invited guests that the party had begun and that he was waiting for them to join the celebration. Jesus’ first hearers would have understood themselves as being on that invited guest list. They were, after all, the religious leaders of God’s chosen (or invited) people, Israel.
In casting Himself as the bridegroom, Jesus was laying His claim to be the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed king, the Son of God, Who the Old Testament prophets had said God would send into the world to set up His kingdom, overcome the power of sin and death, and bring God’s grace to the nations.
You'll remember that God the Father had already confirmed Who Jesus was. At Jesus’ Baptism in Matthew 3, for example, a voice from heaven said of Jesus, “This is My Son, the beloved…” Later, you'll also recall, when Jesus was transfigured in His appearance, the voice from heaven spoke again, this time saying, "This is My Son, the beloved; with Him I am well pleased; listen to Him."
But the leaders of God’s people wanted nothing to do with Jesus. That would mean signing over their power and influence to God. But they had a good gig going: lording it over other people, having people’s respect, wielding political clout. That’s why the invitees in Jesus’ parable, in verse 3, “would not come” to the marriage banquet. They turned the invitation down just as Jerusalem would turn Jesus down on the night of His trial before His crucifixion.
But the king, like God, was gracious. He wanted these arrogant, selfish people to be part of the banquet for his son. For centuries, God had used His prophets to call people—including people from outside of Israel—to repent and believe in Him.
God has always wanted all people to be part of His everlasting kingdom. But the prophets and messengers God has sent to issue His invitation to people, in Old Testament times and today, have often been ignored and worse.
In verse 4, the king in Jesus’ parable sent out servants who told his invited guests to come to the party. Everything was ready!
Look at verse 5, though. Some of the invited guests, it says, “made light” of the invitation. The phrase, made light of, translates the Biblical Greek word, amaleo, which means to treat with apathy or indifference. These invitees didn’t care about the invitation.
People can be that way toward the invitation of God to follow Jesus today. They feel they don’t need God. “What has God ever done for me?” they ask. “I’m the one who busts my chops to make a living each day.”
This isn't a new attitude. But God's Word repeatedly warns us against this arrogance. In Deuteronomy, Moses told the people of Israel: “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth…”
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that:“[God] makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”
In another place in the Bible, the apostle Paul, while preaching in Athens, Greece, quoted one of the Greek poets to point out that in God, “we live and move and have our being.”
Everybody needs God, whether they know it or not.
Of course, the invitation we receive from Jesus isn’t for a private party. The Christian doesn’t think in terms of “Jesus and me,” but “Jesus and we.” In Jesus, God invites us to a banquet, an eternal kingdom in which we keep company not only with God, but also with everyone who repents for sin, believes in Jesus, and gladly receives God's pure Word of truth and the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.
We will need each other to be whole in eternity.
And, as we go through our lives on earth, we need one another as we worship together, seek forgiveness together, and receive grace together. In the New Testament book of Hebrews, we’re told not to neglect meeting together to worship regularly because when we do so, we encourage one another. I bet that one reason many of you are here this morning, is that you need the encouragement that comes from knowing God loves you and that you are not alone in trying to follow Jesus every day!
In verse 6, we’re told that some invited to the banquet went beyond ridiculing the slaves as they turned down their invitations. They seized, mistreated, and killed the slaves.
Verse 7 says that the king was “enraged” by this behavior. He sent soldiers to destroy that city that had chosen to ignore His invitation.
You know, God allows us to turn down the invitation to join Him in the kingdom. And that means God will also let us live eternally with the consequences of our decision. In the Gospel of John, Jesus told Nicodemus, you’ll remember, that if people choose the darkness of life without His grace, they will live with their choice for eternity. God doesn’t want us to make that choice. He wants us to come to the party!
In verses 8 and 9, Jesus says that the king in His parable does a stunning thing. He sends more slaves into the streets to “invite everyone to the wedding banquet.” He wanted to invite everyone, people who had never been invited before! Jesus was saying that through Him, God is now inviting all the riff-raff of the world—all the prostitutes and tax collectors, all the Jews and Gentiles, all the Cardinal fans and Brewer fans, all the Buckeyes and Wolverines and Cornhuskers—everybody is to be invited to be part of His kingdom.
