Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity - Lk 5:1-11

                                                                                                   Trinity 5
                                                                                                    Lk 5:1-11
                                                                                                    6/26/16

Over the years, I have preached and taught in a number of different settings. When I was a student at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, you were assigned to a field work church for the first two years. In this setting you began to lead parts of the liturgy, to teach Bible class and to preach for the first time. The third year was vicarage, when you were assigned to a church somewhere in the U.S. and worked there for a year under the oversight of a pastor as you learned and gained experience.

When you returned to the seminary for the fourth year, there were no longer any requirements on Sunday. You were free to attend church wherever you wanted. During this time, many seminarians took part in pulpit supply – they would fill in and preach in Missouri and Illinois congregations in order to gain experience and make a little money. During that year, and then the next year when Amy and I were both doing graduate work I did this quite a bit. And then while I was doing doctoral work in New Testament studies I continued to preach and teach in north Texas congregations.

I have preached in old pulpits where the surface for the sermon manuscript was so small that I had to take scissors and cut off all of the margins of the sermon so that nothing but the words remained. I preached at a pulpit that was nothing but plexiglass and it felt more like I was on a spaceship movie set than at a church.

I have preached from raised pulpits, and in settings where the raised pulpit was directly above the altar. Some of these settings had balconies and I always found it odd to look down on most of the congregation and then look my right and left at people who were exactly at eye level with me. And then recently when I was up in Canada I preached at a church that was originally built as a monastery. There the pews were all set up in choir – they were on each wall facing one another. So when I looked straight forward where you would normally see the congregation there was no one there. Instead, in order to make eye contact I had to keep going back and forth from left to right looking at each wall. It was a very odd experience indeed!

Over the years I have taught in church basements and classrooms. I have taught in fellowship rooms and large multipurpose rooms. I have taught at the Concordia Seminary auditorium and in large hotel conference rooms. But in all of those experiences I have never been forced to improvise like Jesus does in our text this morning. I have never taught people along the shore of a lake while sitting in a boat. Jesus is forced to do this because a crowd is pressing in to hear him. When we look back at the end of chapter four that leads into our text, it’s not hard to understand why. Jesus had gone to Capernaum and was teaching there. Luke tells us, “And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority.” People could tell that Jesus’ teaching was just different. 

Then Jesus rebukes a demon and casts it out of man after it cries out, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” The people were left wondering: “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” And the word about Jesus went out into the surrounding area.

Next Jesus went to Simon Peter’s home, where his mother-in-law was ill with a fever. Jesus rebuked the fever and healed her. And then Luke tells us, “Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.” The people wanted him to stay – it’s easy to understand why! But Jesus said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.”

In our text we learn that Jesus was standing along the lake of Gennesaret – another name for the Sea of Galilee - as the crowd was pressing in on him. We hear that Jesus saw two boats on the shore, with their owners cleaning the nets after a night of fishing. Our Lord got into the boat that belonged to Simon Peter and asked him to put out from the shore. And when Peter had done this, Jesus taught the crow on shore as he sat in the boat.

Considering what has just happened in Luke’s Gospel, it’s not hard to understand why Peter grants Jesus’ request. But then, our Lord tells Peter to do something that made Peter wonder. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 

Now Peter made his living as a fisherman. He knew that on the Sea of Galilee you do your fishing at night when the fish come into shallower water. You don’t do it in the middle of the day. But it was Jesus who had told him to do this. So he replied, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”

At Jesus’ word, Peter did something that made no sense. The result was astonishing. The nets enclosed such a large number of fish that they started to break. In fact, Simon Peter signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and when they came and filled both of the boats to the point that they began to sink because of the weight of the fish.

And how did Peter respond? Did he rejoice at the tremendous catch of fish that defied all the normal rules of fishing? Did he get excited about the great money they would make that day from the sale of the fish? No, we learn in our text that he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

At that moment Peter recognized that he was in the presence of God at work. As he found himself in such close proximity to God he was overcome with an overwhelming sense of dread. All that he could perceive was that he was a sinner and he had no business being there with Jesus.

That’s the way it is in the Scriptures when people find themselves in God’s presence. When Isaiah found himself before Yahweh on the throne his response was same: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

The recognition of our sin is something that we try to avoid. We seek to minimize it by comparing ourselves with others. After all we don’t those terrible things. We seek to minimize it by defining away sin. And in this, the world pitches right in to help us. Breaking the Eighth Commandment by harming our neighbor’s reputation is not sin – that’s just the way you act on social media. There’s nothing wrong with looking at those images or video - after all it’s not hardcore porn.

