tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-368483252024-03-07T15:15:45.799-06:00Confessions of a Lutheran HuskerSaved by grace through faith, and living in God's country west of Omaha.LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.comBlogger368125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-62648898430019010492014-11-13T23:05:00.000-06:002014-11-13T23:40:36.599-06:00It's A Wonderful Life<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1fERKzPzdIf0iZRyCR6U14eI6QfoM_1PqHrWjfEWhBdBEit_ZNVDzqOPnOWbJoJ0tAYBi8OZbPEU6bnhtu_nXRXvkDujHhQAmqz1C5D0M4d24UTkYUNeopF9PekNYKYr-W0YRNg/s1600/leaf-small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1fERKzPzdIf0iZRyCR6U14eI6QfoM_1PqHrWjfEWhBdBEit_ZNVDzqOPnOWbJoJ0tAYBi8OZbPEU6bnhtu_nXRXvkDujHhQAmqz1C5D0M4d24UTkYUNeopF9PekNYKYr-W0YRNg/s320/leaf-small.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A beautiful fall leaf from our front yard, on top<br />
of others that had been charred by fire in May.<br />
Hope amidst the darkness.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">I’ve always loved the movie </span><i style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">It’s A Wonderful
Life. </i><span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Jimmy Stewart plays George Bailey, the good-hearted man who has
dreams of leaving his little town and making a name for himself
somewhere out in the big world. Time and again his dreams are put on hold
as he looks out for others, watches out for his family and eventually takes
over his father’s business not because he wanted to, but because he was needed.
Through a series of unfortunate events, life just piles up on him and
eventually he finds himself saying “it would be better if I had never been
born!” Clarence, the angel, then gives him a chance to find out what life would
have been like for everyone else had George never been born, and he discovers
that so many decisions he had made in his lifetime, so many small favors, so
many ways that he had helped others, had ended up having a gigantic impact. He
may have felt like a failure, but God had been using him and his life in
profound ways. His life mattered, and he himself mattered to more people than
he realized on a much deeper level than he ever could have fathomed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">On May 29, 2014, my family suffered a terrible loss as a fire
started in our garage. By the time the fire department arrived, flames engulfed
the entire garage and had begun to spread into the main dwelling area. My wife
Karin and I could only watch helplessly as smoke billowed from the house. When
it was finally put out, the heat had melted the vinyl siding off the side of
our next door neighbor’s house, it had obliterated our garage including the
minivan that had been parked inside, it had basically melted our kitchen, and the
heat and soot had destroyed the vast majority of our belongings. It only took
three crates to hold everything the restoration company classified as
“salvageable.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Karin and I had purchased that house when we got married, and were
the first owners to live in it. We had brought two children home from the
hospital to that house. We had laughed and cried, we had suffered tremendous
loss and had shared incredible joy, we had grown from young kids
barely out of college to adult parents with careers and responsibilities. That
house, and the mementos of our lives we had collected there over the years, had
been the setting for many, many memories. And in such an incredibly short time,
so much of that was gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Now, I’m not one who believes “everything happens for a reason.” I am a lifelong
Christian, and a current seminary student, but I don’t think God acts in that
way. From what I have learned and experienced over the years, God </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">isn't</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> in the
business of causing suffering. I don’t think God causes our pain just so that
something good can result later on. I do, however, believe and trust with
everything that I am that God is in the business of taking suffering and
transforming it. God takes our pain and creates joy. God takes darkness and
creates light. In the cross, we see God take on death itself, and in the empty
tomb God creates the promise of new life. In what our family experienced that
day in May, God took destruction and created hope. Just as a burning bush spoke
to Moses and assured him that God would be by his side and lead him, just as a
pillar of fire led Israel out of slavery and into the freedom of the promised
land, so too did God work through what we experienced, creating new
possibilities. We discovered (or re-discovered, or perhaps finally claimed for
ourselves) a number of truths that make </span></span><i style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">It’s a Wonderful Life </i><span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">such
a beautiful movie for me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">First of all, we discovered the profound truth that when the
things we rely on and put our trust in other than God are stripped away, be
they our possessions, our money, our self-reliance, or a multitude of other
things, we discover what really matters. We discover that our faith, which is
so easily professed when things are going our way, really and truly is our rock
when the storms come. We discover that as long as we have each other and as
long as we have God’s love, the rest of it really is superfluous. It </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">doesn't</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> mean that things are easy—goodness knows I don’t want to romanticize our
situation and make it sound as though what </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">we've</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> experienced has been
sunshine and rainbows. It certainly </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">hasn't</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">. But in the midst of adversity, when everything else we tend to rely on as a false idol
is stripped away, that's when we most fully experience God’s presence in our
lives.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">As a theologian of the cross, I firmly believe that God dwells in
the dark places. When we look for God, we </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">shouldn't</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> be looking to the high and
the mighty and the powerful and the successful…we should be looking to the
burnt out remains of a house with a husband and wife clinging to each other,
trying to shield two frightened children, wondering how they’re going to get by
and just live day to day while the insurance companies and the powers that be
drag their feet. That’s where God’s presence is most profoundly felt and
experienced.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Second, we discovered the same truth that the angel Clarence
left in a note for George at the end of </span></span><i style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">It’s a Wonderful
Life. </i><span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">He wrote, “No man is a failure who has friends.” Now, we
knew that we had friends. We knew that people cared about us and our kids, and
there have always been a ton of people we've felt the same way about. What we </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">didn't</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> realize, however, was the extreme depth nor the extreme breadth of those
friendships. In the movie, George gets into financial trouble trying to help
out the savings and loan he’s responsible for. When the town gets wind of it,
without even being asked they give whatever they can to help him out. All it
takes is the word “George is in trouble,” and the town begins trying to find ways
to meet his family’s needs. That is precisely what we experienced as well after
our fire.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Our family, our friends, our coworkers, our church community, an
online Husker football forum, friends from long ago who we had almost
completely lost touch with, even our son’s orthodontist’s office…there were SO
many people who came from everywhere, giving what they could simply because
they heard we needed help. Whether it was monetary or material donations, or
babysitting or conversation or prayer or notes of encouragement
or “let’s go out for dinner and drinks so we can do something that feels
normal, and I’ll pick up the tab this time,” we were surrounded by so much
support and love, it was almost overwhelming at times. A group of
neighbors coordinated giving drives and a huge fundraiser at our church. A
family offered us their home for 6 months as they left for a professorial
sabbatical elsewhere. There have just been so many incredible responses,
overwhelming in the best possible way—that humbling feeling of being enveloped
in life-changing, transformative love. What we've experienced in a very
tangible way has been the body of Christ we read about so often in the New
Testament. It has been a very real taste of what the Reign of God that Jesus
refers to so often in his parables actually looks and feels like. We are living
a parable, and it’s a beautiful thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">The biggest lesson, the biggest truth that I have been thankful
for throughout this entire experience is the same realization that
George Bailey came to: our lives have far more significance than we will ever
fully know. Early in the movie, George’s younger brother Harry falls through
the ice on a pond where they were sledding, and George saves him by
pulling him out. Later, Harry becomes a World War II hero when he saves a
number of other men. The angel Clarence points out to George when he’s
experiencing what the world would have been like without him
that because of his absence, not only would Harry die, but so would all
the people on the transport that Harry had saved in the war. That’s only one
example of the far-reaching effects of George’s life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Since our house fire, Karin and I have both been told stories of
how our lives have impacted others—so many times, these stories have been
things that we had no idea about. I had a member of the online Husker sports
forum I frequent tell me that because of my words and encouragement, they found
their way back to church and rediscovered their faith. I had no idea of any of
that until this person told me. Others have told us stories of how our family
has impacted their lives, and how they’re more than happy to help us because we
have been such a help to them or to others—most of what </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">we've</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> been told, we
would have had no idea about otherwise.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">The lesson here for all of us is a huge one. Don't discount your
impact. The scripture reference about the body having many members and everyone
having a part to play is so amazingly true—you DO make a difference, often in
ways you will never realize or see the fruits of. No matter who you
are or what you do or what you have done or what’s been done to you, God has
created you in God’s image as a beloved child, and God has created you for
relationship and community. In our individualistic Western society, where rugged
independence is held up as the greater good, it is easy to lose sight of that.
For those of us professing the Christian faith in a triune God, a God
who is both three and yet still one, what that means is we were created in
the image of a God whose <i>primary identity</i>
is community which overflows beyond itself and into love for all of creation.
That’s our primary God-created identity as well: many, yet one, united through
the Holy Spirit in a community of love that can’t help but overflow to the rest
of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">As I wrote before, I’m a seminarian. I think theologically. But if
theology cannot be applied practically, then what use is it, other than a fun
little academic exercise? My goodness, what an experience my family has
had through all of the hard times these last months, through all of the
wondering and fear and sadness. We really have experienced God’s presence.
We've experienced God through the faces of those around us and we've
experienced God through the stripping away of everything else </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">we've</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> tried to
put our faith in. </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">We've</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> experienced God through very real adversity,
adversity where we are still facing a number of huge question marks even
today. Yet in it we all have found reassurance of a God who walks
alongside us, reassurance of that same God’s presence through so many who
surround us with their love and prayer, reassurance that our lives do make
an impact and a difference, that God does work through us, and reassurance that
no matter what, we trust in a God who has the final word, who in the cross and
the empty tomb has already won the ultimate victory on our behalf.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">For all of those things, how could we not be thankful? Thanks be to
God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="yiv4155031808s2">
<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody, serif; font-size: 13pt;">LH</span></div>
LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-87217328942840108412013-05-12T23:01:00.003-05:002013-05-12T23:04:07.613-05:00Sermon for May 12, 2013: "This Can Happen Anywhere. Not Everything Is Lost."<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jqHZBih7kik/STZBKSLsATI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/qGV5Kv3nm38/s320/mamool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jqHZBih7kik/STZBKSLsATI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/qGV5Kv3nm38/s320/mamool.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">This Can Happen Anywhere. Not Everything Is Lost.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=235417355" target="_blank">John 17:20-26</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">May 11-12, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 150%;">Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet who was
born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. A few years ago, she wrote
a poem entitled, </span><i style="line-height: 150%;">Gate A-4</i><span style="line-height: 150%;">:</span></div>
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Wandering around
the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed for
four hours, I heard an announcement: "If anyone in the vicinity of Gate
A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately." <o:p></o:p></div>
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Well--one pauses
these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there. <o:p></o:p></div>
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An older woman in
full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was
crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. "Help," said the flight
service person. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight
was going to be late and she did this." <o:p></o:p></div>
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I stooped to put
my arm around the woman and spoke to her haltingly. "Shu-dow-a,
Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit- se-wee?" The
minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying.
She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso
for major medical treatment the next day. I said, "No, we're fine, you'll
get there, just later, who is picking you up? Let's call him." <o:p></o:p></div>
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We called her son
and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till
we got on the plane and would ride next to her--Southwest. She talked to him.
Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and
he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten
shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some
Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up about two
hours. <o:p></o:p></div>
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She was laughing a
lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She
had pulled a sack of homemade <i>mamool</i> cookies--little powdered
sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts--out of her bag--and was
offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman
declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom
from California, the lovely woman from Laredo--we were all covered with the
same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And then the
airline broke out free beverages from huge coolers and two little girls from
our flight ran around serving us all apple juice and they were covered with
powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend-- by now we were holding
hands--had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with
green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi- tion. Always carry a plant.
Always stay rooted to somewhere. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And I looked
around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This is the world I want
to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate--once the crying
of confusion stopped--seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the
cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This can still
happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2013-5-12%20sermon.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><br />
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This can still happen anywhere. Not
everything is lost. In the midst of a difficult situation, a group of strangers
brought together by the winds of chance somehow found unity in their shared
humanity. They never stopped being who they were. The Palestinian woman was still
a Palestinian woman, the kids were still Mexican American and African American,
the Argentinian woman and the folks from Laredo and California, they all
remained very much who they were to begin with. But in a series of acts of
hospitality, while they remained individually who they were, they also together
became something else: a community. From the airline representative’s call over
the intercom, to the narrator’s choice to respond to the call, to the
narrator’s compassion, to the woman’s sharing of the cookies, to the children’s
distribution of beverages, to the laughter, to the smiles, there were many
separate small acts of hospitality and service that together helped bind these
travelers together. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I cannot think of a better picture of what it means to live out our unity in Christ. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Listen again to Jesus’ words in
today’s gospel reading. He’s in the middle of what’s known in the Gospel
According to John as the high priestly prayer, which he prays right before he
leaves his disciples for the last time before his arrest and crucifixion. Jesus
prays, “”I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who
will believe in me through their word, <sup>21</sup>that they may all be
one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that
the world may believe that you have sent me. <sup>22</sup>The glory that
you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,<sup>23</sup>I
in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world
may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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First of all, notice something very
important in this prayer. Jesus here is praying not only for his disciples, but
he is also praying for you. Jesus prayed <i>for
you. </i>Let that sink in for a moment. Jesus, on the night he was betrayed,
said a prayer for you. He said that he was asking on behalf not only of
these—his disciples—but also on behalf of those who will believe in him through
the disciples’ word. My friends, that’s you and me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now listen closely. What was it
that Jesus prayed about on behalf of you and me? What was it that he was
asking? That they might all be one. In verse 22 he goes a little further—that
we might be one as Jesus and God the Father are one. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Okay, now this is getting
interesting. Jesus wants the same unity in us that exists in the very nature of
God. Let THAT sink in for a moment. So what does that look like? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Holy Trinity Sunday is still a
couple of weeks away, and I hope I’m not stealing any of Pastor Tobi’s thunder
ahead of time, but this is big. Really big, and important to help us see how
amazing this gospel text is. We worship a God who has been revealed in three
persons. We call those persons the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Three
distinct persons, but not three Gods. There is only one God. God’s very nature
is unity, but it is a unity that is found within diversity. One God, but a God
in relationship with Godself. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now look at us, children of God,
created in God’s image. Different nationalities, different cultures, different
ages, different histories, different stories in our present, different ways of
seeing the world, different political and social views. All this rich,
beautiful diversity, but still one. Still one body of Christ. United by our
need for God’s grace, united by the hope we have found in the cross and the
empty tomb.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We are like a tapestry…one that is
woven of billions of individual threads. But it is those threads…which never
cease being what they are individually…that together create this incredible,
rich picture of the kingdom of God. That’s what the poem I read was about.
That’s what Jesus prayed for.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Holy Spirit weaves our lives
together by using acts of hospitality and service that are born out of love. We
see this with Jesus in the events of his life directly surrounding our Gospel
reading. He washed his disciples’ feet. He broke bread, poured wine, told them,
“this is my body, this is my blood, given and shed FOR YOU.” And then he went
to the cross. Hospitality and service born out of love for humankind.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And that’s where we find our unity.
It’s when we follow the way of the cross, when we live lives of hospitality and
service born out of love, when we experience glimpses of the kingdom of God
through the bread and the wine, through loving God and loving our neighbor,
when we in all our diversity are one as God is one. And the purpose?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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That the world may know. That the
world may know the glory of God the Father. That the world may know that God
sent Jesus not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through
him. When we as the church choose unity—not uniformity, but the unity, the
community that is created through acts of hospitality and service born out of
love, that is the greatest single witness we can have about not only who we
are, but whose we are. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the closing words of the poem,
this can happen anywhere. Not everything is lost. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2013-5-12%20sermon.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Naomi
Shihab Nye, "Gate A-4" from <i>Honeybee</i>. Copyright © 2008 by
Naomi Shihab Nye. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-92217680954962361872013-03-10T19:50:00.002-05:002016-08-23T23:40:53.507-05:00Sermon from 3-10-2013: Coming to Us In the Storm<div style="text-align: left;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOaOof5zja_9wjqFy6ps4PT8Y5aIzQQY1KRdqNsq7t9Yhg1MTSp1Q9BrG6uHVzumcSPZ-AqVTolegHO8U77CT2e5M8Z64eyOYLVPgu3oTOLb6IHIOzzC1s62xwelJOfXCaaKQUcA/s1600/DSC01830.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOaOof5zja_9wjqFy6ps4PT8Y5aIzQQY1KRdqNsq7t9Yhg1MTSp1Q9BrG6uHVzumcSPZ-AqVTolegHO8U77CT2e5M8Z64eyOYLVPgu3oTOLb6IHIOzzC1s62xwelJOfXCaaKQUcA/s320/DSC01830.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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Ein Gev kibbutz on the shore of the Sea of Galilee at about</div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
2:30 AM on Jan. 16, 2013</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Coming to Us in the Storm<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=229961854" target="_blank">John 6:16-24</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">March 9-10, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Many of you know that I had the
opportunity in January to spend two weeks in Israel and the West Bank with a
group from Luther Seminary. While we were there, we spent 3 nights in a kibbutz
on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, which is really just a big lake—about 13
miles long and 8 miles wide. We were able to take a boat ride across the lake
one morning, and it was just incredible. The sun was out, there was just a hint
of a breeze, and the water was peaceful as we crossed from where we had been
staying to the town of Migdal, which in the Bible was called Magdala and was
the home of Mary Magdalene. You simply could not ask for better weather that
day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
That night, however, my roommate
woke me up at about 2:30 in the morning. “Matt,” he said. “It’s a windstorm. On
the Sea of Galilee.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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We’re seminarians. We get excited
about stuff like that. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And sure enough, I could hear the
wind beating against the little cabin we were staying in. I grabbed my camera
and walked outside, into some of the fiercest wind I’ve ever been in. There was
no rain, but the Sea of Galilee is surrounded by these high ridges, and
sometimes when the conditions are just right the wind will sweep over them with
a fury and down into the valley where the lake is. The branches on the palm
trees were blowing straight sideways, and you could see the water on the lake
was incredibly choppy. I took a few pictures and went back to bed. In the
morning when I got up at 6, it was still going. After getting ready for the
day, I had some extra time before I had to join the rest of the group for
breakfast, so I walked down to the lakeshore and took this video:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/GloffUv0xKk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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Talk about bringing Scripture to
life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Today’s gospel lesson takes place
immediately after what we read about last week, the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus
had performed this incredible sign, and the people were so amazed that John
6:15 says they were ready to take him and make him king by force. Jesus had
gotten away and gone to the mountain because that’s not what he was about.
That’s not what he was there to do. He was a king, but not the kind of king the
crowd wanted him to be. And so eventually, when evening comes and the crowds
had all gone away, we come to the beginning of today’s reading where the
disciples decide it’s time to go. What’s interesting here is that Jesus still
isn’t with them. They’re on their own—but they’re pretty much on their home
turf. They know this part of Galilee really well, they know the lake, and
they’re not far from Capernaum, which was Peter, Andrew, James, and John’s
hometown. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The second half of Verse 17, where
the author tells us that “it was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to
them,” at first looks almost like a
throwaway line, a description to help us envision the setting. But there are a
couple of very important details in there that the author gives us, details
that aren’t just descriptions of the scene, but theological claims. The first
is that it was now dark. The theme of light vs. dark is huge in the gospel
according to John. If you turn back and look at the first chapter of John,
Jesus is described as the light of the world. In John 1:5 we have that
beautifully powerful verse: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness
did not overcome it.” The Holden Evening Prayer service on Wednesdays during
Lent begin by quoting that verse as we sing, “Jesus Christ, you are the light
of the world, the light no darkness can overcome.” Jesus as the light shining
in the darkness continues all throughout John, and so what we have in verse 17
of today’s reading takes on additional meaning. It was now dark, and Jesus had
not yet come to them. In this gospel account, darkness always represents bad
things—death, or ignorance, or fear, or separation. So it’s dark, and why is
that important? Because Jesus had not yet come to them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And then a windstorm comes up. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Not when they’re safely on shore
like I was in January, but when they’re in their boat, 3 or 4 miles out on the
lake. And as I experienced, there’s no telling how long a storm like that might
last. It’s not as though you can just hunker down and tell yourself, “well,
this will probably be over in just a few minutes.” So there they are, trapped
in a boat in the middle of a lake with the wind blowing and the waves growing
and with the darkness surrounding them. And they cannot see Jesus anywhere.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Does any of that sound vaguely
familiar to you? Does any of that sound like a time in your own life? Have you
ever been trapped, with things swirling all around you, feeling out of control,
with darkness surrounding you, with the waves getting higher and higher and you
just want to cry out, “Where are you, Jesus? Where are you, God? Where are you,
Holy Spirit? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Maybe there are
circumstances in your life that are completely beyond your control, and you’re
just being carried along on the choppy waves not knowing where the shoreline is
in the darkness. Maybe you’ve done something or said something…sinned in
thought, word, and deed by what you have done and by what you have left undone.
And now you’re in so far, in so deep over your head that you just don’t know if
you’ll ever make it safely to shore again. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My friends, the good news of the
gospel is that <b><i>in the darkness of our storms, Christ stops at nothing to come to us.</i></b>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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In John, there is no calming of the
storm, which is honestly something I appreciate, because if you remember what
Pastor Tobi has been saying, what we refer to as miracles in the other gospels,
John refers to as signs. And a sign is something with a purpose, something that
points to a greater truth. The sign here in John isn’t that Jesus calms our
storms, and I’m so glad that’s not the lesson I’m supposed to take away from
it. Because sometimes there <i>is </i>no calming
of the storms in our lives, is there? Sometimes there <i>is</i> no easy fix, no savior standing up in the boat and commanding
all the circumstances of our lives, “Peace, be still!” In those times, we don’t
have to worry that we’re doing faith wrong, we don’t have to wonder if Jesus
has just decided that we need to flounder, we don’t have to believe that
because Jesus hasn’t fixed it all that we’ve somehow not measured up to God’s
standard or that God simply doesn’t care. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The sign we’re given in John is that
Jesus comes to us. Jesus comes alongside us. <b><i>In the darkness of our storms,
Christ stops at nothing to come to us. </i></b>Even in the middle of the raging
wind, even though it involves what should be impossible—walking on water—Jesus will
not leave us alone. Jesus is present beside us, and like the disciples, we can
be assured that even in the midst of the storm, he will accompany us through it
all and to the shore. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And it’s not up to us to come to
him. The disciples don’t have to row to where Jesus is. They don’t have to
figure out how to get to where he is standing—Jesus comes to them. Jesus walks
across the raging water to come to where they are. And Jesus comes to you, too.