For Jesus’ original hearers, arrogant in their spiritual pride, these words would have been scandalous! Jesus said something similar, though, when He told Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
God invites everyone to His kingdom. God wants everyone to experience His grace. Everyone. No exceptions.
Our commission as Christians and church members is to share God’s incredible invitation to His kingdom with everyone so that they can be part of God’s kingdom too. That’s why I can’t wait to get started on some more kindness outreaches after my defibrillator is implanted this week!
But the last part of Jesus’ parable, beginning at verse 11, is written especially for those of us who are part of His Church today.
The king in Jesus’ parable sees a man at the wedding banquet not dressed in a wedding. The king is offended. Now, Jesus isn’t saying that we’ve got to wear our Sunday best to be in His kingdom. He’s telling people not to pretend to be part of God’s kingdom if they haven’t been clothed in His grace, if they haven’t repented for sin and believed only in Him.
The man in Jesus’ parable not clothed in his wedding garb was thrown “into the outer darkness, where there [was] weeping and gnashing of teeth.” A similar horrible fate awaits those who think they deserve to be in God’s kingdom just for showing up, sitting in a church pew, making an offering, or having their name in a church directory. Hell is the fate of all who reject the grace of God in Christ by refusing to turn from their sins and believe in Jesus Christ.
Those dressed in the robes of repentance and faith in Christ have grasped hold of God's grace. They are in the kingdom of God.
Think of it this way: You can only watch your favorite TV show when your TV set is on and tuned to the right channel. You cannot claim God’s grace if you refuse to repent for your favorite sins and if you think you can follow other “saviors” besides Jesus. If anything but Jesus is our Savior, we shut off the flow of God’s grace into our lives. Turn to Jesus though, and grace will spill all over your life, even in the most trying of circumstances!
Please pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 701. Look at James, chapter 4, verse 10. It says:
Let it soak into every part of your life, let it usher you into God’s kingdom every single day. Repent and believe in Christ and grace will fill your life, now and in eternity. Amen
Matthew 22:1-14
Christians--especially I think, we Lutheran Christians--cherish the grace of God.
And we should cherish it!
Grace is God’s charitable regard for you and me and every human being. In fact, in the original Greek in which the New Testament portion of the Bible was written, the word we translate as grace is charitas, which we’ve carried over into English as charity.
This tells a lot about grace. Like charity, you can’t earn God's grace. It can be given. It can be received. It can be rejected. It can be wasted. But grace, like charity, cannot be earned.
It was because of God’s grace that God came into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ and died and rose so that all who believe in Him will not die, but have life with God, now and in eternity. No wonder we sing about God’s “amazing grace.”
But grace is not and never has been everything you and I need to know about God! The Bible teaches that God’s grace is offered to us as a free gift. But we have the freedom to reject it.
In chapter 2 of the New Testament book of Ephesians, there’s a celebration of “the immeasurable riches of [God’s] grace,” expressed as God’s “kindness toward us in Jesus Christ.” Then it says “by grace you have been saved through faith.”
Grace brings God's gift of new life to all with faith in Jesus Christ.
And faith in Jesus Christ entails trusting Him enough to turn from our sins—that is, to repent—and to turn to Him alone for life.
If you’re going to take up God’s grace, you need to be committed day-in and day-out to laying aside your sin and trusting your whole life to Christ.
The grace of God’s forgiveness, acceptance, and new life is a blank check available to everybody. But you can only cash it through repentance and belief in Him.
You can accept God’s invitation to His heavenly party that never ends or you can turn it down.
This is what Jesus is talking about today in the Gospel lesson. Please pull out the Celebrate insert from your bulletin, go to the Gospel lesson, and let’s consider it verse-by-verse.
Once again, Jesus is telling a parable. The word, parabolos, the Greek New Testament word from which we get our word, parable, literally means to throw or roll along side. In His parables, Jesus told stories. But rolling alongside the stories were other stories, of deeper significance.
The first people to hear this parable from Jesus, particularly the religious elites of first century Judea, were like many Christian denominations and leaders today: They had replaced the revealed Word and will of God with their own notions about how God should work.