Yet these attempted evasions do not change the fact that our sin is an affront to the holy God. They don’t help us to escape the consequence of sin. If we are honest, they don’t really help us to escape the knowledge that we are sinners before God.

Peter confessed what he was. He confessed that he was a sinner. And then in his response Jesus said two things. First he told Peter, “Do not be afraid.” Our Lord tells Peter not to fear because of who he is and what he had come to do. In the previous chapter Jesus began his public ministry by preaching at the synagogue in Nazareth. There he declared that these words of Isaiah were being fulfilled in his ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

Jesus came to proclaim the good news that through him there is release from sin. Jesus came to bring forgiveness – he came to bring release from all of the ways that sin has warped and twist us and our lives in this world. That’s what we see Jesus doing already as he casts out demons and heals the sick. He came to defeat sin by his death on the cross as he was numbered with the transgressors and offered himself in our place. 

And then in his resurrection on the third day Jesus began the release from that final enemy – death. Because of Jesus the risen Lord there is no need to fear. Already now we have forgiveness and eternal life with God. And we know that just as our Lord rose bodily from the grave, so also he will raise us up to be like him on the Last Day. 

The Lord Jesus told Peter not to fear. And then he went on to add: “from now on you will be catching men.” Jesus called Peter to be part of this saving enterprise. No longer would he use nets to catch fish. Instead, he would use the preached word of the Gospel to catch people for Christ. He would use the Gospel to bring sinners into the boat of Christ’s Church. And sure enough, Peter and his companions brought their boats to land, left everything and followed Jesus.

Jesus has not called you to the specific vocation of preaching the Gospel in the same way that he called the apostle Peter. But through baptism he has made you part of his body the Church. And this means that your life shares in the purpose of his Church. By what you say and what you do you are to live lives that look to draw in others. 

This needs to become our mindset – the way in which we daily approach life. We seek to share Christ’ love with others through deeds. We look for opportunities to tell others about what Jesus Christ has done for them. We patiently live in this way because of what God has done for us in Christ. And then we leave the final results of the catch to God.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity - Rom 12:14-21

                                                                                                  Trinity 4
                                                                                                  Rom 12:14-21 
                                                                                                  6/19/16
              
Yet because we have received this from our Lord, we also now seek to bring Jesus’ brand of love to others. This means that we do show kindness and concern towards those who are different from us – even those who are engaged in overt sin such as the cohabiting man and woman, or the homosexual couple. We care about their needs and seek to assist them. And we also love them enough to tell them the truth – for that is the most difficult kind of love in today’s world. We speak the truth … not in anger or spite. But we speak in the hope that through repentance and Spirit worked faith the lost will be found. And as Jesus says in today’s Gospel lesson, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

If those words sound familiar, it is because they were the conclusion to my sermon last week. I wrote them on Thursday that week, long before the attack on the gay bar in Orlando. In fact when I preached them at the 7:45 a.m. service I didn’t know that an attack had occurred. It was only just before the 10:15 a.m. service that a member mentioned the event to me and I learned a few details.

As we now know, at around 2:00 a.m. last Sunday, Omar Matten walked into a gay bar and proceeded to kill forty nine people and wound more than fifty. A Muslim, he called 911 in order to pledge his allegiance to ISIS and identify his attack with their cause.

As they have on other occasion of Islamic terrorism, the media immediately began to try to explain away the event. They sought to defend the notion that this was “not Islam” since Islam is really “a religion of peace.” Attention was focused on whether Matten was closet homosexual who acted out of self-loathing, or whether he was a violent person, or just a deranged individual. In particular we have heard that this was an action motivated by hate.

As fallen people, human beings often have complex motivations for their actions. There are usually a number of factors that come into play. But when people identify their faith – in this case, Isalm – as the reason they did something, we should probably take it seriously. So for example, when Mohommed Bouyeri, who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, explained his motivations for doing this he said “what moved me to do what I did was purely my faith. I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his Prophet.”

Now not every Muslim wants to kill you. That’s just a fact. What is also true is that when it comes down to the basic attitude towards homosexuality, Christianity and Islam hold the same basic view. They both reject it as something that is contrary to the divine will. And within the Islamic tradition itself there is in fact ambiguity about what should be done to homosexuals.

At the same time, it is also a fact that in its texts and history, Islam has an inherent tendency toward violence. It’s not by chance that in Muslim countries such as Yemen, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan homosexuals can be executed in accordance with sharia law. Combined with the concept of jihad which has a long history of violence, it’s not hard to understand how Mateen believed that he was doing the work of Allah in jihad by killing American homosexuals. His faith prompted him to walk into a gay bar and harm people.