In the storm of your sin, in the wind and the waves of your life whatever they
may be, Jesus comes to you. It’s not up to you to make it happen. You have been
called by name through the waters of baptism. Jesus comes <i>to</i> you and <i>for</i> you in the
bread and in the wine of Holy Communion. Jesus promises to be beside you all
the way to the shore. That is the promise of the cross. That is the promise of
the empty tomb. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We are never promised that there
will be no storms in our lives. In fact, as those who Jesus has called to take
up our cross and follow him, we know that those storms are part of what it
means to live as a broken, sinful people in an imperfect world. But because we
are people of the cross, we know as well that the brokenness, the storms, are
exactly where we expect to find God…or to be more precise, where we expect God
to find us. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In verse 20, our translation has
Jesus saying, “It is I, do not be afraid.” In the original Greek, it is simply <i>ego eimi, </i> I AM. “I AM. Do not be afraid.” I AM is the
name God calls himself when speaking to Moses in the burning bush all the way
back in Exodus. “Tell Pharaoh I AM is the one who sent you.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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We’ve already talked about one
distinctive feature of John—the importance of light and dark. Another
distinctive feature of John is that Jesus makes these I AM statements 23
different times, using the Greek <i>ego
eimi.</i> This isn’t just a simple word choice. It’s a powerful claim. John is reminding us in no
uncertain terms that Jesus is God incarnate.<i>
</i>Jesus Christ, Word made flesh, light of the world, is one with the all-powerful
I AM who led Israel out of slavery in Egypt and into the freedom of the
promised land. The same all-powerful I AM will go on to defeat death on the
cross, leading us all out of our own slavery to sin and into the freedom of
God’s promised kingdom—and not only heaven, but also the kingdom that comes on
earth as it is in heaven when we are free to live not just for ourselves but
for our neighbor. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>In the darkness of our storms,
Christ stops at nothing to come to us.</i></b> Not wind, not water, not even the
cross nor even death itself stops Jesus from coming alongside us and telling
us, “You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with my cross forever.
This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you. Now go. Go love
one another, as I have loved you. By this all will know that you are my
disciples.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Amen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></i></div>
LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-60377540988530910732013-02-27T23:53:00.001-06:002013-02-27T23:53:58.603-06:00Facebook--A brave new world for ministry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://nnym.youthministry360.com/sites/youthministry360.com/files/styles/blog_detail/public/images/blog/shutterstock_75604195.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://nnym.youthministry360.com/sites/youthministry360.com/files/styles/blog_detail/public/images/blog/shutterstock_75604195.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
I remember back in 2004, I was a lay minister at the ELCA's campus ministry at the University of Nebraska. Each summer, the ELCA campus ministers all gather for a conference--while I was there, one of the speakers told us how important it was for us to make sure that whichever university we worked with gave us a university email address, something that ended with a .edu. The reason, he said, was because there was this new website called "Facebook" that had started out with some California colleges, and college kids were signing up and using it to tell their friends what they were doing and to meet new people. It had just recently gone national, but in order to register, you had to have an address that ended with the .edu suffix. He said the thing had grown like wildfire and he wouldn't be surprised if soon it wasn't the primary way college kids kept in touch. <div>
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It's less than 9 years later now. You no longer need a university email to register. Facebook is used by people of all ages, companies, non-profits, churches...in fact, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuNx0UrnEo" target="_blank">if Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous country in the world</a>. Most of my extended family live in different parts of the country than I do, and Facebook has become our primary means of keeping in contact. Even my 85 year-old grandmother (Hi Grammy!) has a Facebook account, and loves to see pictures, videos, and stories of her grandkids and great-grandkids' daily lives.</div>
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Facebook has changed the way we do relationships. </div>
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The church, as the body of Christ, has always been about relationships. If we've seen such a fundamental addition in our personal and business lives about how we connect, then it only makes sense that it would have an effect on our faith communities as well. How do we as a church live into this brave new world of digital connectedness? </div>
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First of all, we need to be a part of it. We have this amazing tool at our fingertips (literally!) that allows us to create groups, allows us to instantly be in touch with a huge variety of people, allows us to quickly and easily make available pictures and ideas, and not only allows us to put these things out there for consumption, but encourages feedback and communication. It allows us to have a significant presence in the daily lives of our parishioners if we so desire. If church leaders have personal Facebook profiles and post about their daily lives, it also helps break down those invisible walls that many people have, assuming that pastors or other church people aren't "real people" like everyone else. </div>
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Second, we need to model how to use social media well, responsibly, and spiritually. There is so much crap out there that gets passed around on Facebook and other platforms. What previously had been relegated to chain emails (or chain snail-mail) can now be instantly linked, viewed, commented on, and passed along even more efficiently. That said, there's a lot of good stuff out there too. We need to be wise in what we post and how we post it, modeling how to integrate our faith in with our lives.</div>
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Third, while social media is no replacement for in-person contact, we need to remember the power of social media to help us stay connected in times when we ordinarily wouldn't be. A very powerful example is when a congregation's high school seniors leave for college. In the past, we'd have to wait for breaks to see them again and catch up, perhaps sending a letter or a care package once in a while. Now, all it takes is a "like" on a picture they posted, and they know that someone from church is thinking about them...or jotting a quick note on their wall. Or sending a private message if they posted about breaking up with their girlfriend or bombing a test just to check in and show support. </div>
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I have a real-life example of this sort of thing. Back in 2010, the young man who had been my congregation's seminary intern the previous year was killed in the earthquake in Haiti. Ben Larson was one of those people who was beloved by pretty much everyone who met him. At the time he was with our congregation, I was the youth director, and he and I had become good friends. We had worked together closely in a number of areas, one of which was the Confirmation program. When the earthquake happened, I was at Luther Seminary for my January on-campus intensive courses, and even in the midst of my own grief I felt horrible guilt that I wasn't back home to be there for the congregation's youth who had looked up to him so much. So I took to Facebook. I posted a message in our youth group page inviting anyone who needed to talk things through to do so, and did the same on my personal wall. I'm getting teary-eyed right now as I remember this, because thanks to Facebook I was able to have conversations with some of my church kids, and even more importantly, <i>they were able to minister to each other. </i>One such exchange was so powerful, in fact, that I cut and pasted it into a Word document and saved it to my computer just to keep for future reference. I'm going to post it here...all the names have been changed (except mine and Ben's). I didn't fix any of the misspellings or grammatical mistakes, either...this is the way the conversation transpired with me and 3 high school freshmen:</div>
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<span class="uiintentionalstorynames1"><span lang="EN" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b>Jane</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">I don't see why
this had to happen. Ben was such a great person, why did he deserve this?</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;"><input name="charset_test" type="hidden" value="€,´,€,´,水,Д,Є" /></span><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;"><input name="fb_dtsg" type="hidden" value="XQ3MJ" /></span><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;"><input name="feedback_params" type="hidden" value="{"actor":"705372885","target_fbid":"287414262645","target_profile_id":"705372885","type_id":"22","source":"0","assoc_obj_id":"","source_app_id":"","extra_story_params":[],"check_hash":"67f28e5e03820ba3"}" /></span><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;"><input name="post_form_id" type="hidden" value="fa35e438b9a5c2fab6c0727e1be6f62f" /></span><span class="uiintentionalstorytime1"><span style="color: #777777;">Yesterday at 9:03pm</span></span><span class="uiactionlinksuiactionlinksbottomuiintentionalstoryinfo"> ·</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jane<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It's not freaking fair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Yesterday at 9:05pm<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Matt<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jane...you're right. It's not fair. It
sucks, and there's no getting around that. Ben didn't deserve this. At times
like this, all we can do is cling to God's promises, trusting that God loves us
and is mourning alongside us, and remembering Romans 8: "For I am
convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything
else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus our Lord." That's the kind of love that Ben lived his life
knowing, and spent his life showing to those around him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Yesterday at 9:50pm<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mary<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jane, he's touched so many lives, and still
is. I know he's touched mine. While I was crying in English randomly when Ms.
Smith had to bring up <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Haiti</st1:place></st1:country-region>
I texted Tom and we were talking and I told him how I can't help but be angry
with God. And Tom said at one of the confirmation meetings Ben said when you
are at your low points in life that's when you get closer to God. I know am,
and times like these are our true test of faith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Yesterday at 10:29pm<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: windowtext;">Matt</span>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mary, you're so right. God doesn't give us
those low points in life, but God does work through those low points, helping
us remember that he's with us through it all...good and bad. And so often, it's
those low points where we lean on God the most and draw closer to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Yesterday at 10:36pm ·<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Tom<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">We are all going to miss him so much. And
this tragedy will bring us closer to God, and be a major point in our faith
stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">12 hours ago<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: windowtext;">Matt</span>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I'm so proud of all of you guys right
now...it's important to ask these hard questions, and it's important to support
one another through the pain and anger and sorrow and grief that we're all
feeling. That's part of "living among God's faithful people." You are
living that out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">12 hours ago ·<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mary<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Thanks so much, Matt. I really do feel like
we are all supporting one another and it's really great to know who's all
behind us. I sometimes forget were not alone in this world. And Tom, your
completely right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">11 hours ago<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mary<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">And Jane, sorry for flippin out at lunch
today. Apparently, you and I grieve differently and I just didn't know how to
handle it. I was angry when I found out then sad the next day, and I just
didn't want to talk about it. Sorry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">11 hours ago<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jane<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Its totally cool Mary. We all have our own
way of grieveing. Mine is talking about it and just letting it go. And your
right tom, this would be a big part in our faithstories. but i just didn't want
to say it when i was 14. I wanted it to be when I was older and i could handle
it a lot better. Matt, I just don't see why this all has to happen. He waas
working for him the whole time, and he made him die while he was in the middle
of serving him. It's not fair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">4 hours ago<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Matt<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jane...I completely share your anger at the
unfairness of all of this. But I don't think God made him die. I think God is
right beside us, grieving the loss of one of his greatest servants on earth,
but reminding us at the same time that he's already overcome the power of
death. It's times like this where all that stuff we talk about in Confirmation
actually make a difference in the real world...it's not just church talk. These
horrible, awful things that we see happening, our pain at losing our friend,
our knowing that there may be as many as a half million other stories in Haiti
just like this one...THIS is when the cross makes a difference. THIS is when
the promise of resurrection, and Jesus' promise that he will ALWAYS be with us
in Matthew 28 all make a difference. It doesn't take the pain away, it doesn't
make things any more fair, but it gives us hope when life seems to be at its
darkest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">3 hours ago <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jane<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I have always thought it was church talk.
Your right. Now is the time to do all that. It's just really hard for me to deal with something like this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">3 hours ago<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Matt<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jane, I don't want to give the impression
that I'm calmly sitting here hugging the cross nicely with a warm fuzzy
feeling. Like you (and so many others) I'm dazed, bewildered, angry, and
heartbroken...and I am clutching so fiercely and tightly to the cross and God's
promises because there's honestly nothing else I can hold on to in the face of
all of this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I'm glad you're able to be so open about
how you feel, because I'm sure there are plenty of others who feel the same way
and haven't been able to (or haven't felt like they should) put words to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">3 hours ago <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-91390239520872337032013-02-13T09:54:00.003-06:002013-02-13T10:04:59.822-06:00"A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.fallibleblogma.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ash-wednesday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.fallibleblogma.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ash-wednesday.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">My son is 9 now...this is a story from when he was 4, and is something I remember every year on Ash Wednesday:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">For the previous two or three days, Kiddo had been looking forward to Ash Wednesday. He couldn't stop talking about going to church and having the pastor put the ashes on his forehead. He told his friends at daycare, he told his friends at preschool, and he couldn't stop telling Mommy and Daddy how excited he was about the ashes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Our church has two Ash Wednesday services--one at 5 PM, and the other at 7. We had planned on going to the 7:00 service as a family, and I was scheduled to assist with the imposition of ashes at that service. That afternoon, though, I got a call from Sweetie--she was 8 months pregnant and had been fighting a pretty good cold--saying that she just didn't think that she'd be able to make it through a worship service.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I couldn't just take Kiddo to the 7 PM service myself, since I was going to be up front, and we knew that Kiddo would have none of sitting with someone else. And we also knew that if he didn't go to church, he'd be crushed. Sooooooo...I left work early, picked him up from daycare, and took him to the 5 PM service.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">On our way, he asked, "Daddy, why will we put ashes on our forehead tonight?"</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Hm.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Well, we had talked about death before...the subject had first come up when we were talking about Easter some time ago...and he understood the concept that only Jesus had come back to life, but once we were dead, we would live in heaven with God, but wouldn't be alive again on earth. And, more importantly, he was fine with that understanding. So, rather than using the more generic answer of "to help us remember how much God loves us," I decided to expand it a little bit.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">"It's to help us remember that even though someday we'll die, that God loves us..."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Kiddo finished my sentence for me. "...and we'll be in heaven with God. And Jesus." (I decided to hold off on dealing with his 4 year-old tritheism...all in good time.) =)</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">He seemed satisfied with it all. And so we got to church, and the service began. There was a responsive chanting of Psalm 51, followed by a time of confession, and then came the imposition of ashes. We were about 2/3 of the way through the psalm when suddenly, Kiddo grabbed my leg and looked up at me. His lip was trembling.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">And then he began to cry. The heartrending, plaintive, authentic cry of a child in anguish.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I sat down, took him on my lap, held him close, and whispered, "what's wrong? Is the music too sad?"</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Looking at me with a scared, sad, expression in his eyes, he whispered back, "I don't want the ashes on my forehead."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I was dumbstruck. This had been the highlight of his week! I asked him, "why not?"</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">He looked me in the eyes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">"Daddy, I don't want to die."</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I almost burst into tears right then and there. Somehow in our conversation, he had internalized that having the ashes put on his forehead would make him die.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I immediately felt like the worst dad in the world. Ever. I had made my son think that he was going to die. And worst of all, that I would let him.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I held him tightly, and rocked him, and whispered assurances that this was just something to help us remember how much God loves us, and that it was not going to make us die.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">As Psalm 51 came to a close and the rest of the congregation intoned "the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise," I wiped the tears from Kiddo's eyes, and he smiled.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">"Okay, Daddy. I want to remember. I want to go get the ashes now."</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Later that evening, when I told the story to our pastor as we got ready for the 7:00 service, he turned to me and said, "You know, those tears meant your son gets it. In his way, he gets the meaning of Ash Wednesday better than the majority of the other people in the pews."</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">He was right.</span>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-85200237529245311712013-02-06T10:32:00.000-06:002013-02-06T14:37:30.242-06:00June 27, 2010 sermon: Freed From Fear, Freed For Service<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.characterent.com/monthly_feature/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Les-Miserables.22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.characterent.com/monthly_feature/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Les-Miserables.22.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Freed
From Fear—Freed For Service<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=227166378" target="_blank">Galatians 2:11-21</a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">June
27, 2010</span><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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If I were to make a top 10 list of
the greatest works of Western literature, <i>Les
Miserables</i>, by Victor Hugo, would be somewhere on that list. It’s an amazing story of sin and redemption,
of love and hope and pain and loss, and ultimately of law and grace. The main character in the story, Jean
Valjean, spends 19 years of hard labor in prison for stealing a loaf of bread
so he could eat. Prison hardens him,
gives him an edge, makes him distrustful of everyone around him. His attitude becomes one of “hurt the other
person before they have a chance to hurt you.”
At the end of his 19 years, he is paroled, but is forced to carry a
yellow ticket everywhere with him and show it to anyone he comes into contact
with, so they know he’s a parolee. For
Jean Valjean, being freed only becomes a new kind of imprisonment, and makes
him even more cynical and bitter. Four
days after being let out, he arrives, cold, hungry, and broke, at the house of
a bishop. Nobody will house him or feed
him or give him work. He’s
desperate. And angry. Here’s the scene from the 1998 movie…you may
recognize Liam Neeson as Jean Valjean:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oBR0S-pIkzM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="line-height: 150%;">“</span><i style="line-height: 150%;">Don’t forget. Don’t ever
forget. You’ve promised to become a new
man. Jean Valjean my brother, you no
longer belong to evil. With this silver,
I have bought your soul. I have ransomed
you from fear and hatred. And now I give
you back to God</i><span style="line-height: 150%;">.”</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><i>God’s grace transforms our fear
into lives of loving service.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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What the bishop did for Jean
Valjean was an act of costly grace. The
bishop sacrificed his pride, his silver, and his sense of justice. But in taking that act, he did something that
Jean Valjean never could have done for himself.
Not only did the bishop ransom him from fear and hatred, he ransomed him
for a purpose. He said “And now I give
you back to God.” An act of complete and
utter selflessness broke Jean Valjean’s bondage to living for himself…it gave
him the freedom, and the mission, to live his life for the sake of others<br />
.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My friends, what we witnessed in
that scene was the power of cross-shaped grace in transforming our lives. It is that same power that Paul concerns
himself with in our passage from Galatians.
We’ve heard over the past few weeks about the identity struggle that the
early church had. The church saw itself
as a sect of Judaism, so they had that heritage and those laws to look to, to
help shape their identity as a people.
However, they were also attracting a large number of non-Jews to the
faith, especially as it began to spread into areas that were not primarily
Jewish. The question became, how do we
handle these folks who didn’t grow up with these laws, customs, and
heritage?<br />
<br />
There was nothing wrong with
Jewish Christians continuing to observe the Jewish purity rites…clean and
unclean foods and the like. In the first
section of our Galatians passage, Paul is pointing out what he sees as blatant
hypocrisy on the part of Peter. He had
begun to eat with Gentile Christians—non-Jews—and by extension had been lax on
the Jewish food laws. But then, when
some Jewish Christians came to Antioch where he was, he stopped eating with the
Gentiles. The implication was that in not
following Jewish law, these Gentile Christians were second-class citizens. <o:p></o:p><br />
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And that’s what got Paul’s blood
boiling. In verse 14, he recounts a
showdown he had with Peter, telling him, “If you, though a Jew, live like a
Gentile and not a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”<o:p></o:p><br />
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Touché.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Then he gets into the meat of his
argument, telling Peter, “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile
sinners.” One of my seminary professors
says, “there are two kinds of people—those who divide everything into two groups,
and those who don’t.” Paul is one who
does that…in his eyes, one is either a Jew or a Gentile. He’s saying that even those who have been
Jews from birth, those who have been given the gift of the law, are unable to
be saved by that law. So why then is
Peter using the law to divide the community?
Observance of the law does nothing for a person’s eternal life, whether
that person is Jew or Gentile. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Why? Because<i>
<b>God’s grace transforms our fear into
lives of loving service.</b></i><o:p></o:p><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i></div>
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You and I, we hear this passage and
immediately our thoughts turn to our individual salvation. Martin Luther interpreted it in that sort of
context, and we, as 21<sup>st</sup> Century Americans, we whose very identity
is defined partially by our rugged individualism—of course we’re going to think
in those terms as well. There’s nothing
wrong with that, and we’ll get there eventually. But that wasn’t Paul’s primary concern.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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His main concern was with
community. His concern was that the
Jewish Christians were using the law to <i>exclude
</i>other Christians, instead of standing unified under the cross as the
sinners that we are. He reminds Peter,
and us today, that our identity as humankind isn’t that we fulfill the law, but
rather the opposite, that there is nothing any of us can do to live up to the
law’s demands. God’s law wasn’t given to
divide. God’s law was given to draw us
all to the power of the cross. Paul is
pointing out that every time we draw lines that seek to divide or exclude, we
are always going to find God on the other side of the line. “If justification comes through the law,”
Paul writes, “then Christ died for nothing.”<o:p></o:p><br />
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The silent question the bishop was
asking Jean Valjean, the silent question Paul is asking the Galatians, and the
silent question our Scripture passage asks of us today are all the same
question: are you going to live lives of fear, or are you going to live lives
of grace?<o:p></o:p><br />
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While it’s an important question to
ask ourselves individually, it’s an even more important question to ask
ourselves corporately, as those who are called to be Christ’s body on earth. The world looks at the church and it sees a
body that builds walls. It sees a body
that divides. It sees a body that lives
out of fear more than out of grace.
Sometimes these conclusions are unfair, but quite often we as the
church—the whole, universal, worldwide church—have given the world good reason
to come to those conclusions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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However, <b><i>God’s grace transforms our fear
into lives of loving service.<o:p></o:p></i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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Now this doesn’t mean that we’ve
been given free license to do whatever we want, to live however we want to
live. The bishop didn’t tell Jean
Valjean “with this act of grace you’re free to do whatever you want to
do.” Paul even says “But if, in our
effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners,
is Christ then a servant of sin?
Certainly not!” What it <i>does</i> mean is that we’re living by a
different set of motivations. We don’t
serve others to build up points to try to get to heaven or win God’s
favor. In fact, the cross is what has
freed us from all of those old insecurities, all of those doubts, all of those
fears that we just don’t measure up, that God can’t possibly find us
acceptable, that there’s no way that we can earn a spot in heaven. You know what? There<i>
is </i>no way, no way at all, that we can earn ourselves a spot in heaven. Nothing to worry about. We can’t do it. But the cross, the empty tomb, God’s promise
to us through Christ, <i>that </i>is what’s
done the job <i>for us</i>. The word that Paul uses over and over in this
passage, the one translated “justified,” is the greek word <i>dikaios. </i>It is a courtroom
word, and has the sense not of actually being innocent, but of being declared
and treated as though we were innocent.
Through the cross, God sees our guilt but still acquits us. It’s not a whitewashing of sin, it’s God
grabbing us by the collar like the bishop did to Jean Valjean, looking us right
in the eye, and telling us, “<i>Don’t
forget. Don’t ever forget. You’ve promised to become a new person. My brother…my sister…you no longer belong to
evil. With this cross, I have bought
your soul. I have ransomed you from fear
and hatred.”<o:p></o:p></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
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<b><i>God’s grace transforms our fear
into lives of loving service.<o:p></o:p></i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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So we are free. Free to break down the walls that fear has built. Free to live in community with those we agree
with, as well as those with whom we disagree.
Free to live not for ourselves but given the mission to live in loving
service to others. Free to recognize
that God’s law doesn’t divide one person from another, but rather unifies all
of us as one gigantic category of people—redeemed sinners at the foot of the
cross. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Amen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><i>Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i>Lincoln, NE</i> <i> <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-44922913649854932312013-01-02T11:15:00.000-06:002013-01-02T11:15:13.591-06:00December 29-30 2012 sermon--What Child Is This?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.reform-magazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/manger_cross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://www.reform-magazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/manger_cross.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><i><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">What Child Is This?</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Christmas 1C, December 29-30, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=224146756" target="_blank">Luke 2:41-52</a><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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On Monday and Tuesday, we celebrated the birth of Jesus. We
looked on with awe and wonder at the story of Mary and Joseph, of angels, and
shepherds, and an animal feed trough turned into a makeshift crib for a little
baby boy. We sang “Silent Night” and “Away in a Manger,” chuckling to ourselves
as our own children and grandchildren sang the line, “the cattle are lowing,
the poor baby WAKES!” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Babies are cute. They’re fun to play with. They’re cuddly
and loving, and it’s a wonderful thing to think of Jesus as a helpless, cute,
cuddly newborn infant.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But today is less than a week after all of that, and all of
a sudden, here’s Jesus as a 12 year-old kid. No longer the cooing little baby,
he’s now only a year away from his bar mitzvah. If he was a member of Our
Saviour’s, he’d be acolyting and taking sermon notes and going to confirmation
classes. This was a kid on the verge of puberty, whose parents were taking him
along for a fairly long trip—from Nazareth to Jerusalem, which would be a
distance of about 60 miles. Think about walking from the Haymarket in Lincoln
to the Old Market in Omaha…only there was no Interstate 80 connecting the two.