In this parable, like others that Jesus tells, He describes what the kingdom of God, the reign of God, is like.
Jesus says in verses 1 and 2 that a king, clearly a stand-in for God the Father, decided to throw a party for his son, who was getting married. In the parable, Jesus is the bridegroom and the banquet is the Kingdom of God.
Then in verse 3, Jesus says, the king sent slaves to tell the already-invited guests that the party had begun and that he was waiting for them to join the celebration. Jesus’ first hearers would have understood themselves as being on that invited guest list. They were, after all, the religious leaders of God’s chosen (or invited) people, Israel.
In casting Himself as the bridegroom, Jesus was laying His claim to be the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed king, the Son of God, Who the Old Testament prophets had said God would send into the world to set up His kingdom, overcome the power of sin and death, and bring God’s grace to the nations.
You'll remember that God the Father had already confirmed Who Jesus was. At Jesus’ Baptism in Matthew 3, for example, a voice from heaven said of Jesus, “This is My Son, the beloved…” Later, you'll also recall, when Jesus was transfigured in His appearance, the voice from heaven spoke again, this time saying, "This is My Son, the beloved; with Him I am well pleased; listen to Him."
But the leaders of God’s people wanted nothing to do with Jesus. That would mean signing over their power and influence to God. But they had a good gig going: lording it over other people, having people’s respect, wielding political clout. That’s why the invitees in Jesus’ parable, in verse 3, “would not come” to the marriage banquet. They turned the invitation down just as Jerusalem would turn Jesus down on the night of His trial before His crucifixion.
But the king, like God, was gracious. He wanted these arrogant, selfish people to be part of the banquet for his son. For centuries, God had used His prophets to call people—including people from outside of Israel—to repent and believe in Him.
God has always wanted all people to be part of His everlasting kingdom. But the prophets and messengers God has sent to issue His invitation to people, in Old Testament times and today, have often been ignored and worse.
In verse 4, the king in Jesus’ parable sent out servants who told his invited guests to come to the party. Everything was ready!
Look at verse 5, though. Some of the invited guests, it says, “made light” of the invitation. The phrase, made light of, translates the Biblical Greek word, amaleo, which means to treat with apathy or indifference. These invitees didn’t care about the invitation.
People can be that way toward the invitation of God to follow Jesus today. They feel they don’t need God. “What has God ever done for me?” they ask. “I’m the one who busts my chops to make a living each day.”
This isn't a new attitude. But God's Word repeatedly warns us against this arrogance. In Deuteronomy, Moses told the people of Israel: “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth…”
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that:“[God] makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”
In another place in the Bible, the apostle Paul, while preaching in Athens, Greece, quoted one of the Greek poets to point out that in God, “we live and move and have our being.”
Everybody needs God, whether they know it or not.
Of course, the invitation we receive from Jesus isn’t for a private party. The Christian doesn’t think in terms of “Jesus and me,” but “Jesus and we.” In Jesus, God invites us to a banquet, an eternal kingdom in which we keep company not only with God, but also with everyone who repents for sin, believes in Jesus, and gladly receives God's pure Word of truth and the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.
We will need each other to be whole in eternity.
And, as we go through our lives on earth, we need one another as we worship together, seek forgiveness together, and receive grace together. In the New Testament book of Hebrews, we’re told not to neglect meeting together to worship regularly because when we do so, we encourage one another. I bet that one reason many of you are here this morning, is that you need the encouragement that comes from knowing God loves you and that you are not alone in trying to follow Jesus every day!
In verse 6, we’re told that some invited to the banquet went beyond ridiculing the slaves as they turned down their invitations. They seized, mistreated, and killed the slaves.
Verse 7 says that the king was “enraged” by this behavior. He sent soldiers to destroy that city that had chosen to ignore His invitation.
You know, God allows us to turn down the invitation to join Him in the kingdom. And that means God will also let us live eternally with the consequences of our decision. In the Gospel of John, Jesus told Nicodemus, you’ll remember, that if people choose the darkness of life without His grace, they will live with their choice for eternity. God doesn’t want us to make that choice. He wants us to come to the party!