Today’s epistle lesson from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans is a timely reminder about how very different Christianity is from Islam. The Gospel leads Christians to act in ways that are completely different – in fact, in ways that the world can’t understand. Yet Paul’s words are also a challenge that force us to consider whether the Gospel makes itself known in our own lives. The apostle begins our text by saying, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” Paul says that Christians are to bless those who persecute them. They are not to curse those who seek to harm them. When he says this, he is of course sharing the same teaching that Jesus taught when he said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”

The Lord Jesus and the apostle Paul both teach us that we are not to seek to harm those who act against us – those who are opposed to us. You know what a Christian can never do? A Christian can never walk into a gay bar and shoot people because they are homosexuals. The very foundational texts of the faith forbid it and direct us to the opposite action. There is nothing ambiguous about it.

Instead, how do we treat others? Paul goes on to say:“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

Paul says that we are to support the grieving. We are to seek to live in peace and harmony with others. We are not to be haughty, but instead are to give attention to those who have less status; to those who are less well off. And take note – all of this includes the homosexual couple next door.

That doesn’t mean we cease to call sin what it is. In the first chapter of this letter Paul wrote his most comprehensive assessment of homosexuality. He said, “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

But when we identify sin and call to repentance, we never cease to share the love of Christ in what we do. This is easy to forget. Paul’s words in our text are both a rebuke and a challenge. When it comes to homosexuality it is easy to be repulsed – it is a vile act that obviously rejects the way God has ordered his creation. And more than that, we resent how our culture is constantly pressuring us to accept this sin as good and vilifies us when we don’t – you are, after all, “homophobic.” But none of that can alter the way we treat people who are homosexual. And in the same way nothing can change the way we treat all people. We cannot let our selfishness and self-centeredness keep us from acting as Paul describes in our text.

The apostle began this chapter by writing, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

When Paul says “therefore,” he is drawing a conclusion from all that he has written thus far. He has left no doubt that we are all sinners. In chapter three he has already said that “all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.” He went on to say, “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This sin is something that continues to plague us as the old Adam does his thing, and so we as we live we continue to confess our sin and repent.

But because of what God has done for us in Christ we do not despair. We know that we have forgiveness. And because we have received this incredible undeserved grace and mercy, through the work of the Spirit we seek to live in gracious and loving ways.

Paul says that though we have fallen short of the glory of God we “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Already now we know that on the last day we will be declared innocent because of the death and resurrection of Christ. Or as Paul says in chapter five, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

It is this love of God in Christ that we now share with others – with all others – no matter who they are or what they do. We love them enough to tell them the truth – we call sin what it is. But because of the love we have received in Christ we seek to help and support even those who reject Christ and his word. We do both. The world doesn’t understand this, because it is the logic of the Gospel – a logic that can only be understood through the cross of Christ. And so we seek to love according to Paul’s words in our text: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Mark's Thoughts: Response to Orlando shooting reveals the world doesn't understand

Yet because we have received this from our Lord, we also now seek to bring Jesus’ brand of love to others. This means that we do show kindness and concern towards those who are different from us – even those who are engaged in overt sin such as the cohabiting man and woman, or the homosexual couple. We care about their needs and seek to assist them. And we also love them enough to tell them the truth – for that is the most difficult kind of love in today’s world. We speak the truth … not in anger or spite. But we speak in the hope that through repentance and Spirit worked faith the lost will be found. And as Jesus says in today’s Gospel lesson, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

These are the words that concluded my sermon on the Fourth Sunday after Trinity, June 19 for the Gospel lesson, Luke 15:1-10.  I wrote them before the Orlando attack, and as I preached them I had just heard that a shooting had happened.

This one paragraph holds together two truths that our world can’t believe exist together among Christians. The first is that they quite clearly identify homosexuality as sin. They leave no doubt that the only God pleasing response is to repent  - to confess homosexuality as sin and to seek to turn away from it, even as the individual turns to Jesus Christ for forgiveness of all sins.  This is a truth that Christians need to speak to others. 

The second is that they clearly express the need to love and help those who live as homosexuals. For those who are in Christ, there can be no other response.  After all, Jesus Christ said:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:43-45 ESV)

And the apostle Paul wrote:

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:14-15 ESV)

The world does not understand how both of these can be true.  It has a different religion and worldview, and cannot understand the foolishness of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18-31).  But for those who know the Gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection, it makes perfect sense.