It was a dusty and potentially dangerous trek which could take up to 4 days, so
Mary, Joseph and Jesus most likely didn’t travel alone. They would have been
with a large group of family and friends, all of whom would have been making
the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover. This trip was also a personally and
religiously significant one—to be in Jerusalem, at the temple, to celebrate
Passover was a big deal, and in v. 41 the author tells us that it was a trip
that Mary and Joseph made every year. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So when it’s all finished, they leave to go back home with
the rest of their group. At the end of the first day, Mary and Joseph make a
horrible discovery. Their child, Jesus, isn’t with the rest of the group. As a
parent myself, I can’t even imagine the terror, fear, and guilt that they must
have felt. And so they turned around and went back to Jerusalem. The author tells
us that they searched for three days, finally coming to the temple where they
saw him surrounded by the teachers of the law. He was listening to them and
asking them questions, and we’re told that the teachers were amazed at his
understanding and his answers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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His mom didn’t care about any of that, though. Her fear and
terror and guilt had vanished, and had been replaced by anger. “Why have you
treated us like this? Your father and I have been searching for you with great
anxiety.” The Greek here is much more strong than our English translation
suggests—the word used here is used two other times by the author of Luke, and
in both cases it’s not just anxiousness—it’s the pain and grief and agony you
experience when you know you’re never going to see someone you love again. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And Jesus’ response to her is a reminder that Jesus wasn’t
their little baby boy anymore. “Mom,” he
says, “Didn’t you know? Didn’t you know I’d be in my Father’s house? Didn’t you
know I’d be about my Father’s business? You’ve taught me the Scriptures. You’ve
raised me in your faith, the faith of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the faith of
the Exodus and the Passover, and you’re surprised to find me here? You’re
surprised to find me with the teachers of the law? You’re surprised to find me learning
and understanding, questioning and
teaching, engaged in this living faith in which you’ve so diligently brought me
up?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This isn’t the cute, cuddly baby in Bethlehem talking. Jesus
throws the adults in his life for a loop. His parents didn’t know where to find
him. The teachers of the law were astounded at his interactions with them. The
question for all of them, and the question for us today, is, “What child is
this?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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What child is this?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Does this baby remain in the manger? Does this child remain
at the feet of the teachers? No, and no. In fact, the next time Jesus pays a
visit to the temple, those who are there are equally astounded at what he has
to say, but this time it’s not with the cute bemusement with which one pats a
precocious child on the head and thinks “Wow, you are something else.” The next
time Jesus is at the temple, his questions and his understanding don’t get him
compliments, they get him crucified. When the baby leaves the manger, when the
child grows up, when we can no longer hold Jesus at arm’s length, when Jesus
has the audacity to turn our world upside down by challenging what we thought
we knew about God and about faith and about life, our human response then and
our human response now is he same—it is the cross. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We love Christmas. But Jesus can’t stay in the manger. The
fact that God would take on human flesh and would be born as a helpless baby is
miraculous—it is itself a sign of God’s wonderful love for humankind and of
God’s willingness to do whatever it takes to break into our world and into our
lives. But for Jesus to do what Jesus has come to do, he can’t stay a baby. He
must grow up. And when he grows up and begins to think and feel and act and
teach and command and live and love on his own, for himself, by his own volition,
his parents aren’t sure what to do with it. The religious experts, amazed as
they are, probably aren’t sure what to do with it. And we, when we’re honest
with ourselves, aren’t sure what to do with this Jesus either. It’s easier to
sing “sleep in heavenly peace” than to wrestle with “love your enemies.” It’s
easier to sing “away in a manger” than to try to understand “blessed are you
when you are poor or hungry or hated or excluded or the one who makes peace.”
It’s easier to think of angels and shepherds than to try to live out the
command to “take up your cross and follow.” We’d rather look at the bright star
in the sky over Bethlehem than watch an innocent man lifted on a cross at
Golgotha and listen to him say, “Father forgive them, for they know not what
they do.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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What child is this?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Babies are safe. Babies are cute. But the Jesus who was born
for us, the Jesus who lived for us, the Jesus who died and was raised so that
we too might live, the Jesus who is alive and among us even today, did not come
to be cute. He did not come to be safe. He came to change our lives. He came to
change the world. Like Mary and Joseph, even though we know better sometimes
we’re surprised when Jesus tells us, “Didn’t you know I’d be in my Father’s
house? Didn’t you know I’d be about my Father’s business?” We’re surprised when
we come to church and we hear a word of law or a word of grace or a word of
comfort or a word of affliction and it’s exactly what we needed to hear. We’re
surprised when we confess our sins and are blown away by a wave of gratitude in
the words of forgiveness. We’re surprised when we pray and are heard. We’re
surprised when those around us become the body of Christ, become hands, feet,
ears, mouth, and eyes for those around them. Like the teachers of the law in
the temple, we’re surprised when Jesus answers our questions with love and holy
wisdom beyond our understanding. We’re surprised when Jesus takes what we
thought we knew about God and scripture and turns it all on its head. We’re
surprised when we’re called out beyond ourselves to live and love for the sake
of the other. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is the Jesus who’s active in the world today. This is
the Jesus who’s active in our lives today. This is the Jesus who is here today,
the Jesus who has swept us all up in this restless, raging love of God. This,
this, is Christ the King.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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What child is this?<br />
<br />
<i>Nails, spear shall pierce him through<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The cross be borne for
me, for you.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Hail, hail the Word
made flesh<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The babe, the Son of
Mary.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-56776536583010311082012-12-25T19:01:00.000-06:002012-12-25T19:08:48.843-06:00Christmas Day 2012 Sermon - The Light Shines in the Darkness<br />
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<b><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Light Shines in the Darkness</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=223483276" target="_blank">John 1:1-14</a>, Christmas Day, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. <sup>2</sup>He was in the
beginning with God. <sup>3</sup>All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being <sup>4</sup>in
him was life, and the life was the light of all people. <b><sup>5</sup>The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not
overcome it.</b>”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Eleven days ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown
Connecticut, we saw the darkness. We watched in horror, in shock, in anger, in
grief, as 28 people, 20 of them first grade children, lost their lives in an
act of unspeakable evil. My wife and I struggled, even in our own grieving and
questions, with how to talk with our kids about it, how to assure them that
they could feel safe even while living in a world where the darkness of evil,
the darkness of sin, the darkness of our own brokenness, surrounds us. I know
we weren’t alone in that struggle. Which
is why today’s gospel reading is so important, why the birth of Jesus in a barn
in Palestine 2,000 years ago is important, why today of all days, Christmas
Day, we hear a gospel reading not of shepherds and wise men, not of stars and
angels, but of the God who was there in the very beginning, the God who with a
word created the heavens and the earth, the God who proclaimed “let there be
light!”, the God who took on flesh and lived among us, the God who IS the light
that shines in the darkness, the God that no amount of darkness can overcome.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Today, we need Christmas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We need to hear that we have not been abandoned to the
darkness. We have not been left to our own devices, to our own will, to our own
strength. Whether it is a first grade classroom in Connecticut, or a pink slip
at work, or the bottom of a booze bottle, or the pang of hunger before bed
knowing that it will have only grown by morning, or the fear of what will
happen after a doctor’s diagnosis, or the relentlessness of Mother Nature, or
the betrayal of a loved one, or of anything else, we know the darkness. We’ve
experienced the darkness. The darkness is a very real thing, and no amount of
tinsel or wrapping paper can cover that up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This Christmas morning, we worship a God who chose to be
Immanuel, God with us, who chose to take on flesh, to come to us through the
upside down power of humility, who chose a way not of glory, but the way of
self-giving love for the sake of the other, the way of the cross. We worship a
God who is the light shining in the darkness. We worship a God who the darkness
has not overcome. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Over the last week or so, many of us I’m sure have heard attempts
to explain the darkness we saw in Connecticut, as well as the larger darkness
of sin and evil. We’ve heard from various sources that evil acts like what we
saw in Connecticut or the week before in Oregon happen because we’ve taken God
out of the public square, or because we’ve removed God from the schools. This
isn’t a message that began recently, either. Every year we hear about the “War on
Christmas,” every year we’re warned that if we say “Happy Holidays” instead of
“Merry Christmas,” or if the money we spend and the credit cards we max out and
the stores we keep open late between Black Friday and December 25 aren’t in
honor of Jesus, or if we don’t have a manger scene in the town square, that we
will have taken Christ out of Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Our Christmas Day gospel account, as well as the very message
of Christmas itself, tells us that nothing could be further from the truth. We
don’t have the ability to remove God from anywhere. It’s not possible for us to
take the baby Jesus and hide him away, safely out of sight. Any thinking about
who God is or what God can do or what God IS doing that gives humankind the
ability to manipulate God for our own purposes is much too small for what we
read in the first chapter of John. Jesus IS Immanuel, God-With-Us. Jesus IS the
light of the world, and that light shines not in the halls of power, not in the
good, proper, places where we might otherwise expect, but in the darkness. It shines in our
sinfulness. It shines in our brokenness. It shines in a Bethlehem stable. It
shines at the dinner table with prostitutes and tax collectors. It shines with
the lepers and the sick and the outcast. It shines on the cross. It shines in
the empty tomb. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And Jesus, light of the world, God-With-Us, shines yet today,
bringing light to the dark. God cannot be removed from the world God made, the
world God loves, and the world God is redeeming. God simply will not be kept
out. That’s the beauty of the story of
Christmas. God breaks in. God breaks through. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We don’t act on God, God acts on us. We don’t come to God—God
comes to us. We can’t take God out of any part of our individual or societal
life, because God is God, we are not…and God has promised to be with us always,
even to the end of the age. And so, according to John, according to what we
celebrate at Christmas, according to the Incarnation, we don’t <i>put</i> God anywhere or <i>take</i> God anywhere. God finds us. God comes to us. God comes alongside
us in our darkness, and doesn’t just shine a light…God <i>is </i>the light. God <i>becomes </i>the
light. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not
overcome it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Where we should expect God to be is exactly where we see the
shadows, where we see the darkness, where we see the sin and pain and suffering
and brokenness in our world. And not because that’s the way we would have it,
but because that’s the way God would have it. God is right there in those dark
places and in the dark places of our own lives shining the light of God’s own
self, the light of Christ, the light of God’s peace, God’s hope, God’s
wholeness, God’s s<i>halom</i> and
dispelling the fear of our own dark nights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This baby in the manger is the same God who was present at
the beginning of time, at the creation of the universe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This baby in the manger is the same Word who was spoken <i>to</i> Abraham and spoken <i>through</i> the prophets, the Word of
redemption and of new life and of a blessing for the entire world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This baby in the manger is the same relentless God who cannot
be pushed out or kept back, the God who took on flesh and took on our humanity,
the God who was executed by the worldly power of empire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This baby in the manger is the same Living Word who through
his resurrection three days later refused to allow death to have the final
word.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This baby in the manger is the same God who refuses even
today to let us go, who promises us still that there is nothing in heaven or on
earth that can separate us from God’s love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The light of Jesus shines in our darkness. And the darkness
did not overcome it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Amen.</div>
LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-85695444565522497932012-10-29T08:32:00.000-05:002012-10-29T08:34:31.390-05:00Confirmation Sermon from 10-28-2012: "Let Your Light So Shine!"<br />
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<a href="http://www.nativitychurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/confirmation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="http://www.nativitychurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/confirmation.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Let Your Light So Shine!<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">October 28, 2012:
Confirmation Sunday<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=218517212" target="_blank">Matthew 5:13-16</a>,
<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=218517353" target="_blank">Ephesians 2:8-10<o:p></o:p></a></span></span></b></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was about
9:30 on Saturday night at the Sounds Like Love music festival in the Twin
Cities back in 2008. About 400 high school youth had been rehearsing for over 6
½ hours, singing songs, learning choreography, turning notes on a page into
music for people’s hearts, and everyone was tired. Voices were straining, the
movements weren’t as crisp as they had been hours earlier, and it was getting
hard to stay in focus and on task. There was a section of a Christmas song they
were rehearsing where different groups of youth were supposed to shine their
mini-flashlights at different times, and it just wasn’t working the way it was
supposed to. Finally, in a fit of directorial frustration, conductor John
Jacobson cried out, “<i>Twinkle, you little Lutherans, twinkle</i>!!!”<br />
<br />
In Jesus’ sermon on the mount from the gospel according to Matthew, he said:
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one
after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand,
and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine
before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your
Father in heaven.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At some
point in your lives, you were brought to church. You were brought to a
baptismal font, and you were baptized with water and with words of promise. Promises
were made…God’s promise that you are a loved, forgiven and cherished child of
God. Promises made by your parents and your sponsors to raise you in the faith,
to teach you the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, to place
in your hands the Holy Scriptures, and to walk alongside you as you learn and
grow in your faith. The fact that you are here today means that along the line,
someone took those promises seriously. And then, chances are, near the end of
the baptismal service, a candle was lit and someone said those words we heard
from the Sermon on the Mount: “Let your light so shine before others that they
may see you good works and glorify your father in heaven.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or, in the
John Jacobson translation, “Twinkle, you little Lutherans, twinkle!”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Those words
are a reminder that a life in Christ is not merely an adoption, but also a
calling. Can’t you just imagine Jesus standing in front of us? Sometimes in
encouragement, sometimes in frustration, but always in love, crying out “Let
your light shine! <i>Twinkle, you little Lutherans, twinkle</i>!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You were
created to twinkle. You were created to do good works. You were created as that
city on a hill, you were created to be that lamp that doesn’t belong under a
bushel, but that gives out light so that others may see. That’s not what gets
you right with God, it doesn’t score you God points or get you any closer to
heaven, because that part’s not up to you. That part’s already been done for
you. Paul writes in the letter to the Ephesians that you were saved by grace
through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God, so that no
one might boast. Jesus died on the cross and rose for you. You have been
forgiven, you have been made new through your baptism, and there is nothing in
heaven or on earth that can separate you from God’s love in Christ. Good works
aren’t what you’re saved BY…good works are what you’re saved FOR.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In verse 10 of Ephesians 2, Paul writes, “for
we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” You were created to shine, you were
created to twinkle.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The thing
about light is that when you shine it on something, it allows you to see things
as they really are. We use shadows to hide. We use darkness to conceal things.
You all know as well as I do that the best games of hide and seek are played in
the dark, because you can hide yourself so well. But when Jesus calls us to let
our light so shine before others, we are being called to help the world see things
as they really are. We are being called to help the world see the things that
we try to hide in the dark, to see the people who are so often buried in the
dark. We are even called to see the truth of our own situation, that there are
things about ourselves that we’d rather leave in the dark, that we are in
bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s only
when we let that light shine in the dark places that the dark places can begin
to be transformed. Over the past three years you’ve done quite a bit of light
shining. In your small groups you’ve gotten to know each other better, but
you’ve found ways to serve your neighbors and serve the world. You’ve helped
raise money for our brothers and sisters in Tanzania. You’ve collected food and
diapers for those in need. You’ve helped serve meals, you’ve assisted people
who haven’t been able to take care of themselves. You have been active
participants in God’s mission in the world, a mission of making all things new,
a mission of bringing healing and hope to a world that is broken and so often
in despair. At the time, you may have thought that these were small things, or
that they were hoops you needed to jump through as a requirement for
Confirmation, but in reality, these good works that you have done were big,
very big…and they weren’t just hoops for you to jump through, they weren’t just
something to do to get a service and fellowship requirement out of the way for
the month. They were a way that you were living out not just your baptismal
promises, but even more basic than that, who you were created by God to be and
what you were created by God to do. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Where else
can you shine this light that you have been given? Where else can you shine the
light of love, the light of hope, the light of truth, the light of service, the
light of peace? These aren’t just big flowery words, they are opportunities
you’re given every day to continue to be who you were created to be. How is God
calling you to shine your light at home? What about at school? What about in
the community? What about with your friends? What about at church? Because even
though we’re not taking attendance anymore, even though you don’t have to worry
about signing in for Sunday School or how many sermon notes you need or any of
that stuff, I pray that this is only the beginning of your light shining days.
You have so much inside of you to share, so much light that the world
desperately needs. You have talents, and time, and joy, and intelligence, and
each of you has those in very unique ways. You each have a light, but each
light has a unique glow. Someone once said that your calling is where your
great joy meets the world’s great need. Today as you are confirmed, it is not
the end, but it’s a step on the journey, a time for you to take these promises
that were made on your behalf at your baptism and to say yes, these are now
mine. This is my faith, this is my calling, this is my light to shine.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your
parents, your baptismal sponsors, your Confirmation guides, your Confirmation
mentors, your family, your friends, your church…we are all a part of this
incredible journey of faith with you. We’re here to walk alongside you, to
encourage you, to be encouraged by you, to lead you, and to be led by you as
together we look to the cross. Some days, the journey is hard, other days it is
easy. Some days we walk with uncertain steps, other days we stride ahead
confidently. But being a part of the body of Christ means that we journey
together, not always knowing where we are going, but assured that God’s hand is
leading and guiding us. This journey of faith that we are on—you are a part of
it, an important part of it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve said it before and I will continue to say
it until I’m blue in the face that you are not the future of the church—you ARE
the church RIGHT NOW. You are valuable, you have a voice, you make a
difference. You are a part of Christ’s body on earth, you are the light that is
shining for the world. So twinkle. Twinkle, you little Lutherans, twinkle! <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Matt
Schur <o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our
Saviour’s Lutheran Church</span></span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></span></span></i>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-51082836153893134282012-10-28T21:31:00.000-05:002012-10-28T21:53:48.060-05:00October 20-21 2012 sermon--"Power from God, Power for Others"<br />
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<a href="http://991.com/NewGallery/Barry-Manilow-Greatest-Hits-527758.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="http://991.com/NewGallery/Barry-Manilow-Greatest-Hits-527758.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Power from God—Power
for Others<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=218477806" target="_blank">Mark 10:35-45</a></span></span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m an older brother. I have one sister who’s three
years younger than me. When we were young and my parents went out in the
evenings, we’d have a babysitter—but there came a point in time when we were
old enough to be left on our own for a few hours. My parents left us with
rules, of course, but in a very real sense we were in charge of ourselves.
Which meant, as far as I was concerned, that I, the big brother, was in charge
of my little sister. And so we’d get out the big, tall Tupperware cups and mix
up huge servings of chocolate milk, which we hardly ever were allowed to drink,
and when we did it certainly wasn’t as chocolatey as we wanted. We’d put in so
much chocolate sauce that there’d be a thick layer of chocolate on the bottom
of the cup when we were finished drinking. And we’d get out our favorite
records—that’s right, actual vinyl on a record player—that our parents owned.
Sometimes it was the soundtrack from American Graffiti, but more often it was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits</i>. And we’d
turn up the stereo higher than we knew mom and dad would let us had they been
there, singing and dancing to Copacabana and I Write the Songs and Mandy.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">such </i>rebels, my
sister and I.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While mom and dad were gone, we had power. We were in charge. And it
was all about us. It was all about what we wanted.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And as the older brother, really, it was all about me. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If my sister did something I didn’t want her to, I was bigger. I had
ways of making her stop. I had ways of convincing her that what I wanted to do,
what I wanted to eat, the way I wanted things to go, was also what she wanted.
I was usually nice about it, but also sneaky, persuasive, and selfish.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jesus said in our Gospel reading, “You know that among the Gentiles
those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great
ones are tyrants over them.<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>43</sup>But it is not so among you; but whoever
wishes to become great among you must be your servant,<sup>44</sup>and whoever
wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Power <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from </i>God is power <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for </i>others.</span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lord Acton is often quoted as saying that power tends to corrupt, and
absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s also been said that those who have
power seek to find any way to keep the power they have, and those without seek
to find any way to obtain it. When Jesus was speaking, the example he was using
of what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>to do, how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>to live, was the Roman Empire. They
had power, and they made sure they kept their power through means of persuasion
much more violent than I used with my sister. They had chariots, and weapons,
and for those who dared to challenge their authority, they had crosses. Theyre
was peace in the Roman Empire, the Pax Romana, but it wasn’t the peace which
passes all understanding, it wasn’t the wholeness of the Hebrew word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shalom, </i>it was merely the lack of
violence kept by the fear of violence. And for those who would have been
listening to Jesus, the many crosses which often lined the roads filled with
those who had dared to challenge the power of Rome and disturb that peace were
symbols and stark reminders of that power. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yes, there was power in the cross. The power of death. The power to get
people to do what Rome wanted. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But what Jesus told the disciples, and what Jesus tells us today, is
that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">power <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from </i>God is power <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for </i>others.</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As Christians, we too know that there is power in the cross. But it’s a
different kind of power that what Rome understood. Not the power of death, but
the promise of life. Not the power to get people to do our bidding, but the
promise of freedom. Not power to be grasped and held on to at any cost, but
power to be given away. Not power to serve our own interests, but power to
serve our neighbor. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jesus tells us today that we, all of us, are called to be servant
leaders. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We who follow Jesus are called to see power in a different way than the
world does. We are called to use power in a different way than the world does.
It’s not about us. It’s not getting what we want and holding on to what we
deserve. It’s about helping our neighbor get what they need and showing others
the same sort of love and grace that we ourselves have been shown, love and
grace that we never could have earned. These gifts that we have been given,
whether they’re authority or power or possessions or money or love or
forgiveness or anything else, aren’t intended to stop with us. They are
absolutely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for </i>us—the kids who did
First Communion instruction with me this past spring will remember how
important those two words are—“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for you.”</i>
The bread and wine, the body and blood, the water and word of baptism, the
cross and the empty tomb—these are all absolutely and without a doubt <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for you. </i>But you’re not where they stop.
God’s gifts <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for </i>you don’t end <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">with </i>you. You are blessed to be a
blessing. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Power <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from </i>God is power <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for </i>others.</span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When we follow in the way of the cross, it may not mean our physical
death, but it does mean we die to ourselves. We die to our need to be the
center of it all, our curved-in nature that is the very definition of sin. We
die to our bondage to ourselves. We are saved from our slavery to self, and
saved for service to our neighbor. And when that’s how we live, when that’s how
we’re oriented, when our view of our neighbor and of power and of all we’ve
been given has been shaped by the cross, then we’re already living in the
kingdom. We’re already experiencing a foretaste of the feast to come. We’ve
already taken that place of honor at Christ’s table—the honor that comes not
from grasping, but from giving. The power and the peace that brings wholeness
and life. Abundant life now, and eternal life always. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his
life a ransom for many. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
Which is infinitely better than Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits.</span></div>
</span>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-6864325457598845882012-09-24T13:39:00.001-05:002012-09-24T13:39:25.281-05:00September 22-23, 2012 sermon--"Questioning Jesus"<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4087/5021319121_5a3623f93a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4087/5021319121_5a3623f93a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Questioning Jesus<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=215511756" target="_blank">Mark 9:30-37</a>, <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=215511812" target="_blank">James 4:1-3</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">September 22-23, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Back in 1995, Joan Osborne sang a
song that was later named to VH1’s list of <i>Greatest
One-Hit Wonders of the 90’s: </i>“One of Us.” It was later used as the theme
song for the TV show <i>Joan of Arcadia. </i>Throughout
the song, the singer asks a number of questions, one of which is, “If you were
faced with him in all his glory, what would you ask if you had just one
question?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Over the summer, we had the
opportunity to tackle a bunch of those kinds of questions. Big, basic,
foundational questions of the faith. Questions that many times we don’t know
the answer to, but somehow we feel that we should, and are ashamed to ask.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
And it’s not just faith questions
that do this to us, isn’t it? We don’t like to ask questions, because to ask a
question means that there’s something we don’t know, and for some reason, we
live under the impression that we’re supposed to know it all and have it all
together. I can’t count the number of times when someone has come up to me and
started talking about something where I had NO idea what they were talking
about. Sometimes they may have assumed that I had prior information, sometimes
they may have just been talking and assuming that I was following where they
were going, but for me, it quickly became abundantly clear that I was very much
in the dark. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Do you think I stopped them and
said something like “I’m sorry, what do you mean?” or “I’m just not following”
or something along those lines? No. Maybe I didn’t want to look stupid, maybe I
didn’t want to look like I didn’t have it all together or didn’t have the
answers. I just nodded and smiled and listened, and after the conversation was
done racked my brain or kicked myself for not knowing and then on top of it,
kicked myself for staying quiet and worried and wondered if they know that I
hadn’t been following them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
I hope I’m not the only one who’s
done something like that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Jesus’ disciples were in the same
boat in today’s reading. Actually, the full story begins even before our
reading. Turn in your Bibles to Mark 9:14. Verses 14-29 tell a story of
something that happened right before today’s reading. There’s a boy with an
unclean spirit that’s causing convulsions, and the disciples have been unable
to do anything about it—in fact, as Jesus approaches, they’re in the middle of
an argument with the scribes who had gathered. Jesus chastises them all, even
the disciples, in verse 19, saying, “You faithless generation, how much longer
must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.”