In verses 8 and 9, Jesus says that the king in His parable does a stunning thing. He sends more slaves into the streets to “invite everyone to the wedding banquet.” He wanted to invite everyone, people who had never been invited before! Jesus was saying that through Him, God is now inviting all the riff-raff of the world—all the prostitutes and tax collectors, all the Jews and Gentiles, all the Cardinal fans and Brewer fans, all the Buckeyes and Wolverines and Cornhuskers—everybody is to be invited to be part of His kingdom.
For Jesus’ original hearers, arrogant in their spiritual pride, these words would have been scandalous! Jesus said something similar, though, when He told Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
God invites everyone to His kingdom. God wants everyone to experience His grace. Everyone. No exceptions.
Our commission as Christians and church members is to share God’s incredible invitation to His kingdom with everyone so that they can be part of God’s kingdom too. That’s why I can’t wait to get started on some more kindness outreaches after my defibrillator is implanted this week!
But the last part of Jesus’ parable, beginning at verse 11, is written especially for those of us who are part of His Church today.
The king in Jesus’ parable sees a man at the wedding banquet not dressed in a wedding. The king is offended. Now, Jesus isn’t saying that we’ve got to wear our Sunday best to be in His kingdom. He’s telling people not to pretend to be part of God’s kingdom if they haven’t been clothed in His grace, if they haven’t repented for sin and believed only in Him.
The man in Jesus’ parable not clothed in his wedding garb was thrown “into the outer darkness, where there [was] weeping and gnashing of teeth.” A similar horrible fate awaits those who think they deserve to be in God’s kingdom just for showing up, sitting in a church pew, making an offering, or having their name in a church directory. Hell is the fate of all who reject the grace of God in Christ by refusing to turn from their sins and believe in Jesus Christ.
Those dressed in the robes of repentance and faith in Christ have grasped hold of God's grace. They are in the kingdom of God.
Think of it this way: You can only watch your favorite TV show when your TV set is on and tuned to the right channel. You cannot claim God’s grace if you refuse to repent for your favorite sins and if you think you can follow other “saviors” besides Jesus. If anything but Jesus is our Savior, we shut off the flow of God’s grace into our lives. Turn to Jesus though, and grace will spill all over your life, even in the most trying of circumstances!
Please pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 701. Look at James, chapter 4, verse 10. It says:
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.God’s grace offered through Jesus Christ is a free gift. It comes to those humble enough to confess their sin and to surrender themselves to Christ. As the great hymn reminds us, God’s grace is amazing!
Let it soak into every part of your life, let it usher you into God’s kingdom every single day. Repent and believe in Christ and grace will fill your life, now and in eternity. Amen
Saturday, October 08, 2011
It's Fall in the Beautiful Hocking Hills
People come from far and wide to spend time in the Hocking Hills here in Ohio during the autumn months. You can see why in this video I took tonight when my wife and I walked the track at the Hocking County Fairgrounds here in Logan. The leaf colors were gorgeous on perfectly clear night.
A Beautiful Night at Rock Mill Park
We've had tremendous weather here in Ohio: sunny and warm with no humidity. So, last night, we headed to Rock Mill Park in rural Fairfield County, near Lancaster. The site is being developed by the Fairfield park system and is unique for having both a nineteenth century grist mill and covered bridge of similar vintage. The water power for the mill was provided by the Hocking River, at a point where it's particularly narrow.
While we were there, a photographer was snapping pictures of a young woman who wandered barefooted in the shallow water. They'll probably be part of her portfolio of high school senior pictures.
While we were there, a photographer was snapping pictures of a young woman who wandered barefooted in the shallow water. They'll probably be part of her portfolio of high school senior pictures.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Remembering Fred Shuttlesworth
Sadly, news of the death of the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth has been overshadowed by the death of Steve Jobs. Jobs was a genius, of course, whose life is worth remembering and appreciating. But the courageous Shuttlesworth deserves eulogizing, too. Check out this New York Times piece.
[This photograph by the Associated Press' Dave Martin appears with the article.]
[This photograph by the Associated Press' Dave Martin appears with the article.]
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