You can almost hear the frustrated sigh in his voice, as even after the time
that his disciples have spent with him, there’s still so much that they don’t
understand. They don’t understand who he is, they don’t understand who they
are, and they don’t understand who they are called to be. After he casts out
the spirit, the disciples ask him in private in v. 29 why they couldn’t have
done it, and his answer basically is that they didn’t pray.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
So we have that embarrassing setup
before we get to today’s reading. The disciples have been embarrassed by not
being able to do something they thought they should have been able to do, and
they were almost certainly embarrassed by Jesus’ disappointment. So in verse
30, they pass quietly through Galilee and Jesus takes that time not to stop and
heal people or feed people or do any of these amazing miracles that he had been
doing, but as they travel he teaches them. It’s as though he’s realizing that
his disciples weren’t getting it, that he needed to go back to the beginning,
to the foundational stuff.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
And so we get to verse 31, where he
tells his disciples quite explicitly what’s going to happen to him. He says
that he will be betrayed into human hands, and that he would be killed, and that
on the third day he would rise. But look then at verse 32, keeping in mind what
had just happened in the previous story. <b>“But
they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” </b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In Mark’s account of the gospel,
the disciples remain clueless pretty much all the way through. They are
constantly getting things wrong or not understanding what Jesus is saying or
doing. Even at the end of Mark, after the resurrection, the angel tells the
disciples that Jesus has risen and would meet them in Galilee and that they
were to go there, and what do they do? They stay in Jerusalem, and tell no one.
So for the disciples to not understand Jesus in this instance isn’t a surprise,
but now, they were afraid to ask him. They were embarrassed, they were afraid…instead
of wanting to gain further insight into the truth of the strange things Jesus
was saying, they nodded and pretended to understand, just like we do so much of
the time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
And what was the result? Arguments.
Infighting. Division. When they arrived in Capernaum, Jesus asked them what
they had been arguing about on the way, and like a group of kids being
confronted by a parent, nobody wanted to tell him, because they had been
arguing over who was the greatest, and they knew that he wouldn’t have liked
that argument. Their focus was completely the wrong one, and they knew it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Because in their non-understanding
of Jesus they had cut off communication, their focus was not on who Jesus was
or what Jesus was about, but on themselves. Alyce McKenzie points out four
possible causes of the disciples’ argument:<o:p></o:p></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">fear that they have fallen in Jesus'estimation (9:19)<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">insecurity at their failure to heal the boy (9:29)<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">resentment toward one another as Jesus chastises
them <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">eagerness to compete to regain his approval<a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2012-09-23%20sermon.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The first letter of each of those
reasons spells out F-I-R-E. Last week, we heard from James’ letter that the
tongue is a fire, and indeed these arguments over our own power, over our own
prestige, when we’re trying to save face and establish or re-establish our
credentials, generate heat. And then we hear this week from James 4:1-3:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in;">
4:1 Those
conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come
from your cravings that are at war within you? 2 You want something
and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot
obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because
you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask
wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
When we hear this passage from
James, it’s easy for our minds to go immediately to our stuff. Asking for
things, and receiving things. Possessions. But this passage also provides a
commentary on our gospel passage and what’s going on with the disciples. It
wasn’t just a piece of information that they didn’t understand that they needed
clarification on. They didn’t <i>get </i>Jesus.
They really, truly did not understand <i>who
</i>he was, or w<i>hat </i>he was about.
Their focus was on their own reputation. It turned inward, and when we curve
inward like that, when it becomes about us and our standing and our place, then
we too don’t <i>get </i>Jesus. We don’t
understand <i>who </i>he is or <i>what </i>he’s about, or what <i>we’re </i>about as his followers. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
What’s Jesus response to the
disciples? He tells, and then he shows. To explain who he is, to explain what
he’s about, to help them understand that his power is found in weakness, that
life in him is found in death and resurrection, to help them understand their
own calling, he takes their argument and turns it on its head. “Whoever wants
to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Your greatness, your
glory, your place in the Kingdom of God, is found in lowliness, humility, and
your willingness to be a servant. Not just a servant of those who deserve it,
not just a servant of those you like or those you agree with or those whose
lifestyles or choices agree with yours, but a servant of all. A servant of your
enemy. A servant of the outcast. You are to go even so far as to welcome
children.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Of course we’re supposed to welcome
children, right?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
We look at this and our inclination
is to think, “aw, how cute. Jesus hugs a kid and tells the disciples that they
need to love kids too.” But these were revolutionary words. Children, in Jewish
culture, weren’t yet fully human. They had no rights, they had no status, no
standing, not even a fully formed humanity. Your calling, he tells the
disciples and us today, is to love and serve and welcome even those who do not
have the same rights as you do, who do not have standing in society, who your
culture tells you that you ought not to love and serve and welcome. Welcome
them into your homes, into your lives, into your church, welcome them to the
baptismal font and to the communion table.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Do we dare take the risk? When we
are radically welcoming, we risk losing our status in society. When the
outsider is welcomed, we risk becoming the outsider ourselves. We risk losing
what we had, we risk losing who we used to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
But that’s the cross. That’s Jesus’
example. That’s what the disciples didn’t get. That’s what we so often don’t
get. That’s letting go of our need to be right, our embarrassment of not having
it all together, this house of cards that we build for ourselves that we’re so
deathly afraid someone’s going to find us out, that’s letting go of all of
that, and clinging instead to Jesus’ promises of forgiveness and new life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
New life for all of us.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<o:p></o:p>Amen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Lincoln, NE</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2012-09-23%20sermon.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=9/20/2009&tab=4<o:p></o:p></div>
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LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-13561481223803439932012-08-27T11:06:00.000-05:002012-08-27T14:15:17.178-05:00August 26, 2012 sermon--"Come and See!"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://markmeynell.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/peanuts-evangelist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="95" src="http://markmeynell.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/peanuts-evangelist.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An example of what evangelism is NOT.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">Come and See!</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=213078958" target="_blank">John 1:43-51</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">August 25-26, 2012</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br />
<b><i>Text is below--audio can be found <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW5w-1DWd90" target="_blank">at this link.</a></i></b><br />
<br />
I’m a big, big Nebraska Cornhuskers football fan. Ever since
moving to Nebraska when I was in 4<sup>th</sup> grade, I’ve followed the
Huskers, cheered the victories and grumbled at the losses. I love to talk about
the team, I love to go to the games when I can—in fact, I’ll often lose my
voice by game’s end from cheering so loud.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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January 1, 1995 was a big day for me as a Husker fan. The
Huskers were in the Orange Bowl, playing Miami after a perfect season. Win this
game and they were national champions. Anticipation was high, especially since
the Huskers had made it to the same point the previous season, only to have
their title hopes dashed as a last-second field goal attempt sailed wide. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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At the end of the third quarter, Miami led, 17-9, and things
didn’t look all that good for Nebraska. But then, plays began to open up for
the offense. With about 7 ½ minutes left in the game, Cory Schlesinger scored
on a run up the middle, and the two point conversion afterwards tied up the
game. Miami wasn’t able to do anything with their next possession, and when the
Huskers got the ball back, they drove down the field, running it right at the
tired Miami defense. With a little over 2 ½ minutes left in the game, this
happened:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/2jXSxfLIpRU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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With the play that my wife and I still refer to as the
“Schlesinger Roll,” Nebraska took the lead for the first time in the game, and
ended up winning. Here’s Kent Pavelka’s call of the final seconds:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/JnXUAdwzLb0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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That wasn’t just fake emotion he was mustering up. As the
game ended, celebrations erupted across the state. Over 10,000 people
spontaneously gathered at the intersection of 72<sup>nd</sup> and Dodge in
Omaha, and thousands more converged on 13<sup>th</sup> and O here in Lincoln.
Complete strangers gave each other hugs and high fives. I was at my parents’
house in Bellevue, and we ran outside, cheering with the other neighbors.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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When we see or experience joy, when we hear or experience
good news, we want to share it with others. When something affects us so
profoundly, we want to tell others, we want to invite others into our joy, so
that they too may become a part of it. It might be something as relatively
small as a football game. It might be something like a birth announcement or an
engagement, or a new job, or a promotion. Birthdays, anniversaries, all of our
life’s mile markers are things that we seek out others with whom we can
celebrate. It comes naturally to us.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Why then, is talking about our faith often not the same?<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Today is the last topic in our summer series on Faith
Questions You Were Afraid to Ask But Your Kids Weren’t, and the question we’re “tackling”
(to continue the football metaphor) is the question of evangelism. What exactly
does evangelism mean? Why is it so difficult for many of us? <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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For too many Christians as well as for many outside the
Christian faith, the word “evangelism” has become a dirty word. It brings for
many people negative connotations, people knocking on doors or carrying signs
or trying to argue someone into the faith or beating their neighbor over the
head with a Bible until it finally sinks in. But the word “evangelism” isn’t
any of that at all. It comes from a Greek word which means, “one who is the
bringer of good news.” In fact, the root is the same as where we get the word
“angel.” Our church thinks so highly of the word that we have incorporated it
into the name of our wider church body—we are part of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America. Evangelism ought to be part of our spiritual DNA—so why, so
often, is it missing? <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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You, my friends, are evangelists! You are the bringers of
good news! That doesn’t mean being pushy, it doesn’t mean arguing or violence
or much of what the world tends to associate with evangelism. It’s about
experiencing joy, about experiencing transformation, about experiencing God’s
amazing love and grace and forgiveness, it’s about being a part of God’s
promise that God is making all things new, and simply wanting to share that.
Wanting to not keep this incredible gift to yourself. Wanting to experience
this in a community, and wanting others to be able to share in the freedom
through the cross that you yourself know. It’s about extending the same simple
invitation that Philip extended to Nathaniel: “come and see.”<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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“Come and see.” The day before the events in our reading,
two disciples of John the Baptist had been so captivated by Jesus’ encounter
with them when he had come to John that they had followed him. One of those
disciples was named Andrew, and he had gone and found his brother Simon.
Apparently, word must have spread through their hometown of Bethsaida, because
in our reading today another resident of that town, Philip, has his own
encounter with Jesus. And what is Philip’s reaction? He runs and finds his
friend Nathanael, telling him excitedly, “We’ve found the one! The one that
Moses and the prophets wrote about! It’s Jesus, from Nazareth!”<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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He is so excited, so filled with joy, that he can’t just
keep it to himself. He has to share that with someone, and so he shares it with
Nathanael, whose response is just like popping a balloon: “Can anything good
come out of Nazareth?” <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Nazareth? That town? Really? Come on, Philip—you’ve come to
me all excited about this? Seriously?<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Philip would have had every reason to get defensive, or to
argue with Nathanael, or to attack, or to claim that Nathanael was persecuting
him, or complain that he wasn’t being taken seriously. Indeed, those are some
of the reactions that Christians unfortunately often have to those who question
our proclamation of good news. But instead, Philip simply says, “Come and see.”
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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When you know you’ve got a good thing, when you are so certain
that the news you have REALLY IS good news, then this good news can speak for
itself on its own merits. It doesn’t require you to argue your way through it.
It doesn’t require you to try to trick someone into believing, or to scare them
into believing, or to strongarm them into believing. “Come and see.” If the
cross really is good news, if God’s promises of newness and freedom and justice
and mercy really are good news, if we really believe that God so loved the
world that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life, if
we really take to heart that it is by grace that we have been saved through
faith, and this is not of our own doing, it is the gift of God, not by works,
so that no one may boast, if we really have taken to heart the things that
Jesus said and did, his life and ministry and death and resurrection, then
evangelism becomes the same simple invitation that Philip extended to Nathanael:
“come and see.”<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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We Lutherans should be on the evangelical front lines. We
understand this grace stuff. We get the cross. We are theologians of the
cross—Martin Luther said a theologian of the cross calls a thing what it is,
and so we are able to see things the way they really are. We can see sin and
call it sin. We can see pain and disease and suffering and we have no need to
whitewash it. We know we are broken people and we live in a broken world. We
know that there is nothing about the cross to suggest that a life spent
following in the way of Jesus means sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. But we
also hear God’s promises, and we see the empty tomb on Easter. We gather around
the communion table, where all are invited, all are welcome, all are told,
“come and see.” We cling to the promise that there is nothing in heaven or on
earth that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. We see God’s
transformation even in the midst of the brokenness, we acknowledge that we are
saints at the very same time that we are sinners, we look to the cross as God’s
ultimate yes to humankind’s no.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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That’s good news. And that’s something we just can’t keep to
ourselves. When we’ve experienced something so profound, so life changing, so
WORLD changing, the very way we are wired compels us to share it. That’s
evangelism. It’s simply the invitation to come and see.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So then, we need to ask: is this story that we’re inviting
people into a compelling one? Does it have meat? Does it match up with their
experience of life and humanity? Does it take seriously the big questions of
existence? But is it at the same time personal? That’s the beauty of Holy
Communion for me—on the one hand, it’s universal. It’s a picture of all of
humanity gathered around the great table in a giant celebration of life and
love and Jesus’ victory over the powers of sin and death. On the other hand, at
the very same time, it’s intensely personal. It is FOR YOU. Not just
anyone…you. Our faith stories are the same way. God is at work in the world—we
know that. God is about the business of making all things new. But God is also
at work in your life. God is at work in the lives of those you meet. How do we
tell that story? How do we invite others to “come and see?” <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We can tell through our words. We can simply share our own
experiences. Not what we have done, but
what God has done…in us, and for us, and yes even sometimes through us. And we
can also tell through our actions. That’s how every act of kindness, every act
of mercy, every act of sharing, of breaking down the walls that divide us, of
bringing peace…that’s how these are all acts of evangelism. Because they don’t
just proclaim the good news, they embody the good news. They make the good news
of God in Christ incarnate, enfleshed.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This weekend, our congregation’s third graders will be given
Bibles by their parents. My son will be one of those kids receiving a Bible. In
doing so, the invitation continues to be extended to “come and see.” Also this
weekend, we’re privileged to be helping to host the Nebraska Synod field trip,
which is focusing on prison ministry. Come and see. Come and see what God is up
to. Come and see and hear and experience.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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We’re just messengers. Inviters. Proclaimers. God’s the one
who does the work—we don’t convert. We don’t change others. We don’t transform
them. All we do is what we’re wired to do. We just share our joyful freedom. We
just invite. We live. We love. And we rejoice together. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Come and see.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></i></div>
LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-71084841112305300712012-08-05T21:04:00.002-05:002012-08-05T21:10:26.133-05:00August 5, 2012 sermon--"Up the Down Staircase"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thethunderbeat.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/TessaPerez1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://www.thethunderbeat.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/TessaPerez1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The "down staircase" at Bellevue West High School</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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<b><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Up The Down Staircase</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 150%;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=211218587" target="_blank">2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2</a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">August 4-5, 2012</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
I went to high school in Bellevue
at Bellevue West (Go Thunderbirds!). While I was there, all of the lockers were on one level in
the same commons area, and most of the classrooms were on the level directly above
that commons area. There were two huge, wide staircases connecting the two
levels. Students would hang out in the commons area until it was almost time
for class, then head up the staircases for class to start. When the bell rang
as each class period ended and especially at the end of the day, a giant mass
of humanity would descend the stairs all at once. We were packed together going
down those stairs—it was a sight to behold. Someone could have jumped on top
and body-surfed all the way down without ever having their feet touch the
floor, had they wanted. If, for some reason, you were at the bottom of the
stairs and tried to go up at the same time as class was getting out and 1,200
or so of your closest friends were heading down…well, it just couldn’t be done. It wasn’t possible to go up the down
staircase.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Today, in our sermon series on
faith questions that you were afraid to ask but your kids weren’t, we come to
the question of salvation. What is salvation? What does it mean? What do you have to do
to go to heaven? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Just like it was at my high school,
it’s not possible to go up the down staircase.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
We have this tendency to think of
salvation as this staircase we need to climb, with the top of the staircase
eventually bringing us to God, to heaven. Maybe we think of baptism as the
first step, or for some folks, maybe it’s when they realized that they trusted
God, that faith meant something to them. A lot of times, we look at how we live
our lives—the good that we do, or the prayers that we say, or the lives that we
touch in a positive way—as steps up that staircase. And then we consider our
individual sins—what we have done and what we have left undone, not loving God
with our whole heart, not loving our neighbors as ourselves—and we see them as
steps down that staircase. And so we live our lives, taking a few steps
forward, taking a few steps back, working hard and hopefully progressing so
that one day at the last we can reach where God wants us to be. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In this model, Scripture becomes a
rulebook, a guide to climbing the stairs…and our lives, at least if we’re
really serious about it, if we’re really serious about our faith and about God,
they become consumed by this quest.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
But the thing is, for God, this staircase
is a down staircase. We don’t go up, God comes down. It’s not possible to go up
the down staircase. The gospel, the good news of God in Christ Jesus, isn’t
that Jesus finally gives us a way to get up that staircase, it’s that God in
Jesus came down. Immanuel. God with us. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
And even for Christians, this is
hard to understand. We are people who claim grace through faith as our life and
our heritage, but our minds still tend to operate as though law, and not grace,
has the final say.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
When I speak of “law” here, I’m
talking about much more than the rules that we find in the Bible. Those are
certainly laws, but I’m speaking in broader categories, speaking of law in the
way Martin Luther thought of it. In his eyes, the law is what kills the old
Adam in us. The law is whatever word convicts us of our complete inability to
get it right. The law tells me, “Matt, you are a sinner. You have sinned and
have fallen short of the glory of God.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The law operates on an if/then
basis. If you do this, then you will get that. That’s language we understand.
If I’m good, then God will bless me, if I’m bad, God won’t. If I’m good, I’m
climbing the staircase, I’m getting closer to God. If I sin, I’m going down the
staircase. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
But because God came down the
staircase to us, because in the cross God has met us where we are, our
relationship with God is no longer based on an if/then. It’s not a matter of if
I do this, then God will do that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Our relationship with God isn’t an
if/then. Our relationship with God is a because/therefore. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Because God came down the staircase
in Jesus, because Jesus died on the cross, because Jesus defeated the power of
sin and death once and for all, therefore you have been saved from your sin,
you have been saved from needing life and faith and salvation to be about you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
You have been freed from yourself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
You no longer have to worry about
the staircase, about trying to scratch and claw your way up. You no longer have
to worry about whether you’ve done enough, about the number of good God points
or bad sin points you’ve accumulated. In Christ, YOU ARE a new creation! And this new creation isn’t caught in the
game of point-keeping or stair-stepping. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In our reading, Paul describes what
Luther called the “happy exchange.” Happy exchange is an actual, technical,
theological term, even if it doesn’t sound too technical. The term makes me
think of <a href="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/425678_10150574565471090_984569209_n.jpg" target="_blank">the painter who used to be on PBS, Bob Ross</a>, if he was standing in the
returns line at Kohls the day after Christmas—“I’m here to make a happy little
exchange.” But the meaning of the term is incredibly profound. This is
earthshattering stuff. In 2 Cor. 5:21, Paul writes, “For our sake he made him
to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of
God.” God took all of our junk, all of
our evil, all of our sin, and gave it all to Jesus. And at the same time, God
took all of Jesus’ righteousness and gave it to us. </div>
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That’s the exchange—God
takes on our sin, we take on God’s righteousness, and so we end up seeing those
things together at the same time in ourselves. We are, Luther tells us, at the
very same time, both sinner and saint. We are at the same time Old Adam and New
Creation. The law of sin and the gospel of righteousness are both at work
within us all at the same time, and so salvation is not a process, it’s not a
staircase to climb. It is what lets Paul write, “See, now is the acceptable
time. NOW is the day of salvation!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Most importantly, salvation is not
up to us. Ephesians 2 tells us that we are saved by grace through faith, and it’s
not of our own doing—it is a gift from God. Not by our own works, so that no
one may boast. If it WERE up to us, we would be right back to trying to go up
the down staircase. If it were up to us, the cross wouldn’t be something new
and transformational. Instead, it would be a method of self-help for us. If it
were up to us, we would be right back to living under the if/then of the law.
Instead, we are assured of this: because Jesus died, because Jesus now lives,
because God came to us, because of the cross and the resurrection and the
promises of God, therefore we have been made right with God. We have been
reconciled with God. God has done it, completely on God’s initiative, because
of God’s infinite love for humankind.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our law-driven, if/then minds have
such a hard time grasping this truth. Surely, we think, there must be something we have to
do to make it happen. Just say a prayer, or just repent, or just…something. But
we cannot add anything to the grace already shown us in Christ and still call
it grace. A gift with conditions is no longer a gift. And so anytime we hear
someone begin a statement about salvation with the words, “All you have to do
is…” let those hairs stand up on the back of your neck because you’re about to
hear an if/then law statement, and while the law is what drives us to the foot
of the cross, while the law is what grabs us by the collar and confronts us
with our deep sinfulness, the law is not what has the final say in our lives. We
do not climb up the down staircase. Christ comes to us. All you have to do is…absolutely
nothing. Jesus has already done it all and therefore you are forgiven even
before you realized you needed forgiveness, you are loved through no doing of
your own, you are redeemed and restored and made new through Christ who came
down the staircase and met you in your sin. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We are saved by grace through
faith, but when we understand faith as trust as we talked about last week, then
faith is simply our response to what God has already done. It is our trust in
God’s promises, it is our trust in the cross, it is our trust that it’s not up
to us. Faith is not simply yet another work, it’s not simply some other hoop to
jump through to make us acceptable to God. Faith is our response to the God who
has come down to us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nowhere do we see this more clearly
than in baptism. It is not baptism that saves us. Baptism is not fire
insurance. It is a means of grace, a drowning of the old Adam in the waters and
the raising of a new creation. When E. is baptized this morning, we will
see the happy exchange right there in action in her life. But although we’re
only baptized once, at the same time in a very real way it’s also something
that’s continuous, ongoing. Daily we sin, daily the law convicts us of our sin,
daily we drown the old and are brought to life in the new, daily we are
simultaneously sinner and saint. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Our trust in the promises God makes
to us in baptism, the promises of forgiveness and new life, call us into lives
of reconciliation as God’s ambassadors. We are bearers of God’s promises, we carry
in us and with us and through us the promises of new life for the world. And so
together we can proclaim with the apostle Paul, “Now! Now is the acceptable
time! Now is the day of salvation!” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></i></div>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-60765179688370648202012-07-30T07:37:00.002-05:002012-07-30T07:37:20.764-05:00July 15, 2012 sermon--"Death, Thou Shalt Die."<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Resurrection—“Death, Thou Shalt Die.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">July 14-15, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=210651805" target="_blank">1 Corinthians 15:42-58</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Today, in our continuing series on faith questions you were
afraid to ask but your kids weren’t, we come to the question of resurrection.
Two of the questions that our confirmation students asked in the spring were:
“Why did Jesus rise when he died for us?” and “Why was the symbol of God a
cross?” These questions inevitably lead
us to deeper questions like, “What exactly are we talking about when we speak
of resurrection?” or “Is resurrection the same as coming back to life?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The last question is the easiest to answer, and gives us a
good starting point to work from as well. No. Resurrection is not the same as
coming back to life. Turn with me to the Gospel According to John, Chapter 11.
It’s the story of the raising of Lazarus. You know the story—Lazarus has been
dead for four days, Jesus comes to the tomb and tells him to come out, and he
does. What Lazarus experiences is a coming back to life, but it is not a
resurrection. His body is still the same, temporal body created from the same
stuff as the dust of the earth, and to dust it will once again return. Lazarus
is going to die again eventually. The life he receives is not new life, but a
continuation of his old life. It is a wonderful gift that he and his loved ones
were given, but this is not resurrection as we understand it, or as Jesus
experienced it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So then, if we know what resurrection is not, then what
exactly is it? This is where we turn to
our Scripture reading from 1 Corinthians. In a sense, the hope of resurrection
is at the center of this entire letter that Paul wrote to the church in
Corinth, but it’s here in Chapter 15 where the rubber really hits the road. It
sounds as though there were some folks who were denying that there would be any
future resurrection, and what Paul does is he both reaches back to the very
beginning, to the first 3 chapters of Genesis, while at the same time looking
ahead to the end of time, and pulls it all together in his answer to them. Turn
to page 935 in the pew Bible, to the very beginning of Chapter 15. This is
where Paul begins to lay out his argument. Verses 3 -5 remind the church of
what they’ve already been taught, those things that Paul had received from
others and had passed on to them: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance
with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the
third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas
(Peter), then to the twelve.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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For Paul, it’s of utmost importance that the church
understand that Jesus himself was resurrected, and then what that means for
us. Skip to verses 12-19. Paul writes, “<sup>12</sup>Now
if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there
is no resurrection of the dead? <sup>13</sup>If there is no resurrection
of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; <sup>14</sup>and if Christ
has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has
been in vain. <sup>15</sup>We are even found to be misrepresenting God,
because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it
is true that the dead are not raised. <sup>16</sup>For if the dead are not
raised, then Christ has not been raised. <sup>17</sup>If Christ has not
been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. <sup>18</sup>Then
those also who have died in Christ have perished. <sup>19</sup>If for this
life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Those are strong words, and they’re strong for a reason. And
this is why Easter is more important than Good Friday. If all the cross was
about was Jesus being sacrificed to pay off a sin-debt to God, then Easter is
just an afterthought, a way to make sure that God doesn’t stay dead. But if the
cross is about more than that, if it’s about God in Jesus taking on the very
power of sin, the very power of death, of taking incarnation so far, of taking
the idea that God IS with us to the very extreme of even dying the same death
we die, and THEN to conquer that death by being raised, then celebrating Easter
becomes a celebration of new life, of eternal life. It takes the promise of
that final day when all is made new and brings a foretaste of that day to the
here and now. And so it’s important that Jesus was not just resuscitated, he
didn’t just wake up, because that would make him like Lazarus. As fully God but
still fully human, his fully human body would have died again eventually. But
that’s not what Paul’s talking about here—this is resurrection. This is a new
creation, a new physical reality—in a very real sense, a new body.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On this point there’s been a lot of confusion over time, and
the NRSV does us no favors by the way it chooses to translate the Greek.
Skipping ahead in 1 Corinthians 15 to where our reading begins in verse 42 on
page 936. Paul has begun talking about our own resurrection—what that will mean
at the end of time for us. Contrasting our bodies now with what we will
experience when all are raised on the last day, Paul writes, “What is sown is
perishable, what is raised is imperishable.<sup>43</sup>It is sown in dishonor,
it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. <sup>44</sup>It
is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical
body, there is also a spiritual body.” At the beginning, it all makes sense—our
earthly bodies are finite. They’re perishable. They’re prone to weakness, to
illness, to pain, to injury. In this life, we deal with things like cancer, or
with Alzheimer’s disease, or a myriad of factors that remind us that we are,
indeed mortal. We were created, and God saw us and called it good, but as we
remind each other each Ash Wednesday, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust
you shall return.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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The trouble we run into is when our translations have Paul
contrasting a physical body and a spiritual body. We think of physical as flesh
and bone, and spiritual as…well, spirit. Soul. Whatever it is that we cannot
see that is the essence of who we are. The problem with that idea is that it
isn’t Biblical. It comes out of Greek philosophy. Plato talks a lot about that
sort of idea, but it’s not what Paul is speaking of here. NT Wright’s incredible book <i>Surprised by Hope </i>is helps make sense of
all of this, and it’s important, because so much of what we think we know about
faith actually is a product not of our faith at all, but of how our culture has
grasped this idea of body vs. spirit, of physical vs. spiritual. Biblically,
this stuff is much more earthy, much more tangible, stuff that you can touch
and feel and be. The Bible doesn’t separate body from soul, or physical from
spiritual. In fact, NT Wright tells us that the Greek word <i>psychikos, </i>which the NRSV translated as “physical,” means nothing
close to how we think of “physical” today. The root, <i>psyche, </i>from where we get our word “psychology,” ironically, was
the word Greek philosophers used to describe the soul. More important than that
though is that “adjectives of this tupe, Greek adjectives ending in <i>–ikos</i>, describe not t<i>he material out of which things are made </i>but
<i>the power or energy that animates them.</i>
It is the difference between asking, on the one hand, ‘Is this a wooden ship or
an iron ship?’ (the material from which it is made) and asking, on the other,
‘Is this a steamship or a sailing ship?’ (the energy that powers it). <a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2012-07-15%20sermon.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Paul is contrasting the power by which our
body lives. In this present life, we are powerless against those forces that
make us mortal—illness, injury, decay, and ultimately death. In the
resurrection, we are given new life—the word Paul uses is <i>pneuma</i>, God’s spirit, breath, wind. We don’t become spirit—we are
given life through the Spirit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So in verse 50, when Paul says that “flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God,” he doesn’t mean that there will be an end to
physical being. The term “flesh and blood” was a common symbolic term. Just as
in the Gospel according to John, whenever the writer speaks of “the world,” he
doesn’t actually mean the whole world, or the actual soil of the planet, but
rather those forces in the world which oppose God, the same kind of thing is at
work here. “Flesh and blood” means “that which is corruptible, that which is
finite, that which dies, that which is walking toward death.” His contrast
isn’t between the physical and the non-physical, but between the physical which
dies and the physical which lives forever. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And so resurrection isn’t, as we so often think of it, life
after death. It’s really life AFTER life after death. Paul calls Jesus the
firstfruits, sort of a downpayment if you will of what we all look forward to
at the end. When we die, that is not resurrection. It is a time of rest, a
waiting place on the way to the end of time. Jesus said that in his Father’s
house there are many dwelling places—the word he uses, <i>monai, </i>doesn’t refer to a final resting place “but for a temporary
halt on a journey that will take you somewhere else in the long run.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2012-07-15%20sermon.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The hymn <i>For All The Saints </i>captures
this idea so well. Turn to hymn 174 in the LBW. Look at verse 6—it speaks of
the rest of the faithful servants, the calm of paradise. Then in verse 7, there
breaks a more glorious day—it is the end of time, and the saints triumphant
rise. The final verse describes the eternal city, the New Jerusalem, as from
all corners of the earth come God’s people to inhabit the new creation. The
imagery is so amazingly powerful.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And it speaks to what we confess in the Apostles Creed. The
ending of the creed goes, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic
church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, <i>the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.</i>” We profess
our faith in the promise that God’s creation matters. That, as Pastor Tobi said
on Easter, matter matters. We look ahead to the New Jerusalem, when Revelation
tells us that we don’t all get whisked away to some spiritual plane away from
Earth, but God comes to us. Heaven comes here. God makes God’s home among God’s
people in a new creation that is physical, that is real, that you can touch and
taste and see and experience, but that is at the same time eternal. What will
that look like? We are given pictures and metaphors of streets paved with gold,
of the river of the water of life, of the tree of life with leaves for the
healing of the nations, and all of those pictures point to the future, but they
at the same time point to right now, they point to the bread and the wine, very
physical signs of Jesus’ presence with us and for us, and they point back to
the very beginning when God’s spirit brooded over the waters and God created
the heavens and the earth. We’re part of this amazing story of creation and
life and new life and eternal life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One of my favorite poems is a sonnet by John Donne. The
official title is Holy Sonnet 10, though most people know it by the title, <i>Death Be Not Proud. </i>It takes what we’ve
heard in 1 Corinthians 15 and reminds us of our ultimate hope in the
resurrection and our ultimate victory in Jesus.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Death, be not proud, though some have called thee<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>And soonest our best men with thee do go,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>One short sleep past, we wake eternally,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Amen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><i>Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><i>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><i>Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2012-07-15%20sermon.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
NT Wright, <i>Surprised by Hope, </i>New
York: Harper One, 2008, p. 155.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2012-07-15%20sermon.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Wright, 150.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-62356946134662716832012-07-02T11:01:00.001-05:002012-07-02T11:14:50.924-05:00Sermon for 7-1-12: "And When You Pray..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGYsOsQnRblGKuv3ORxdPg2ihhCNgbydINPS491d6S7MXu73bXXuNTm-HqENHM9wZuUoLi2cF805V0LBcGU1JpOBinUvUO7s7zZqyV36451ZAiRx8awplLySLMXg1T0F3Jdmi/s1600/Safe+in+Gods+hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGYsOsQnRblGKuv3ORxdPg2ihhCNgbydINPS491d6S7MXu73bXXuNTm-HqENHM9wZuUoLi2cF805V0LBcGU1JpOBinUvUO7s7zZqyV36451ZAiRx8awplLySLMXg1T0F3Jdmi/s320/Safe+in+Gods+hands.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b><br />
<b><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“And When You
Pray…”</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">June 30-July 1,
2012</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=208244176" target="_blank">Romans 8:26-27</a>,
<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=208244240" target="_blank">Luke 11:1-13</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"><i>A note: this summer at our church, we're preaching a series we're calling "Faith questions you were afraid to ask...but your kids weren't." Back in May during a Confirmation class, we had our 6th-8th graders write down any question they wanted about God, faith, the Bible...whatever. What emerged was a set of questions that was so foundational, that got to so much of the important, big stuff--we needed to do something with it, something more than just addressing what we could in a class with just those young people. And so a sermon series was born. We've dealt with how we read Scripture, why bad things happen to good people, angels and demons and the devil, and now we're looking at what prayer is all about.</i></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">I’m going to be
honest with you. There’s a lot that I don’t know about prayer. There’s a lot
that I don’t understand about how it works, about what happens exactly when we
pray, about how God answers our prayers. But there’s some things that I have
come to believe about prayer through what I’ve read in Scripture and through
how I’ve experienced it myself. There’s also some things that I’ve heard about
prayer, some fairly common perceptions, that I think are ultimately unhelpful.
I’d like to take a look at some of those, and in examining them, maybe together
we’ll stumble on some truths in the process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">First, I fully
believe that God is not a vending machine. Prayer is not the money we put into
the divine pop machine so that we can press the button we want and wait for God
to spit out the answer we’ve asked for. Sometimes what we read in Luke gets
interpreted that way—that whatever it is we ask for, as long as we do it in the
right way or with the right formula of words or with the right heart, God will
give us exactly what we ask for. If we were to look at prayer that way, though,
who is the one in control? Who is the one pulling the strings? God may be the
one doing the answering, but we become the ones in power, as though we had
discovered a magic lamp and because we freed the genie, he is bound to do our
will. In a very real way, we end up putting ourselves in God’s place. That’s not to say that God doesn’t want us to
ask. The Greek word in our Gospel lesson that is for some reason translated as
“persistent,” really means “shameless.” God wants us to ask, God wants us to be
shameless in our asking, God wants to hear the cries and desires of our
hearts…and why? I think it’s because God wants us to remember that we are
completely and utterly dependent not on ourselves, but on God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">This isn’t some
sort of power trip—God doesn’t have a Napoleon complex. But when we are
offering our petitions to God, when we are shameless in our asking, we are
being drawn into a relationship—the relationship of loving grace that God wants
for and with each of us. We are assured that God hears our prayers. Sometimes,
the answer is yes. Sometimes, the answer is no. Often, the answer is “not now.”
Is there a specific, divine reason behind every response to prayer? This sort
of goes into some of the issues that Pastor Tobi has been preaching about. I do
not believe that God causes evil and suffering—I do not believe that there is
necessarily a divine purpose behind when bad things happen to good people—but I
do believe in a God of transformation. I do believe in a God of presence. I do
believe that God hears our prayers, that God listens to our prayers, and that
God is present beside us in the midst of whatever it is we’re praying for. And
when we’re shameless in our asking, we are more fully drawn into the loving
arms of God’s embrace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Second, prayer is
not about having all the right, fancy, churchy words. In fact, as we hear in
our passage from Romans, sometimes we don’t even have the words at all. Think
of a time in your life when words failed you. Sometimes, it’s a time of joy, or
beauty, or wonder. I think of when my children were born as a time like that.
Sometimes, it’s our time of deepest sorrow, or fear. I still remember the
numbing grief that gripped me when I got the phone call years ago telling me
that my mentor Larry Meyer had died. At times like this, whenever it is that
our brains and our words fail us, Romans 8 tells us that we still have the God
of presence with us, the Holy Spirit interceding on our behalf when we don’t
have the will or the words or the strength or even the faith to pray on our
own. I’ve told our middle and high school youth that sometimes, the most
authentic prayer we can pray is simply three words: “Oh my God.” When they are
said as a prayer, when they become our address to God and not just simply a
throwaway phrase, they have the power to say in three words what we wouldn’t be
able to encompass in an entire book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">In Matthew’s
account of when Jesus teaches the disciples what we now call the Lord’s Prayer,
Jesus also reminds us that prayer isn’t about needing to say the right things
in the right way. He says not to pray like the hypocrites do—at the time, a
hypocrite was an actor who wore a mask, quite literally someone who was
“two-faced.” So Jesus didn’t have anything against big words or prepared
prayers—in fact, he gave his disciples the model of the Lord’s Prayer to help
them. Prayer can be spontaneous, or it can be prepared. Neither is more or less
real than the other. There are ancient,
beautiful prayers that the church has prayed for thousands of years—sharing the
same words with those who have gone before us, knowing that there are those who
will come after us who will also share those words—what an amazing picture of
the kingdom of God through time. What a way for us to ground ourselves in this
thread of faith that runs across the centuries. At the same time, spontaneous
prayer speaks to where and when we find ourselves—as the Spirit moves,
sometimes the words just flow and we are for that time intimately connected
with God and those around us. What Jesus is warning against is praying one
thing while your heart is in another place entirely. Using fancy words isn’t
bad praying if what you’re trying to do is to be drawn more deeply into
communion with God—it is bad praying if what you’re trying to do is impress the
person next to you. What we see again is that prayers become about
relationship—our relationship with God. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">That relationship
between us and God form the centerpoint around which the Biblical psalms
revolve. That’s what the vast majority of the psalms are, after all—prayers
addressed directly to God. Prayers of praise, of thanksgiving, of petition, of
fear, of anger, of sorrow. The psalmists sometimes get angry with God. They
sometimes tell God exactly what they think of God. They sometimes doubt and
wonder. They sometimes are in awe of God’s goodness, and sometimes question
that same goodness. You want a guide to authentic prayer that covers the wide
range of human emotion and experience? Use the psalms as a prayer devotional
and guide. It’ll knock your socks off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Our prayers are
also about our relationship with our neighbor and with all of creation. When we
pray, WE are transformed. Did you notice that Jesus doesn’t begin with the
phrase “my Father,” but rather “Our Father.” Prayer isn’t merely individual
exercise. It is inherently communal. It forms community. It is meant to be
something that is done together. And it draws us together in the very act of
doing it. When we pray for our neighbor, we become invested in their
well-being. When we pray for our enemy, we can no longer dehumanize them. When
we pray for the world, we are empowered to become better stewards. When we pray
for peace, when we pray for an end to hunger or a cure for a disease or that
our children will be well or that God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done on
earth as it is in heaven, God draws us into that which we are praying for. We
become part of the story, part of God’s mission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">There’s a man
named Gordon Atkinson who lives in San Antonio. For years, he was a preacher in
a small church—now he does independent web design. He is an incredible writer—I
discovered him online where he wrote a blog called “Real Live Preacher.” He had
a book published by the same name, a book of vignettes about the intersections
of life and faith that he encountered. Gordon’s a dreamer, a wonderer, a
faithful doubter, and a firm believer that when it comes to the really big
stuff, the stuff of life or death or God or love or...prayer...sometimes the
deepest truths are revealed through story rather than through rote explanation.
That’s why the Bible isn’t mostly a book of theological exposition—it’s mostly
a book of stories. Stories and prayers. This is one of his stories, one that
speaks to what I think are some of the deepest truths about prayer. It speaks
to our relationship with God, our relationship with each other, and how God
uses our prayers to open our own hearts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">These are Gordon's words:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN">What's the weirdest thing I ever prayed for in
church?</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
A hermit crab.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
A little girl raised her hand and asked if the whole congregation would pray
for her sick hermit crab. I don't remember exactly what was wrong with this
crab. I don't know how you determine that a hermit crab is sick in the first
place. She seemed pretty sure he was sick, so we took her at her word.<br />
Among those who bowed their heads that day was Roy, whose father died when he
was nine. This was back in the Great Depression. His mother was left alone to
scratch out an existence for herself and her two small boys there in the
flatlands of the Texas Panhandle.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
Chris was there that morning, too. Her father abused her for years and years,
and no one in her family ever came to her rescue. As I recall, she used to sit
in church when she was a little girl and pray that he would stop. I sneaked a
glance at Chris and saw her head go down.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
There were others with similar stories. The room was full of people who had
seen plenty of hard times in their lives and done plenty of praying.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
It's funny how a preacher's mind can wander, right in the middle of a sermon or
even just before a prayer. I couldn't help but think of Julie, the little girl
I prayed for years ago. She was five years old and had vaginal cancer. I prayed
first that she would be healed and later that she would die in peace. The
silence was deafening. After she died in great pain, I said to God, “I guess
that's a ‘no', huh?”<br />
All the heads bowed except mine. I was left standing at the front, wondering
how you pray for a hermit crab in the presence of a man who prayed that his
daddy would live. How do you pray for a hermit crab while looking at the bowed
head of a woman who prayed that her daddy would stop?<br />
And what about Julie, God? Exactly what was going on with that situation? Maybe
it's like what I read about the butterfly causing a hurricane on the other side
of the planet. Maybe you have complex reasons for letting things develop
freely, but what grand scheme would have been derailed if you had let her die
with no pain? She was five, God. Five!</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
If letting Julie die in peace was outside your self-imposed limits, what will
you do for a hermit crab that we hear is a little under the weather?</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
Like I said, it's funny how a preacher's mind can wander. The people in my
church have gotten used to the occasional pause before I begin to pray. This
was one of the longer ones.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
You know what got me started praying? The bowed heads. Roy's head and Chris'
head. All of them. Rows and rows of bowed heads, waiting expectantly. Toward
the back I saw the head of the little girl who asked for this prayer. Her hands
were clasped in front of her so seriously. It was a precious sight, and my
heart was filled with love for these people. I was like the Grinch looking down
on the little town of Whoville and having a stunning revelation of his own.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
“Maybe prayer,” I thought, “Means a little bit more.”</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
Here were people who would pray for a crab in church. They loved this
little girl, and she felt comfortable enough to share the concerns of her
heart. Even in the midst of their own unanswered prayers, they were big enough
and small enough to pray with their little friend for her hermit crab.<br />
Suddenly, I wanted to be like these people. I wanted to be praying with them,
and I didn't care if it made sense or not. I said to myself, “The heck with it.
I'm praying for the darn crab.”</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
And I did. And it felt good.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
When the prayer was over, all the heads came up and no one knew what had
happened to me. As far as they knew, a kid had asked for prayer and we had
prayed. Business as usual.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
But it wasn't business as usual for me. Whatever I was praying for, I got what
I needed. And I did not miss the irony either. The one leading the prayer knew
less about praying than almost anyone in the room, including the little girl
who loved her hermit crab.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
That little girl was my daughter, by the way. The second of three sisters. The
crab was named “Pinchy,” and he lived in our house all the days of his life.
And I am a man who has become a child again.</span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN"><br />
I tell you, I will pray for just about anything</span></i><span lang="EN">.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2012-07-01%20sermon.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="">[1]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2012-07-01%20sermon.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""></a></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><i>Matt
Schur<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><i>Our
Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><i>Lincoln,
NE<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div>
<br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Matt/Documents/sermons/2012-07-01%20sermon.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a> Adapted
from “Something About Prayer ,” by Gordon Atkinson, from RealLivePreacher.com
©2004 Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids.
pp.19-21.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-751111747598128852012-05-01T10:15:00.000-05:002012-05-01T10:55:12.689-05:00Sermon for 4-29-2012: Living Love in Truth and Action<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://thehandwritten.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/love004-570x397.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" mea="true" src="http://thehandwritten.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/love004-570x397.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Living Love in Truth and Action</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=202885140" target="_blank">1 John 3:16-24</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Easter 4B: April 29, 2012</div>
<br />
<br />
For a number of years now, I’ve been a member of an online community made up of Nebraska football fans from all around the country. There’s a part of the website where people can go to discuss stuff not related to sports—a lot of it ends up being politics or religion, but there’s also conversations about music or family matters…quite often people will post prayer requests if there’s something going on, and will be assured of having folks from all over and from all sorts of religious or non-religious backgrounds praying for them or sending them good thoughts. <br />
<br />
There’s a guy who posts fairly regularly who goes by the name of Pops. Pops is a Vietnam veteran, a recovering heroin addict, and a biker who lives in Texas. He’s also one of the kindest souls you’ll ever know. He has devoted his life to two causes—working with heroin addicts, and helping abused kids, and the man wears his love for those causes on his sleeve like nothing else. He’s a founding member of his city’s chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse and has told countless stories of the lives that he’s come into contact with. One of his mottoes is, “You never stand so tall as when you stoop to help a child.”<br />
<br />
A few days ago, Pops posted a picture showing a quotation by Cory Booker, who is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Here’s what it said: “Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people; before you tell me how much you love your God, show me in how much you love all His children; before you preach to me of your passion for your faith, teach me about it through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as in how you choose to live and give.”<br />
<br />
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. Pops is also an atheist. <br />
<br />
When I first got to know him 6 or so years ago, he was an angry atheist. He had been hurt by the church, and he had seen the church hurt others, and so not only did he not believe in God, but he would’ve been just fine if those who followed God just up and disappeared. And he wasn’t afraid to let Christians know exactly how he felt, either. Pops isn’t one to mince words. <br />
<br />
Six years ago, Pops never would have in his wildest dreams considered posting a quotation about God and ministry and faith. But over those six years, he and I have had a number of conversations. He’s heard about the FEAST ministry. He’s heard about the Table. He’s heard about this congregation’s ministry in Tanzania, in Louisiana, in Pine Ridge.<br />
<br />
Pops still doesn’t believe in God. But where his heart was hard, it has been softened. Where once there was animosity, there is now openness and respect. Why? Because he’s had the chance to see faith in action. He’s had the chance to know that there really are faith communities out there who serve with no ulterior motive, who love God’s children simply because they are God’s children and not because they expect anything in return or because they’re trying to live up to some sort of standard or to score brownie points with God. I like to tweak him a little bit and call him a minister, tell him that he’s doing God’s work, call what he does with addicts and with kids ministry. I do it in fun, but I also do it because it’s the truth. <br />
<br />
Pops knows a thing or two about the kind of living out the words of the quotation he posted from Cory Booker, and I think he knows a thing or two about living out the words we hear today from the writer of 1 John.<br />
<br />
He writes, “We know love by this, that he(Jesus) laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. <br />
<br />
Jesus laid down his life for us. Today in the church is known as Good Shepherd Sunday—we heard Jesus tell us, “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” What we get in this picture of Jesus as shepherd is not this storybook picture of a freshly scrubbed Jesus surrounded by cute, fluffy sheep. Rather, it’s the picture of a person who is so committed to the care and the wellbeing of these sheep that he is willing to throw himself in the face of danger, sacrifice even his very life to save those sheep from destruction. God didn’t just stop at telling the world, “I love you.” It wasn’t just word or speech, but God became LIVING Word, embodied word, word made flesh, in the person of Jesus. In truth and in action Jesus lived, he healed, he raised the dead, he forgave, he befriended those who were on the edges or on the outside of society—people like lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes—people who were supposed to be untouchable. But he didn’t stop there—he proclaimed God’s love for us in every step toward the cross, in every hammering of the nails into his hands and his feet, in the emptying of himself to take on the powers of sin and death. And he didn’t stop at martyrdom—he rose, and because he now lives we know that we too have been given newness of life and freedom to live not for ourselves, but for others. This was true love, not just word or speech, but love that was lived in truth, spoken through action. <br />
<br />
As those who claim to follow Christ, we are called to follow that same path of self-giving for the sake of the other. Christ was given much—he was, after all, God made flesh, but he emptied himself in loving service. And that’s what the author of 1 John is proclaiming for our lives, too. Laying down our lives for one another. Realizing that we have been given much—the NRSV translates verse 17 as asking how someone can have the world’s goods and refuse to help, but if you were to look at the actual Greek, the literal translation is not “the world’s goods” but “the life of the world.” So we’re not just talking about material goods, but anything that we have been given that can be of service to anyone in any kind of need. Have you been given the gift of education? Of listening? Of organization? Of being great with kids? Of compassion? Of being a leader? Of being good at following directions and working behind the scenes? Or of wealth? Of power? Of being put in positions of possible influence?<br />
<br />
True love, the love that Jesus shows for us and that the author of 1 John wishes for us to show the world, is love in action. It is making the conscious decision that what I have been given is a gift that doesn’t end with me. Instead, it is a gift that flows through me, goes out beyond me, speaks the truth of the gospel loudly not through words that are spoken but through deeds that bring life and healing, that break down walls and build up those who have been broken down by the world. We don’t just say love. We don’t just proclaim love. We do love. Love is an action. Love is a verb. Love is what gets us out of our heads, gets us out of the trap of thinking that the church should only be about the business of purely spiritual matters, and stay away from the messiness of social issues. Love is when our social issues, the things we see in the world around us, BECOME spiritual issues that we are called to confront and act on. It is our witness to the world that Easter makes a difference not only after we die but also <em>right now</em>, that the cross and Jesus’ resurrection have transformed us into a people who live to bring life out of death, to bring light out of the dark places in the world, to follow Jesus into the pain and the brokenness around us in God’s work of transformation and reconciliation, as God works to make all things new.<br />
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Love is following the example of my friend Pops, the atheist who does ministry, who does God’s work, living love for “the least of these” in society. Love is following the example of Jesus the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life to give us new life. Love does not stop at word and speech, but is truth that is embodied in action. Through this kind of love, we most clearly speak the hope of the resurrection, the truth of God’s power, the abundant life that is the Kingdom of God for all creation.<br />
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<em>Matt Schur</em><br />
<em>Our Saviour's Lutheran Church</em><br />
<em>Lincoln, NE</em>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-66567850498497667342012-04-08T21:15:00.004-05:002012-04-09T08:44:10.962-05:00Sermon for Easter Sunday, April 8 2012--"He Is Not Here!"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To begin the sermon time today, I showed a video called "Easter Is Coming!" Highly recommended. I've attached it below...under that, you'll find the actual sermon text:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.heqigallery.com/shop/heisnothere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.heqigallery.com/shop/heisnothere.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">He Is Not Here!</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=200937288" target="_blank">Mark 16:1-8</a></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Easter Sunday</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">April 8, 2012</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He is not here!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, this is where his body was laid, this is the tomb, this is where he was so carefully and lovingly placed three days ago after his horrible crucifixion, after the arrest and the kangaroo court trial and the beating and the spitting and the mocking and the crown of thorns and the long trip outside of town to be executed as a common criminal, surrounded by common criminals. I know those visions are still fresh in your minds, the pain is still fresh in your heart, and all you wanted to do was come and give his battered, decaying body some of the respect that it was denied in the awful way Jesus died. You are here to cleanse his body, to anoint him…and maybe in the process, to find some closure for yourselves.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But there is no closure needed, because he is not here!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Listen to me, and listen closely. You may think of this as a physical place where you’re looking for him, and it is, but it’s so much more than that. Your heart is expecting to find death. Your mind is expecting to find someone whose ideas, whose cause, whose being, was defeated once and for all by the power of the world—the military power of the Roman Empire and the religious power of the chief priests and the Sanhedrin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are expecting death to have the last word, because you yourselves experienced three days ago that might makes right. The world’s power, the power to kill that which is a threat, was proven in your eyes to be stronger than compassion. Your despair is so much stronger than any hope you might have had that this Jesus really was the Messiah, that he was the one anointed by God to bring healing and deliverance for his people. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So listen to me—he is not here!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He is not here in this place, in the expectation of death, in the limitations you have placed on him. Yes, Jesus encounters your death, Jesus encounters your fears, your despair, your hopelessness, but that’s not where he stays. That’s not where he keeps you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are some who would make Christian faith seem like an avoidance of the bad stuff—as though being a faithful follower of Christ means that things suddenly get easy, that it’s all sunshine and rainbows and that if you just believe hard enough and have enough faith, things will be just fine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You know better than that though, don’t you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ve seen stuff. You know the way the world works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ve seen pain and suffering and injustice, and sometimes the temptation is to let the pendulum swing the other direction, isn’t it? To wonder if God’s really there, or if God’s really listening, or if God really cares about what’s going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The echoes of Jesus’ quoting of Psalm 22 on the cross still ring in your heart—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” You’ve asked that question too, sometimes, haven’t you? Why did this happen? Why did my loved one die? Why is there so much suffering? Why? Why have you forsaken me, God?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You yourselves saw Jesus encounter death. You saw him enter into that same pain and suffering and forsakenness, you heard him ask that same question that you may have asked in those dark nights of the soul. But that’s not where he stayed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so that’s not where he is! He encounters the world’s brokenness, but he transforms it! From death into life, from pain into healing, from suffering into comfort, from forsakenness to relationship, from sin to forgiveness, from bondage to freedom, Jesus is alive and at work and is NOT ready to just leave you where you are, here at the tomb, looking for death, thinking that you’ve come to the end when what this is, is really the beginning.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He is not here!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He’s gone ahead of you, ahead into Galilee. I know this sounds strange, I know this is not at all what you expected, but God’s mission isn’t about your expectations. God’s life isn’t about dwelling in the deaths of the past. It’s about encountering the present, encountering the world, about being out and about where things are happening, where people are living and loving and hurting and dying and questioning and suffering, and he can’t stay here in this tomb because there’s already so many others who are walking around just like you are now, trapped in their own tombs of finitude and their expectations and what the world has told them about power and the way things are, and Jesus is already at work transforming those stories too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when he’s done there, he’s not going to stay there either!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s going to continue his work of transforming, of turning the Good Fridays of the world into Easter Sundays, until all the world knows and believes and experiences that Easter resurrection hope, the transformation of the cross into an empty tomb, the transformation of the world’s brokenness into wholeness, the transformation of all creation into that amazing feast of the victory of new life over sin and death and the devil. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He has taken your own sin—everything that you know about yourself, maybe even things that nobody else may know, and he took on the power that holds you captive to them. You are a child of God, and like a parent who sees their child in danger Jesus confronted that power head on. You’ve heard of the wrath of God—that wrath was not against you, but rather against that power that causes you, God’s children who God loves more than life itself, to suffer and die. Through the cross, God said, “ENOUGH! Sin, you have no more power here! Death, you will die! I will enter all of this, I will be a part of it, but I won’t leave it here!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a God of creation, a God of life and hope." The sin that has gripped the world may sweep Jesus to the cross, but that won’t be the end of the story. The story won’t be death, but a new creation!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so, he is not here!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, go! Go tell the others, and go to Galilee, where Jesus already is! And from there, go follow where he continues—go to the sick, and the poor, and the outcast, and the prisoners. Go to those enslaved by their possessions, in bondage to their expectations, held captive by the fear and hatred and shallowness that surrounds them, and tell them, he is not here! Be sent, so that through what you say and what you do, others are empowered to also be sent to go themselves, to find where Jesus already is, to enter with him into the world’s pain, and to be his hands and his feet in God’s amazing work of transformation and new life.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You are being invited into the story of the cross. The temptation will be strong to give into your fear, to not say anything, to allow all of the messages that the world tries to tell you about reality guide how you react to what I’m telling you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But look around this place. He is not here! He is out there! He has taken the world’s messages and has turned them upside down, he has taken the world’s ideas about power and turned them inside out, he has taken those who are outcast and brought them in, he has taken the broken and made them whole, and Jesus is calling you to go out! Go out beyond these walls, go out and be a part of what he’s already doing! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How will you respond? What difference will this make for you, not just in eternity, but today? Right now?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He is not here!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Matt Schur</span></i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church</span></i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-76557887679472921092012-03-29T10:13:00.000-05:002012-03-29T10:13:34.606-05:00Lenten midweek sermon from 3-28-12: "The Times, They Are A'Changin'"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://sustainabletraditions.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/semper-reformanda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" dea="true" height="198" src="http://sustainabletraditions.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/semper-reformanda.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong><em>The Times They Are A’Changin’</em>: God’s Call to Reformation</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=200033746" target="_blank">Isaiah 43:18-21</a></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><a href="http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-times-they-are-achangin-lyrics-bob-dylan.html" target="_blank">Song lyrics: <em>The Times They Are A'Changin'</em></a></strong></div><br />
About 13 years ago, my wife and I drove up to Duluth, MN for a concert. Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, together, outside, in a park right on the shore of Lake Superior. Beautiful venue, great concert. Bob Dylan was the closing act of the two. Duluth is his hometown, so when he came on stage, he pointed and said, “I grew up on that hill over there. It’s good to be home.” Then he launched into his first song, and that was the last time he spoke to the audience until almost near the end of his set. He said, “I’ve got a feeling that this next song is just as relevant now as when I wrote it.” And then he started the intro to the song we just heard, The Times They Are A’Changin.’ <br />
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Oh the times, they are a changin’. No kidding, Bob. The world around us, the thoughts, ideas, perceptions, the ways in which people relate to each other, the way information is distributed…we are living in a time that is vastly different from even just 20 years ago.<br />
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Yes, there is no doubt that the world is changing. In her book The Great Emergence, Phyllis Tickle’s theory is that every 500 years, there comes a gigantic shift in the way the world, and particularly religion, experiences reality. 500 years ago was the Protestant Reformation. 500 years before that was the great schism between the eastern and western Christian churches. 500 years before that was the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Dark Ages in Europe. And 500 years before that was the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. She senses that right now, we are in an age of transition, a time of shifting, a period of changing priorities and perspectives. It’s a time that she is calling “The Great Emergence.”<br />
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During our Wednesday Lenten services, we’re exploring the theme, “Listen, God is Calling!” Each week we’re exploring a different aspect of that call, through the lens of Scripture and in conversation with a pop song from the last 40 years. Last week we looked at God’s call to justice through the lens of the Bruce Hornsby and the Range song The Way It Is. Today, we listen for God’s call to reformation. <br />
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What are we emerging from? How are we being reformed, literally re-formed, formed again? How are we being transformed? Where is this emergence taking us as a society, as a church, as the people of God?<br />
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We’re Lutherans. Reformation is something we ought to get. It’s part of our DNA, part of our religious heritage, part of our tradition. When Martin Luther translated the Bible from Latin into German, he did so because he believed in the importance of the people being able to hear and read the gospel in their own language. We remember his contribution to theology, his insistence that we are saved by grace through faith, but just as important in many ways was his idea that you and I, the everyday common folks, should be able to experience the Word of God in our own context. That we ALL are part of the body of Christ, that we ALL serve as “little Christs” to one another, that we ALL make up a priesthood of all believers, not just the folks who wear the funny collars and go to seminary.<br />
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We now live in a world that is suspicious of the church, and of institutions in general. We live in a world that is divided, that is divisive. We live in a world where technology has both made communication more accessible and has made relationships more distant. We live in a world where people no longer just belong to the church that their parents did, or practice the same faith. It’s no longer enough to build a church and wait for people to come in. We live in a world where truth is questioned, where everything is relative, where folks claim to be spiritual but not religious, where the church is increasingly seen as an irrelevant dinosaur that is hopelessly behind the times and out of touch with the world’s needs.<br />
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It doesn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t be that way. The world may have changed, but the fundamental needs of people have not. And we, as people of faith, as those who follow Christ, we have what the world so desperately needs. The good news of the gospel has not changed. Our need for that good news has not changed. The brokenness of humanity, our broken relationships, our struggles with the powers of sin and pain and death, those things have not changed. Our need for grounding, our need for roots, our need for connection, our need for self-actualization, our need to be provided for physically…none of that has changed. <br />
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What has changed is what it looks like. What has changed is how those needs manifest themselves. <br />
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And so as the church, we also must change. <br />
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And that shouldn’t be scary for us, especially for those of us whose religious heritage is defined by reformation, by change. It’s not the gospel that’s changing, it’s not God’s Word or God’s message for us or God’s presence with us that changes, but rather it’s how we are taking that message to the world, it’s how we are following Christ to where Christ is at work, it’s how we respond to the new and different ways in which God is calling us to perceive God’s work in the world around us. <br />
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“I am about to do a new thing,” God says in our reading from Isaiah. “Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”<br />
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What are the new things we are being called to be a part of? What is it that’s springing forth in the lives we see around us? How are we being called not just to “go to church,” but to do church, to be church, to climb out of that fishbowl and actively engage the world? This call to reformation isn’t a call to change just for the sake of change. Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s automatically better or right, but by the same token, just because something is older doesn’t mean it’s automatically better or right, either. Theologian Jaraslov Pelikan once wrote that traditionalism is the dead faith of the living, but tradition is the living faith of the dead. Tradition helps keep us grounded, but when it ceases to be a tool for God’s mission and becomes a god unto itself simply for the sake of tradition, then it has lost its purpose. On the flip side of the coin, change helps us experience God in new ways and engage the world with fresh ideas, but change for the sake of change can also become its own god and lose its moorings, lose its foundation. We use words like “traditional” and “contemporary” as though they are at odds with one another, as though in order to be one way you cannot possibly be another way. It’s really our vocabulary and our orientation that needs to change. We can’t afford to spend time and energy arguing over styles or terminology, wanting things either the way we knew them when we were younger or changing just so that we can be more comfortable and fresh. Our focus must be outward. How does doing what we do serve the needs of the world around us? Are there things that we do that need to change in order to better meet those needs? Are there things that need to remain the same to best meet those needs? Are there things that have changed over time that need to change back to the way they once were to best meet those needs? How can we best proclaim the gospel through our words and our actions in a language people will hear and understand and respond to?<br />
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When I was in New Orleans in 2009 with our church youth for the National Youth Gathering, a street musician who I had befriended during our time there played a special thank you song for our group. It was actually another Bob Dylan song called Forever Young, a beautiful blessing. Before he sang it to us, he told us thanks for our time there, and for the work we had done both in service projects but also in bridge-building and healing post-Katrina through our loving attitudes. He said, “too often, church folk come to this city just to tell us we’re all going to hell. You guys came to help, you came to be with us and not against us—I’ve learned more about Jesus by watching you 37,000 Lutheran kids this week than from any fire and brimstone preacher I ever heard.”<br />
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And then he played his song for us, and for that moment we WERE the church, we were at worship, and God’s blessing was on that song as it became a hymn there on that street corner in the French Quarter. <br />
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This kind of stuff doesn’t just happen, it doesn’t occur in a vacuum. I’m not a fan of when people try to box things into nice neat steps or progressions, because very seldom does real life happen in that way. Life is generally messier than that. However, in our Lenten series this year, I sensed a sort of progression as I was putting things together. First was our call to repentance. We look in the mirror, we are honest with ourselves when it comes to our own brokenness. Then we examined God’s call to reconciliation, a re-joining of human relationships and our relationship with God that can only truly happen if we’ve been honest about the hurt and brokenness that we’ve been a part of and caused. Our next call from God that we looked at, the call to unity, is a recognition that we are all different, but united in a common call and mission from the God we love and serve. True unity cannot happen without repentance and reconciliation. Last week was God’s call to justice, which we as a church cannot follow without Christian unity and without recognizing our unity as humankind. And it is that call to justice, that call to help meet the deepest needs of a changing world, that brings us to God’s call to reformation. Our call to be re-formed, to be formed again as the church, to take the shape in which God is molding us to be God’s hands and feet in a world whose needs are the same, but for whom the way we engage those needs must be different.<br />
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We are living in exciting times! God is doing a new thing, re-shaping us for mission. Some things may look exactly the same, some things may look radically different, but when we step back and take a look at the overall shape of the church, something will become very apparent. <br />
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If we’re the ones who have done the shaping, the church will look just like us. It will be in our image, the way we want it, to serve our own needs.<br />
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If God’s the one who’s done the shaping, the church will look like the cross. It will be in the image of Jesus giving of himself in sacrificial love for the sake of the other.<br />
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<em><strong>Matt Schur</strong></em><br />
<em><strong>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church</strong></em><br />
<em><strong>Lincoln, NE</strong></em>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-40652893676398806202012-03-22T09:57:00.001-05:002015-01-19T23:13:43.394-06:00Lenten Midweek Sermon from 3-21-12: God's Call to Justice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong>God’s Call to Justice</strong></div>
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<strong><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/isaiah/passage.aspx?q=isaiah+58:1-12" target="_blank">Isaiah 58:1-12</a></strong></div>
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<strong>March 21, 2012</strong><br />
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<strong><a href="http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-way-it-is-lyrics-bruce-hornsby.html" target="_blank">Bruce Hornsby and the Range--<em>The Way It Is</em></a></strong></div>
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During our Wednesday Lenten services, we’re exploring the theme, “Listen, God is Calling!” Each week we’re exploring a different aspect of that call, through the lens of Scripture and in conversation with a pop song from the last 40 years. Last week we looked at God’s call to unity through the lens of U2’s song One. Today, we listen for God’s call to justice in conversation with Bruce Hornsby and the Range's "The Way It Is."<br />
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What does God’s call to justice look like? How does it affect us? Where does it hit us?<br />
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Our reading from Isaiah is one of my favorite passages of Scripture, yet at the same time it is an absolutely blistering indictment of a people whose main focus had become how religious they were. They kept the feasts and the fasts, made sure to observe all the high holy days and said the right things and sang the right songs and followed all of the religious rules and regulations and thought that therefore everything was just fine between them and God. Instead, God tells Isaiah to “announce to the people their rebellion.” Their rebellion, their sin, was not about neglecting to go to church, or following other religions, or questioning their faith, what we’d normally think of as “moral issues,” or any of the other reasons that might jump to our mind as to what God would consider rebellion. God’s problem with the people was that while on the one hand they were claiming to worship, on the other hand they were oppressing their workers, they weren't taking care of the poor and needy, and in fact were trampling on them to serve their own interests. For God, justice is the ultimate moral issue. <br />
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So then, what is justice in God’s eyes? When we hear the word “justice,” we often think of fairness—making things fair, equal. The Biblical idea of justice goes beyond that, though. Justice isn’t about making things fair as much as it’s about setting things right. God’s justice is rooted in love, and love isn’t fair. Love throws a party for the prodigal son who’s squandered the inheritance when he comes home, love leaves the 99 sheep to search for the one who is lost. Love speaks out, acts, pursues, in order to repair what is broken, restore what is lost, make right what has gone wrong.<br />
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God’s justice, a justice that is rooted in love, leads to the cross. It leads to the death of our old sin, and to the resurrection through baptism into the new life of the empty tomb. <br />
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The problem we often run into is that we set up this false divide between theology, worship, Scripture, “churchy stuff” on the one side, and “social justice” on the other side. The argument goes that you can be a faithful, Bible believing Christian who worships God, OR you can focus on matters of social justice and turn that into your gospel, losing sight of the cross. Isaiah 58 and many other passages of Scripture argue otherwise. Our faith is important to God. How we approach God, our relationship with God, how we read Scripture, how we worship, how we trust in God’s love and forgiveness and grace—all of that is important. But all of that serves to inform how we understand our relationships with each other, and forces us to ask the hard questions of whose voices aren’t being heard, where are we seeing oppression or discrimination or treatment that is less than what a fellow child of God deserves? When Jesus was asked about the most important commandment, his response in a nutshell was that there was not one, but two: love God and love people. And so we have Bible believing Christians, and we have Social Justice Christians, and where those two groups intersect…that’s where we find Jesus, doing God’s work through their hands and their feet and their hearts.<br />
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Our song today speaks of racial injustice, then in the chorus quotes an imaginary person just throwing in the towel on it all. “That’s just the way it is, some things will never change. That’s just the way it is.” But then the singer tells us, “Oh, but don’t you believe it.” <br />
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It is true that some things will never change. Human beings will always be sinners. We will always naturally be curved in on ourselves. We will always be in need of forgiveness and grace. We will always need the cross. But these sinful systems, these sinful structures, these ways of dealing with those who are different or less powerful than us, these things that we have constructed, these can change. And our call from God is to keep our eyes open, to keep our ears open, to keep our hearts open so that we can see where people are being oppressed, where people are being denied their rights, where the fact that we were all created in God’s image is not being honored and valued and celebrated. <br />
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And that doesn’t just happen on the other side of the world. It doesn't just happen in other parts of the country. It happens right here, in Nebraska, in Lincoln, in our own backyard. Our brothers and sisters who are gay or lesbian. Our brothers and sisters who are illegal or undocumented immigrants. Our brothers and sisters whose skin is a different color than us. Our brothers and sisters who are of a different religion than us, or of no religion at all. Our brothers and sisters who are unemployed or homeless. Our brothers and sisters who are sex offenders or convicted criminals. Our brothers and sisters who are addicted to alcohol or other drugs.<br />
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Yes, some of these things people were born with and they can’t do anything about it, and other things are the result of choices, but in God’s eyes is there really a difference? Does it really matter? In Isaiah, are we told to bring justice only for those who deserve it in our eyes? No. God’s call to us, flat out, is “for goodness sakes people, just take care of each other.” <br />
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These are some pretty hot-button issues I brought up, and I recognize that. It’s not my place to tell you what conclusions are the right ones—goodness knows that faithful Christians come down on different sides of all sorts of issues. What IS important to hear, however, is that God cares about HOW we’re coming to those conclusions. Do we approach these kinds of questions in faithfulness, or in fear? Do we look at each other with openness or with prejudice? Do we use our religious systems and structures, its rules and norms, as an excuse for justifying our own injustices, or are they spiritual practices and tools to draw us closer to God and to one another?<br />
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These big systems, these big institutions, these ways that society has constructed itself to marginalize and oppress certain groups CAN change. It begins with us, with our own attitudes, with our own small day to day decisions. It continues when those of us who were dealt the random card of privilege choose to use our voices to speak out for those whose voice is not heard, and continues further when we begin to work to allow those voices to be heard. It’s not about being embarrassed or ashamed for what we have, but rather about making a conscious choice to use those resources—whether they be money, power, voice, time, energy, skills, or anything else—for the sake of those who do not have them.<br />
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God’s justice, rooted in love, active in our lives.<br />
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<em>Matt Schur</em><br />
<em>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church</em><br />
<em>Lincoln, NE</em>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-75228405068056897852012-03-21T17:08:00.000-05:002012-03-21T17:08:57.876-05:00The Hope That Is In You: sermon from 5-29-11<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Eg0IVmBmJX4/TlhKYzMp1vI/AAAAAAAAFAQ/PDbTmUeMH6Q/s1600/30+Before+30+-+Anna+Karenina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Eg0IVmBmJX4/TlhKYzMp1vI/AAAAAAAAFAQ/PDbTmUeMH6Q/s320/30+Before+30+-+Anna+Karenina.jpg" width="193" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>The Hope That Is In You</strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/1-peter/passage.aspx?q=1-peter+3:13-22" target="_blank">1 Peter 3:13-22</a></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>May 28-29, 2011</strong></div><br />
When I was a high school senior, I took Advanced Placement English from Mrs. Wolford at Bellevue West High School. Mrs. Wolford was one of the best teachers I ever had in school—she had a way of opening up literature that helped us better understand the world around us, and pushed and prodded us to become the best writers we could be. Throughout the year, we learned about all the various literary devices, major literary themes, symbolism—you name it, we covered it in detail. By the end of the year, when we had this box of tools at our disposal, an assignment would consist of reading a poem or short passage of prose, with the instructions, “explicate and analyze.” That was it. We were then responsible for closely reading and analyzing whatever the assigned passage had been, and discerning both its meaning and relevance.<br />
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Today, I want to do something similar with one sentence from our second reading. 1 Peter 3:15-16 says, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” This single, simple sentence from 1 Peter really gets to the heart of our calling to be bearers of the good news of God in Christ to the world, and deserves our attention, especially in a world that increasingly is convinced that the church has very little to say to it anymore. So, in honor of Mrs. Wolford, let’s explicate and analyze.<br />
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First, it begins with “always be ready.” Think for a moment—if someone were to walk up to you and say, “I noticed you went to church. What do you believe, why do you believe it, and what difference does it make in the world?” what would your answer be? What DO we believe? Well, we have these creeds that we say most weeks in church—a creed is a statement of belief. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and so forth. That’s a good start…but what do we mean exactly when we say these things, when we recite these words. Are they just words, or have we spent time studying them, wrestling with them, thinking about what they say and what we mean when we recite them? That was a concern Martin Luther shared, and is why he wrote the Small Catechism, which has short, clear explanations of the 10 commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion. His idea behind writing it was to provide parents a way to help their children learn about their faith at home. What would happen if families looked at the small Catechism together, and asked themselves together, “what does this mean?” One exercise I’ve seen suggested, and I’ve seen done sometimes in Confirmation programs, is to write your own creed. What’s important to you about your faith? How would you articulate that? <br />
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The second part of always being ready is to consider the question “why do I believe what I believe?” Is this something the Bible tells me? Is it something society tells me? Have I learned this through experience? Was it some combination of factors? How did I come to these conclusions? As Lutherans, while we value personal experience and traditions, ultimately it is the Word of God that is our basis. We also believe, though, that the Word of God first and foremost is the Living Word—Jesus Christ. You remember the beginning of the Gospel according to John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was WITH God, and the Word WAS God.” Jesus himself is the living Word who speaks to us in our situation today, and so when we approach the written word, the Bible, we do so through Jesus-colored and cross-shaped glasses. We filter, we interpret, through the lens of Christ crucified and risen. And so it is in our confrontation with the Living Word through the written word that we wrestle with why we believe what we believe. <br />
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“Hold on a second. This sounds like work!” You’d better believe it is…but if we’re going to address the third part of always being ready, our faith making a difference in the world, then we need to personally spend time wrestling in the messiness of those first two questions. Only when we have an idea of what we believe and why we believe it can it make any difference in the world—either in our lives or in anyone else’s. Wrestling with our faith in this way is a messy process, but then again, isn’t life messy? Isn’t the world messy? How can our faith even begin to speak to our lives outside of the four walls of the church building if we haven’t engaged it? So this third part is the “so what.” So you believe certain things about God, and so you have an idea of why you believe those things, but now what? What difference does it make? Is it a matter of factual knowledge that you can file away in your “church compartment” and go on living real life somewhere else? Or does it matter? How does it matter that God created the world and all in it? How does that color how we see creation? How we see others, even those who we disagree with or who hate us? How does it matter that Jesus was fully divine and fully human—that he died on the cross and rose? How does it matter that the Holy Spirit is active and at work in the world today? All of Jesus’ teachings, all of what Paul and others wrote in the New Testament on our Christian life and relationships with God and each other—how do all of those things relate with each other and make a difference in how I see and act in the world?<br />
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So we know we’ve got to always be ready to make a defense to someone who demands an accounting for the…what? Hope. All of this study and introspection that we’ve done sort of leads to a forming of our personal theology. Theology comes from two greek words: theos and logos: theos is God and logos is word. So all theology is, is “God-words.” We’ve come up with some words about God, but those words are not there simply for their own sake. These aren’t just intellectual exercises. Our theology, our God –words, point to hope. The writer of 1 Peter understands that we’re Christians because of the “hope that is within us.” The gospel, the good news, the message of Christ is one of hope. God created the world. God loves the world SO much, that Jesus lived, died, and rose so that sin and death might be defeated and all of creation might be reconciled to God. We live in a now-but-not-yet world, where we still experience pain and death and the consequence of sin and our brokenness, but also live in the promise of the hope of the New Jerusalem. God is even now making all things new, and every act of mercy and justice and mission that we undertake is a foretaste of the feast to come of that final time. Every time we gather around the communion table we both remember Christ’s death and resurrection, and anticipate the great feast at the end of time when death and pain and tears will be no more. Our God words are words of hope, and our call is to share that hope with the world around us through what we say and what we do.<br />
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How then, do we do this? First of all, with gentleness. The root of the greek word here is the same one Jesus uses in Matthew 5:5 when he says “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” We associate meekness with allowing yourself to be a doormat for whatever anyone else wants to say or do, but what the greek is getting at is more of a sense of a gentleness of spirit. How often over time has the Bible, or the gospel message itself, been used as a weapon to assert power or authority instead of being used to convey the message of hope in Christ? How does this happen? <br />
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We forget the double meaning of hope. First, hope is something we want to have happen. Hope is a good thing. And the message of hope we find in the cross is the message that even when there was nothing that we ourselves could do to climb up the ladder to God, God came to us. God still comes to us. I’m sure many of you have seen the diagram showing two cliffs—us on one side, God on the other, and a great chasm representing our sin in the middle. Then a cross is drawn in the middle, showing that through the cross, that gap has been bridged. The problem with that diagram is that even with the cross bridging the gap for us, we’re still powerless to walk across on our own to God. The cross isn’t our pathway to God, the cross is God’s pathway to us. This is good news for the whole world! So then why doesn’t the world hear it as the good news it is? It’s because we often tie up our gift of hope with strings of condemnation and fear. We turn the God who has invited us all to the party into the heavenly bouncer trying to keep out the undesirables. <br />
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The other aspect of hope is that we often confuse hope with knowledge. We can be confident in our hope in Christ, we can have a confident faith, and the church is at its best when it’s active in ministry throughout the world, compelled by that confident faith and hope. But faith, hope, by their very definitions are things you can’t prove. We can become so sure of ourselves, so sure that we believe the right things, that our interpretation of the Bible and of who God is, is the right and only way to see it, that we lose the humility that naturally comes with faith. We replace faith and trust with knowledge. One of my favorite sayings is that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt—it’s certainty. Or knowledge. When we confuse ourselves is when mission and the good news both to each other and the outside world is sacrificed on the altar of being right. That’s not to say that what we believe isn’t important—but we must always deliver our message of hope with the gentleness and humility that comes from faith.<br />
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Finally, the good news is a message we speak with reverence. We think God’s message of hope is SO important, SO holy, such good news for the world that we do everything in our power to not allow our words and actions to get in the way of that message. If we preach forgiveness, but harbor grudges in our hearts, we are not treating our message with reverence. If we preach grace, but place strings on others, we’re not treating our message with reverence. If we preach Jesus and the cross but live as though there was no empty Easter tomb, then why should the world listen to anything we say? The way we go about loving either fully or with strings attached, disagreeing with one another either with respect or contempt, speaks volumes about what we really think about those things we say are important to us. The gospel is the most important message anyone will ever hear, whether it’s spoken or seen. How many people out there don’t follow Christ because of experiences they’ve had with the church? Or because the message they’ve heard or seen has not been the gospel of hope? Reverence here simply means respecting the gospel so much that we try as hard as we can not to obscure it for others with our own sinfulness.<br />
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Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Explicated and analyzed. Mrs. Wolford, I hope you approve. <br />
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<em>Matt Schur</em><br />
<em>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church</em><br />
<em>Lincoln, NE</em>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-59069069088471145612012-03-19T06:27:00.002-05:002012-03-19T08:27:21.216-05:00Sermon for March 17-18: Grace, Works, and Poopy Treats<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">(My seminary classmates and those who have read this blog in the past may recognize the "nightlight" story...this was the first time my congregation had heard it, though...)</span></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.catchingfireflies.com/product_images/s/145/hdb02reg__61440_std.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://www.catchingfireflies.com/product_images/s/145/hdb02reg__61440_std.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong><em><span style="font-family: inherit;">Grace, Works, and Poopy Treats<o:p></o:p></span></em></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/ephesians/passage.aspx?q=ephesians+2:1-10" target="_blank">Ephesians2:1-10</a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">March 17-18, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kiddo and Pumpkin <em>(names changed for the internet)</em> are a little older now, but in reflecting on the passage from Ephesians, I found myself thinking back to when each of them was two years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Which makes sense, because this passage says a lot about grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there’s not a lot of grace involved when you live with a 2 year old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These are all sentences Sweetie<em> (name changed for the internet</em>) and I actually found ourselves saying word for word at some point:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“IF you eat your supper, THEN you can have pudding.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“IF you put away your toys, THEN you can watch Dora the Explorer.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“IF you go poopy on the potty, THEN you can have a poopy treat.” You know those little Smarties candies? Perfect incentive to get kids to go potty when and where they’re supposed to. AND…unlike M&M’s, they’re also transportable in a purse or pocket without melting, even in the middle of the summer. If you get nothing else out of today’s sermon, you at least now have my one parenting tip. </span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">At any rate, life with a 2 year old is a lot of IF/THEN…because it has to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>IF you’re good enough, THEN you get rewarded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2 year olds understand works righteousness very well.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the other hand, moments of grace do come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ever since the kids have been able to sleep through the night, it has been my job when they do wake up at night to go to their room and comfort them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the interest of full disclosure…the reason I’m the one who gets up has more to do with common sense than <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>chivalry or anything like that—I am just a much lighter sleeper than Sweetie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When one of the kids makes noise, I’m going to wake up either way, so it makes more sense for only one person to wake up than both of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Not long after Kiddo had turned two, he had started waking up with night terrors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was completely normal for his age, but when you are woken up at 3 in the morning by the most inhuman screaming, it can be a bit disconcerting, to say the least.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it first started, we got him a nightlight, and made a really big deal about how he has a “special light” in his room so he can see that there’s nothing to be afraid of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that, when the night terrors came, I’d go into his room, sit down next to his bed, rub his back and help settle him down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we’d talk about his special light and how he doesn’t have to be scared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d ask him, “does mommy have a special light?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">"No.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Does daddy have a special light?” </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">"No, only Kiddo.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s right, only Kiddo has a special light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So you don’t have to be scared.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Don’t ask me why that made sense, but for some reason it was a big comfort to his 2 year old mind.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then, usually, he’d be comforted enough to lay back down and go to sleep.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">After he had had the nightlight for a couple of weeks, I was pretty proud of how well our discussions about the nightlight were working in helping him go back to sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So one night, I decided to take the discussion one step further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We went through our usual litany, and then I asked him another question, to see how well he understood what we were talking about: “so why doesn’t Kiddo have to be scared?”</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">His answer?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Because Daddy comes.”</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">The “Theology of the Nightlight” isn’t what mattered to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What mattered was that in the middle of the night, daddy comes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Daddy doesn’t come because Kiddo ate his dinner or because he put away his toys or because he went poopy in the potty—Daddy just comes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Kiddo is so terrified that all he can do is cry out, he knows that Daddy comes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theology</i> behind justification isn’t what matters to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What matters is that in the middle of the darkness of our sin, our heavenly daddy comes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He came to us in the manger at Bethlehem, he came to us on the cross at Calvary and in the empty tomb, and he comes to us today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God doesn’t come to us because of anything we’ve done, God just comes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we’re so terrified, when we’re so lost, when we’re so dead in our sin that all we can do is cry out, we know God comes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is faith. Faith isn’t understanding and agreeing to a set of propositions. Faith is simply trust. </span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The good news of the gospel is that you are not alone. The good news of the gospel is that it’s not up to you to get it all right, it’s not up to you to make yourself acceptable to God, it’s not even up to you to believe the right things to complete some magical formula to get God to save you. The good news of the gospel is that God has already saved you…if we were to translate the Greek literally in Ephesians 2:8 it would say, “by grace you have been <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and continue to be</i> saved.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is something that has already happened for you, but it’s also something that is continuing in your present reality and will extend into your future. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And it’s not because of anything you’ve done. Good OR bad.</i></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">In Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible called <em>The Message, </em>he describes the word “grace” as “surprise love gift.” Grace is a surprise—it’s not anything we expect. The way of the world teaches us that we ought to get what’s coming to us (good OR bad), or that we reap what we sow (good OR bad). God’s grace works backwards from what the world teaches us. Grace is a surprise to us because we DON’T get what’s coming to us, what we deserve. Instead of condemnation, we receive forgiveness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of death, we receive new life. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Grace is love—our Gospel reading today includes what is probably the most well-known verse out of the entire Bible: “for God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God’s grace is love. It is love in action.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">And grace is a gift. As we’ve heard in Ephesians, it’s not something we earn. It’s not the result of what we do. It’s a free gift from God. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We have been saved…by grace…through faith. And it’s not because of anything we’ve done. BUT…if that’s where we stop, we’ve missed the whole point. </span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Listen closely, because this is the main point not only of the sermon, but of our entire existence. We’re not saved BY good works, but we were created FOR good works. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In Richard Stearns’ book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hole In Our Gospel, </i>he writes about what he calls “The Great Omission.” His point was that we’ve taken God’s message of grace and love and have made it far too much about ourselves. About who we are as individuals. It’s too much of “me and God.” Now don’t get me wrong. That’s important. Faith is relationship, it’s trust, it is about me and God…but that’s not the finish line. That’s not where it ends. That's actually where it begins. It's just the starting point. The final end point of my faith is not me. It’s about being able to serve my neighbor. It’s about doing good works. It’s about saving me from my slavery to myself, to needing for it to be all about me, in order that I may turn my focus outward. </span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that has been the Great Omission too often in the church. We’ve created this false divide, saying that the gospel is either about my own personal salvation, or it’s about bringing about the kingdom of God through acts of social justice. The reality, according to Ephesians, is that what we’re dealing with is a both/and situation, not an either/or. Verses 8 and 9 are often quoted, and for good reason, but look for a moment at verse 10. “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is how we were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">created </i>to live. This is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">who we are.</i></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">How many of you have ever been on a mission trip or work trip?</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How many of you have ever volunteered for a helping group or organization?</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">How many of you have ever helped someone who needed it?</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When you did those things, how did it make you feel?</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">I realize that the purpose of our lives isn’t to feel good, but I would argue that the reason helping others is so fulfilling, so deeply enriching to our lives, is because when we do it, we are most fully living out who God created us to be. Seriously—there’s no feeling in the world like being able to walk away knowing that in some way, even if it’s a small way, you’ve made a difference in the life of someone else. As Lutherans, especially, it’s easy to fall into the trap of being so afraid of thinking that we’re justified by good works that we forget to actually do any.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My friends, you have been saved! You have been freed from having to live up to any standard, any measuring stick. This is a gift! The gift is FOR you, but it doesn’t end WITH you…you have been set free as a surprise love gift to live into who you were created to be, to live a life of good works.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that’s better than a poopy treat any day.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></span></i></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lincoln, NE</span></i></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-18894869267332427882012-03-15T08:06:00.002-05:002012-03-15T08:30:55.588-05:00Lenten midweek sermon from 3-14-12: "We're One, but we're not the same..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi72EidIDKphq5QyWxcFMUYwFZt835YoVrr9VLfmrvXP9JGoAww7PDxZTye3bY7BcZFaTusO2jOP43Rnl0ZPOiY_9qovGnI7wALKyX_ePOL05jQTkdZL6IVLDlkkAL53jwtxgKYiw/s1600/one-love-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi72EidIDKphq5QyWxcFMUYwFZt835YoVrr9VLfmrvXP9JGoAww7PDxZTye3bY7BcZFaTusO2jOP43Rnl0ZPOiY_9qovGnI7wALKyX_ePOL05jQTkdZL6IVLDlkkAL53jwtxgKYiw/s320/one-love-3.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“We’re One, but we’re not the same…”</span></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">God’s Call to Unity</span></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">March 14, 2012</span></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=198816491" target="_blank">John 17:17-23</a></span></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What does unity mean? What does it mean to be united? Does it mean complete agreement? Does it mean complete uniformity? Does it mean two people, two entities, two groups, losing their separate identities and becoming one new thing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does it mean that we look the same, think the same, act the same, and believe the same?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During our Wednesday Lenten services, we’re exploring the theme, “Listen, God is Calling!” Each week we’re exploring a different aspect of that call, through the lens of Scripture and in conversation with a pop song from the last 40 years. Last week we looked at God’s call to reconciliation through the lens of Mike and the Mechanics’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Living Years</i>. Today, we listen for God’s call to unity. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other,” is how the song <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One </i>by the group U2 closes. We’re one, but we’re not the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That sounds nice and all, but how does that square with the Biblical concept of what it means to be united?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What does it have to do with God’s call to unity?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are a number of different Scripture passages that deal with this question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may be familiar with 1 Cor. 12, which compares the church as the body of Christ to the parts of a real human body…we’re all one body, made up of different parts, all of which need each other. Ephesians 4 reads, in part, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is one body and one Spirit-just as you were called to one hope when you were called- <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one Lord, one faith, one baptism; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (vv.3-6)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Philippians 2:2 encourages us to have “the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could have heard any of those passages and gotten a good picture of what God’s idea of unity is.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Scripture passage we heard, however, takes a little different direction than the others, and in doing so, is able to dive even deeper into God’s call to unity. First of all, we see that it is indeed a calling, that it is something Jesus specifically prays for on our behalf. He first makes it clear that while he’s praying for the disciples, he’s also praying for us. For you and me and all of us who have followed or will ever follow him. He says in verse 20, “I ask not only on behalf of these [the disciples], but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word…” That’s all of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the church throughout time across the world. And what is it he asks? He prays to God in verse 21 that “they may all be one.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jesus wants his followers to be one. Jesus prays for unity on our behalf. So then, the question becomes, what does this unity look like? Go back to the questions we asked right at the beginning. Is Jesus asking us to look the same, think the same, believe the same, act the same?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t think so. And the reason for that is that Jesus himself goes on to explain what a picture of this sort of unity would look like. The second part of verse 21 reads, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He continues in verses 22 and 23, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jesus wants our relationships with each other to look like God’s own Trinitarian relationship. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Think about that. We worship one God. In our creeds, in our teaching, in our hymns, we have taken great pains to explain that although the God we worship is found in three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier—we do not worship three Gods. We worship one. We worship a God whose nature we claim to be diversity in unity.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Turn with me to page 54 in the Lutheran Book of Worship. There you’ll find the <a href="http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Statements-of-Belief/The-Athanasian-Creed.aspx" target="_blank">Athanasian Creed</a>, one of the three major creeds of the Christian church. We say the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed quite a bit…not too often that we recite this one together. Confirmation students—be thankful we’re not memorizing this!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as you look through it, you’ll notice that it’s all about the Holy Trinity. It’s all about what it means to say that God is three persons but one God. It’s all about what it means to understand complete and perfect unity in the midst of diversity. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We are united not through losing our identity, but like the unity of God, through a bond of self-giving love.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Or, as Bono sings in the song <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One, </i>“We’re one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So what does this say about our own unity? First, unity does not mean giving up one’s individuality, one’s personhood. When I was a teenager, there was a show on TV called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Trek: The Next Generation.</i> On the show, there was an entity called The Borg. The Borg was a collective made up of countless individuals, but each of those individuals had given up their identity, had given up their individual thought and desire and saw themselves only as part of the whole. The Borg’s mantra was “Prepare to assimilate. Resistance is futile.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are those who see Christianity as a version of The Borg. Prepare to assimilate—resistance is futile. Check your brains, your thoughts, your individual needs and fears and desires and experiences—just check them at the door. There is only one right way to think, only one right way to believe, only one right way to live, and we who are already part of The Borg Church will tell you what that is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to be a good Christian you must think a certain way politically. You must believe a certain way about certain social issues. You must understand these sets of doctrines in this certain way. You must worship in this way.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No. That’s not who we are. That’s not the way we’re called to be. We don’t find our unity in traditions or customs, we don’t find it in what we say or how we look or any of that surface, outside stuff. We find unity in self-giving love for each other that can’t help but overflow into the world. There are Christian groups who believe different things than us about God, or worship in a different style. Our call to unity doesn’t mean giving up those unique ways in which we experience God’s presence and activity in our lives. It does mean finding with others what one my seminary professors calls “a fusion of horizions.” We see things one way, others see things in a different way—are there places where our separate visions intersect? Is it possible for different denominations to work together to eradicate world hunger? You bet it is…and not only is it possible, it is our calling. Up in Minot North Dakota where a number of folks from our congregation will be traveling, it was different church bodies who got together and built Hope Village, where anyone who wants to come and help with the flood cleanup can stay while they serve. We have ecumenical partners with The Feast and Bridges to Hope. Our helpers and friends at The Table are an extremely diverse group.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And why is this important? Because our unity, finding that fusion of horizions, finding that singular purpose through self-giving love even while maintaining our identity, is our witness to the world. It is, as Jesus says in verse 23, “so that the world may know you have sent me.” Our unity is to mirror God’s unity so that through our unity, through our purpose, through our self-giving love, we point to God without even saying a word. We may not agree on some things, we may not agree on many things, but how can we love? How can we serve? How can we be in relationship in other ways? Those are the questions we’re called to ask.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our song outlines two ways in which we can respond to differences, two ways in which the church historically has responded. Either in fear, or in working toward unity in diversity. Earlier in the song, he sings:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Did I ask too much?<br />
More than a lot.<br />
You gave me nothing,<br />
Now it's all I got<br />
We're one<br />
But we're not the same<br />
See we<br />
Hurt each other<br />
Then we do it again<br />
You say<br />
Love is a temple<br />
Love a higher law<br />
Love is a temple<br />
Love is a higher law<br />
You ask me to enter<br />
But then you make me crawl<br />
And I can't keep holding on<br />
To what you got<br />
When all you've got is hurt</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We can respond to our differences in hurtful ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Throughout history and still today, the church has been guilty of doing that both within itself and with the world in general. There are many whose experience with the church has been “You ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl, and I can’t keep holding on to what you got when all you’ve got is hurt.” When we don’t allow for questions, for differences, when we try to force a false unity that is really conformity, we hurt. We destroy. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the end of the song echoes Jesus’ prayer in John 17. It is our call. A call to find our unity in living, giving, serving and loving. To find our unity as forgiven and loved Children of God at the foot of the cross.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One love<br />
One blood<br />
One life<br />
You got to do what you should<br />
One life<br />
With each other<br />
Sisters, brothers<br />
One life<br />
But we're not the same<br />
We get to<br />
Carry each other<br />
Carry each other<br />
One...</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">May we be one as God is one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Amen.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Matt Schur</span></i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church</span></i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-46874834579621180072012-03-13T21:42:00.000-05:002012-03-13T21:42:27.833-05:00Sermon from 10-1-2011: "We're on a mission...from God!"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgDVsjOzOV3wJapQHDipSpJNDkeh_-hs8bRQb7-LNU0RkHTYOajrrPeBh3K_jby1-XMV-YFD9wCytSoh-5T3y8mI_TjyASDTZYoMzTqsUNZ5WLUqF_4pY5WJO3kwGXz4Bm9WH/s1600/Picture+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgDVsjOzOV3wJapQHDipSpJNDkeh_-hs8bRQb7-LNU0RkHTYOajrrPeBh3K_jby1-XMV-YFD9wCytSoh-5T3y8mI_TjyASDTZYoMzTqsUNZ5WLUqF_4pY5WJO3kwGXz4Bm9WH/s320/Picture+4.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em>We’re On a Mission…From God!</em></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=198692738" target="_blank">Matthew 21:33-46</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">October 1-2, 2011</div><br />
Who has seen the classic movie, The Blues Brothers? Jake and Elwood Blues travel around, wearing cool black suits and hats and sunglasses, trying to find all the members of their old blues band in an attempt to raise money to save a Catholic orphanage. Remember their classic tagline? “We’re on a mission…from God.”<br />
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We’re on a mission…from God. There’s some good theology to be found in there. God is on a mission, a mission of healing, reconciliation, and redemption. It’s a mission that began with the creation of the world, when God declared all of creation good. It’s a mission that continued through Eden, and through the flood. It continued through God’s covenant with Abraham that through him and his descendants, all the world would be blessed. It continued through Egypt, the wilderness, and the Promised Land. It continued through the prophets, the judges and kings, through a manger and stable, teachings, healings, a cross and an empty tomb. After Christ’s time on earth, it’s a mission that the church became a part of, and still today we’re called to participate in God’s restoration of all things. We’re called to be a part of making all things new, of being a blessing for all the world. <br />
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The ten-dollar Latin theological term for this is Missio Dei. Missio is mission, and Dei is God. But notice how it’s phrased. Missio Dei. The mission of God. God’s mission. The mission does not belong to the church. We do not direct the mission, we don’t decide who it’s for, where it goes, or even how it’s lived. Mission belongs to God, and God invites us to be a part of it. But here’s the kicker. <strong>God’s mission doesn’t need the church. The church needs God’s mission. </strong><br />
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Today’s Gospel reading is a stark reminder of that reality. This is a passage that has been very unfortunately used throughout the years to justify anti-Semitism, and on the surface we can see how easy it would be for someone to get there. Jesus tells a story about a landowner whose tenants keep beating up the slaves he sends to collect the produce. Finally, he decides to send his son, thinking “surely they’ll leave my son alone.” But the tenants kill the son, hoping somehow to get the son’s inheritance. I’m honestly not sure how they thought THAT would happen. In the context of when Jesus tells the story, it’s obvious that the Pharisees he’s telling the story to are supposed to be the tenants, and Jesus himself is the son of the landowner, God. But let’s look at this story through a different set of lenses for a moment, because I think it absolutely has something to say to the church today. <br />
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Look with me for a moment at verse 43: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” If we put ourselves in the place of the Pharisees, what does this say to us about our participation in God’s mission on earth? <strong>God’s mission doesn’t need the church, the church needs God’s mission.</strong> And if we as the church choose not to participate with God in God’s mission of healing, restoration, forgiveness, and redemption for all creation, God will find others who will.<br />
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As we stand here not far into the 21st century, we look around us in the United States and in the Western Hemisphere in general, and we see a church in decline. Membership in mainline denominations have been falling across the board. Budgets are being cut, programs are disappearing, and many are asking themselves what happened to the church that for so long was the center of American society.<br />
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Different people have offered different answers to that question, but I think today’s gospel lesson gives us a pretty good answer. Jesus was speaking to people who looked back to the promises given to them through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They leaned on those promises, promises that they were a chosen people, that they had a blessing of land, that the world would be blessed through them. Their faith life was inseparable from their public and private lives—the synagogue and temple were not just prominent parts of their society, but were the center of their society. <br />
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The danger of this, of remembering one is chosen, of living in a society where the church (or synagogue) holds a central place, is that it becomes easy to rest on one’s laurels. Like a highly ranked football team who reads in the papers about how good they are, the danger becomes that they decide to just show up and forget there’s a game to be played. The church becomes fat and lazy, and develops a sense of entitlement. Instead of being a part of God’s promise to bless the world, we expect the world to bless us, and get upset and huffy when the world doesn’t do that. <br />
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But the reality is that <strong>God’s mission doesn’t need the church, the church needs God’s mission.</strong><br />
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The church is no longer the center of American society. I don’t have to quote the statistics for us to recognize that that is the case. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. The race that Paul speaks of in his letter to the Philippians, the prize of the heavenly call in Christ Jesus isn’t one that moves toward the comfortable center of society. The heavenly call is one that calls us out, rouses us from our comfort zones, compels us to go to the edges, to the need, to the darkness and the brokenness and the sin and grime and muck of the world. Our faith is a faith of the edges, our mission is a call to the edge. When Christianity becomes cultural, it becomes domesticated. It becomes tamed, safe. Power and influence tend to do that to anyone. Rather than following the call to mission for the sake of the call to mission, we ask ourselves how our decisions will affect our ability to hold on to the power and influence we have. On the other hand, when Christianity is counter-cultural, it is free to become that prophetic voice, that prophetic presence, the voice speaking uncomfortable truths and being present with the marginalized of society, or in other words, living its life much like Jesus lived his.<br />
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So what does Jesus mean when he says the Kingdom of God will be taken away? First, it’s important to say right up front that we’re not talking about salvation here. Our salvation is not based on what we do or how we live, it is a free gift that comes to us by and through faith. Jesus isn’t talking about heaven, and neither is Paul when he writes about the “heavenly call.” This isn’t a call TO heaven, a call that says there’ll be pie in the sky in the sweet by and by and so I don’t have to worry about this world or the people or things in it. This is a call that comes to us FROM heaven, from God. For Jesus, the Kingdom of God is in the here and now. It’s what we experience and what we live in when we love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, feed the hungry, heal the sick, and care for the poor. It’s a kingdom that was ushered in through the cross and the empty tomb, a kingdom that will not be fully realized until the end of time, but a kingdom that we catch glimpses of and live in when we follow God’s call to us to participate in God’s mission.<br />
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<strong>God’s mission doesn’t need the church, the church needs God’s mission.</strong><br />
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The Bible speaks of the church as the Body of Christ. If the church really is the body of Christ, the hands, head, eyes, ears, and feet of Christ, then when we decide not to follow the heavenly call, when we decide not to participate in the Missio Dei, when we decide that being comfortable and holding on to power and influence are more important than being a blessing to the world, then we are not being the church. And we’re not living in the Kingdom of God, that kingdom of costly service and self-emptying love.<br />
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My friends, we ARE on a mission…from God! The mission is not our own, it is not of our choosing or direction, but it is one that we have been called to participate in. We must always be asking ourselves, are we going about God’s business of blessing the world, or are we waiting for the world to bless us? In our baptism service, we say that baptism is both a promise and a call—on the one hand, we can rest securely, assured of our promise of salvation. But on the other hand, at the same time we’re called out beyond ourselves. Jesus tells the church to take up its cross and follow him, and there’s nothing about the cross to suggest that the way of following Christ is easy or popular. Where are we, as individuals, as a congregation, as Lutherans, and as the whole worldwide Christian church, following God’s call to mission? Where have our desire for comfort, influence or power clouded our call? As a church whose very heritage comes from the process of reformation, may we always be asking ourselves those questions, always looking for those ways in which God is looking to reform us, to literally RE-form, reshape, form us again into something new, for the sake of God’s mission.<br />
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Amen.<br />
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<em><strong>Matt Schur</strong></em><br />
<em><strong>Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church</strong></em><br />
<em><strong>Lincoln, NE</strong></em>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-55552140184469699992012-03-12T22:18:00.003-05:002012-03-12T22:22:53.931-05:00Sermon from November 26-27, 2011: It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/R.E.M._-_It's_the_End_of_the_World_as_We_Know_It_(And_I_Feel_Fine)_(United_States).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="299" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/R.E.M._-_It's_the_End_of_the_World_as_We_Know_It_(And_I_Feel_Fine)_(United_States).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Advent 1B—</span><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=198608563" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mark 13:24-37<o:p></o:p></span></a></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">November 26-27, 2011<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here we are in the first week of the season of Advent, the beginning of the church year…who knows what the word “advent” literally means?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Advent comes from a Latin word, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">adventus</i>, which means “coming.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christ is coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We look forward to Christmas as we await the coming of Christ into the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But there’s a deeper meaning there as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may be wondering why, if we’re supposed to be looking ahead toward a baby’s birth, we’ve been given this Gospel reading that talks about things like suffering and the Son of Man coming on the clouds and the passing away of heaven and earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is apocalyptic stuff—it sounds scary, literally earth-shattering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What in the world does this have to do with getting ready for babies and Bethlehem and farm animals and kids dressed up in bathrobes singing “The First Noel?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, that Latin word, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Adventus, </i>is also the Latin translation of a Greek word, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">parousia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parousia </i>is the ten-dollar word theologians use to describe the coming of Christ at the end of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So here, during advent, we are called to wait, to prepare, to get ready not only for Christmas, not only for the coming of Christ in humility as a baby, but also to prepare for the coming of Christ in glory as king.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s an almost 25 year-old song by REM called “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine),” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>which has been one of my 7 year-old son's favorite songs to sing along to ever since he was about 3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s not much to the song itself—the verses are just a bunch of stream-of-consciousness images all sort of strung together, and the chorus consists of the lead singer singing “It’s the end of the world as we know it, it’s the end of the world as we know it, it’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But boy is it catchy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there’s a message there for us as well, a message that speaks to advent and to what we hear in our Gospel reading.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The coming of Christ means the end of the world as we know it.</span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m not talking just about the end of time, though it certainly does include that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I’m also not just talking about the original Christmas story either, though that certainly was the case as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m talking about now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In your life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our collective lives and callings and mission together as the church in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus Christ comes to us, and when he does, it means the end of the world as we know it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means making all things new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when things are made new, that means the end of what was old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Consider baptism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Christians, we describe our baptism as the washing away of the old Adam and the old Eve, and the beginning of a new life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul describes baptism as death—dying to ourselves and being raised with Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re no longer on our own, but are children of God, brought into God’s family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our baptism doesn’t mean the end of the world…we still are called to live in the world, but it means <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the end of the world as we know it.</i></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We live in the world but are not of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We become participants in God’s mission of healing and reconciliation in the world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our gospel reading today is another good example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It comes near the end of Mark’s gospel, right before the events of the last supper and Jesus’ arrest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a shame that people like Harold Camping, with his doomsday predictions (which were wrong not once, but twice this year, by the way) and the writers of the still-popular <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Left Behind </i>series of books, have taken passages like this one and twisted them to fit their vision of a violent last days scenario.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our reading begins in the middle of a speech by Jesus to his disciples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We hear him say, “In those days, after that suffering…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re like me, you may have asked, hold on, in what days?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After what suffering?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take a look with me at the first half of Mark 13. Jesus and his disciples are by the Temple, which for Jews of the time not only was the center of worship, but was actually where God resided, in the very middle, a room called The Holy of Holies, where a curtain shielded the priest who entered once a year from the pure holiness of God. The disciples have what one of my favorite professors, Karoline Lewis, calls a “Little Red Riding Hood” moment: “Teacher! What big stones and what big buildings the temple has!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And from there, Jesus begins teaching about how the temple will be desecrated and destroyed, which historians know actually ended up happening at the hands of the Romans in 70 A.D.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the major questions the writer of Mark tackles throughout the entire gospel account is the question of “Where is God?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the Jews of Jesus’ day, the answer was easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God was in the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what about after the destruction of the temple?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where was God then?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mark tells us that when Jesus was baptized, the heavens were “torn open,” and when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the temple, the one that protected the priest from God, was “torn in two.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our reading from Isaiah today begins with asking God, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mark proclaims that’s exactly what God did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In baptism and on the cross, God tore open the heavens and came down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Christ, God became incarnate, took on human flesh, and came <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to </b>us and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">for </b>us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We experience that today in our own baptism, through the bread and wine of Holy Communion, through God’s call to us as individuals and God’s mission for us as the church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The coming of Christ means the end of the world as we know it.</i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that’s what Jesus is telling us in our gospel reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s an insight into this text that I wish I could claim as my own, but I owe to professor and theologian David Lose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He points out that Jesus gives four specific examples when he’s saying we don’t know when the master will come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could be in the <i>evening</i>, or at <i>midnight</i>, or at <i>cockcrow</i>, or at <i>dawn</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the writer of Mark, interestingly enough, divides the story of Jesus’ death into four sections:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1) Last Supper, beginning, "When it was <i>evening</i>, he came with the twelve..." (14:17). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2) Jesus' prayer and betrayal: "And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy" (14:40). Why so tired? Because it was the <i>middle of the night</i>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3) Jesus' trial and Peter's denial: "But he began to curse, and he swore an oath, 'I do not know this man you are talking about.' At that moment the <i>cock crowed</i> for the second time" (14:71-72a). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">4) Trial before Pilate: "<i>As soon as it was morning</i>, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate" (15:1).</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=36848325#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Very interesting, as one way to read Jesus’ warning is to hear him declaring that his return -- when the heavens shake and the sun is darkened -- is precisely the moment when he is nailed to the cross and we see God's love poured out for us and all the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The coming of Christ means the end of the world as we know it.</i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As for the actual end of the world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus’ message was quite clear, especially as many Jews assumed that the destruction of the temple just had to be a sign of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About that day or hour nobody knows, so quit trying to read the signs, quit trying to tell the future, quit trying to trap God into a corner and dictate the way things must be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s all a waste of time and energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet he says in verses 35 and 37 to keep awake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it’s not for trying to read the signs of the end, what is it for?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like servants who aren’t sure when the master’s coming home, or to put it in terms I can understand, like a husband with a honey-do list who’s not sure exactly when his wife will be home from running errands, we are called to an active waiting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Advent isn’t about sitting around letting the world go to hell in a handbasket because Jesus is eventually going to come and rescue us from all of this anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end, it’s about stewardship.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The coming of Christ means the end of the world as we know it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></b>Gone are our claims that our time is our own, that our possessions are our own, that our money, our families, our work, our energy, our very lives are our own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what the world would try to tell us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the way of the old Adam and the old Eve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new world, our new lives ushered in through the cross, make every day an advent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day we hear the call to love our neighbor, to serve those in need, to use the gifts we have been given and entrusted with for the hungry the naked, the thirsty, those in prison—all of the least of these that we heard about in last week’s gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day the heavens are ripped open and Christ turns our lives upside-down with the restless, unstoppable love of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we respond?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do we respond in fear, hoard what we have been given and turn in on ourselves?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or do we respond in trust, use what we have been given for those around us and turn outward, just as Christ on the cross looks outward and gives of himself for the sake of all?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The coming of Christ means the end of the world as we know it.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And I feel fine.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;"><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=36848325#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Lose, David.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If the World Were to End, </i>2011. http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=529</span></div></div></div>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36848325.post-9806447206899009182012-03-09T07:29:00.002-06:002012-03-09T07:32:52.101-06:00Sermon from 1-1-12: What Child Is This?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.servicioskoinonia.org/cerezo/dibujosB/06familia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.servicioskoinonia.org/cerezo/dibujosB/06familia.jpg" width="179" /></a></div><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What Child Is This?</span></i></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><strong><em><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=198298723" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Luke 2:22-40</span></a></em></strong></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What child is this, who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping? Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds’ watch are keeping?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">What child IS this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The babe, the son of Mary, the one born in Bethlehem to a young, unmarried couple<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>far from home in a dark, smelly stable that was usually home to smelly animals?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing. Haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe the son of Mary.”<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">We have the audacity to claim that this is the way a king was born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have the nerve to insist that this was not only A king, but it was in fact THE king, the messiah, not just A son of God but THE very Son of God, the Word made flesh, the same Word and God who was present at the beginning of creation, the very same who will be present at the end of all things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have said it so often, we have heard it so often, that I think it sometimes loses its impact on us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THIS is the method by which we claim God chose to break into our dark world and to establish God’s kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the form of a small, frail infant born to unimportant parents from an unimportant part of an unimportant country occupied by the most important empire of its time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It makes no sense. It’s so backwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s so inefficient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s so NOT the way I would have done things.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">And maybe that’s the point. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">If the Kingdom of God is a kingdom lived out in faith, then its king is a king who needs to be seen through the eyes of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scripture tells us that not long after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple “to present him to the Lord<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">23</span></sup>(as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”),<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">24</span></sup>and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was a young couple with a new baby doing what God required of all young Jewish parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember, this was the same young couple who BEFORE Jesus’ birth had angels coming to them to tell them that this child was going to be something different, something special, someone born of the Holy Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If anyone could have claimed some sort of special dispensation for this presentation at the Temple, it would have been Mary and Joseph.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there they were, fulfilling for their child the law that had come FROM their child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then in walks Simeon. He sees Mary and Joseph, and their little baby.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">And then we discover that Simeon had those eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The eyes of faith, the eyes of expectation, the vision of hope and promise and fulfillment and restoration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sees something special in Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sees the fulfillment of the promise that God had made to him, that he would not see death before he saw the Messiah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sees the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed one, in the face of this little child with the young, nervous, decidedly unimportant parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he grabs the baby and holds him, saying, ““Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word;<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">30</span></sup>for my eyes have seen your salvation,<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">31</span></sup>which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">32</span></sup>a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">He can die in peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through the eyes of faith, he has seen the messiah.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">And it’s not done there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a prophet named Anna at the Temple as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Simeon made his proclamation, she joined in, telling about the child to “all those who were looking for the redemption of Israel.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had the eyes of faith and began speaking to others who had those same eyes, who were looking, waiting for God to act.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">When we see the world through the eyes of faith, when we like Simeon and Anna find the messiah in an everyday baby born to everyday parents, we see God’s kingdom in ways and in places that the world does not expect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">We see the face of Jesus not hidden away in a church sanctuary, but in the face of the homeless man on the street. We see Jesus in our brothers and sisters who are suffering because of war, who face uncertainty or hunger or poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see Jesus in the face of our enemies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see the kingdom of God in the hidden shadows, tucked away in the places we might otherwise consider unimportant.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The eyes of faith transform how we see the world, allowing us to see it the same way God sees it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">There’s an old legend that says Simeon would take EVERY baby that came to the Temple for the purification rites and bless it…that Jesus was just one in a series of many babies that Simeon blessed in the way we read about today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is what it is, an old legend with no basis for the claim, but there’s a part of me that really likes thinking about it that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would it make what he said about Jesus any less special?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No—Jesus was who he was, no matter what Simeon said about him or anyone else, it would have been true no matter what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if Simeon blessed EVERY child, if he saw EVERY child through the eyes of faith,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as a blessing and a light for the world, what would that mean for us? What would that mean for how we see the kingdom of God, what would that mean for how we see those around us, what would that mean for how we see the least and the lost and the suffering and the sick?</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The eyes of faith transform how we see the world, allowing us to see it the same way God sees it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I’ve gone with our youth on mission trips, every evening when we’re looking back on the day, I’ve always asked them one question: “Where did you see God today?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me tell you, the youth in this congregation have the gift of the eyes of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Simeon, they have seen the face of the Messiah in faces many would not expect—the man with AIDS at Project Hope in san Francisco, the unpredictable girl with fetal alcohol syndrome in Pine Ridge, the street musician in New Orleans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ve seen the face of the Messiah in each other’s faces as together they’ve done what they could to help those in need. They’ve seen the face of the Messiah in your faces as you’ve supported them and prayed for them and taught them and have been living, walking examples of the Kingdom of God in your own lives. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The eyes of faith look at a baby in Bethlehem as see the face of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The eyes of faith look at water and promise and see cleansing of sin and adoption into the Kingdom of God. The eyes of faith look at bread and wine and see body and blood, broken and shed for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The eyes of faith look at a man on a cross, dying a criminal’s death, and they see the Son of God bringing new life and hope and salvation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The eyes of faith look at an empty tomb and see the fullness of God defeating the powers of sin and death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The eyes of faith look at Christmas…and see the shadows of Easter.</span><br />
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</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Nails, spear shall pierce him through, the cross be borne, for me, for you. Hail, hail the Word made flesh, the Babe, the son of Mary.”<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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<span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Matt Schur<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our Saviour's Lutheran Church<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lincoln, NE<o:p></o:p></span></span>LutheranHuskerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08982382351776657088noreply@blogger.com0