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity - Lk 15:1-10

                                                                                                   Trinity 3
                                                                                                    Lk 15:1-0
                                                                                                    6/12/16
 When I was growing up, my parents often used two phrases to describe me. The first was “big ears.” Now this was not a reference to my appearance. Instead, it acknowledged the fact that I had a knack for hearing everything … especially those things that really weren’t my business.

I always wanted to know what was going on. I could tell when my parents were talking about something that I knew had to be interesting. And I was very good at being just close enough to hear what was being said because I could hear very well.

Eventually my parents resorted to a tactic that allowed them to talk without having me eavesdrop. After dinner, they would announce that they were going to “take a walk around the estate.” Now I did not realize at the time that they were being ironic when they said this. They would walk around the house and look at how the flowers, shrubs and garden in back were doing. And as they were walking out in the yard they would talk about anything they wanted to discuss without risk that “big ears” would hear it.

The other phrase they used to describe me was “eagle eyes.” They called me this first because when I was a little boy I could be counted on to find things in the house. If my mom couldn’t locate something, she would tell me about it and ask me to see if I could find it. I would walk through the house, and to this day my mom will tell you that with great frequency I found whatever it was she was looking for – I just had a knack for spotting things that were “lost.”

This trend continued when I was older. As many of you know, my dad and I are both model railroaders. I grew up doing this with him, just as now Matthew does it with me. When working on a project at the modeling table it often happens that a small piece for a kit that is being cut off a sprue flies off the table; or a very small screw for a model engine drops to the floor. It lands somewhere on the shag carpet summer below. My dad knew that he could count on me to get down the floor and look until I found the errant item.

The theme of searching and finding stands at the heart of both the parables Jesus tells in our Gospel lesson this morning. These parables illustrate God’s desire to save the lost and the joy that is present when this occurs. But while it is usually not emphasized, there is another side to these parables. God wants to find the lost. But part of being found is the willingness to confess sin – to repent. The first two verses of our text provide the setting for all of chapter fifteen. We hear: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

A distinguishing feature of Jesus’ ministry was the fact that he ate with people the Pharisees considered to be “sinners” – the kind of people that a religiously respectable person should know to avoid. The term “sinners” probably has a fairly broad meaning. Some of these people would have been those who didn’t follow the rule of the oral tradition that the Pharisees has set on top of the Torah – the so-call “traditions of the elders.” Some of these people, no doubt, really were individuals who led sinful lives such as prostitutes.

The Pharisees were right. Jesus did receive people like this and eat with them. And this fact was significant. Table fellowship in the ancient word was a big deal. To share in a meal with a person indicated that there was some kind of acceptance of that person. Now as we will see, we also don’t want to blow this out of proportion. Sharing in table fellowship didn’t necessarily indicate a blanket acceptance of everything about a person. But certainly, it did indicate the kind of people you were ready to accept.

Jesus responded by telling three parable in this chapter – parables about a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son. In the first two parables that are found in our text, Jesus is basically making the same point. He says, “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?” The question is asked in a way that assumes a positive answer. Of course a person leaves the sheep who are safe and goes and looks for the one that is lost!

Or as Jesus asks in the second parable: “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?” Again, of course she does! The coin is precious to her and so she makes every effort to find it.

In both parables when the lost is found there is joy. And it is joy of a nature that can’t be kept to oneself. It is shared with others. Jesus says of the man, “And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’” He says about the woman, “And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’”

After both parables, Jesus emphasizes this feature of joy. He makes the point that the friends and neighbors who come together to rejoice with the man and the woman are illustrations of what happens in God’s presence. After the first parable Jesus says, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” In the second parable he adds, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Today in our culture many people like to emphasize the fact that Jesus ate with sinners. We are told that by this act Jesus showed that he accepted people for who they were. And if Jesus did this, why can’t his followers do the same? This is guaranteed to be heard whenever issues of religious freedom come into view – the principle that a person should not be forced to do something that violates their religious beliefs. For example when state laws providing religious freedom to business owners have been in the news a meme has appeared in social media that says: “Jesus regularly ate dinner with thieves and prostitutes, but you’re telling me it’s against your religion to bake a cake for a gay person?”

Now there are many problems with this line of argument. One of them is the notion that by eating with these people, Jesus was not judging them and their behavior. Jesus is pictured as accepting everyone no matter what they chose to do. And by extension, Christians are told that they should do the same thing. Any decisions that are made because a behavior is considered sinful are just wrong and do not reflect the loving and accepting attitude of Jesus.

It’s a common approach in our world. But it is dead wrong – a fact that our text makes perfectly clear. Yes, Jesus does choose to interact with people. Yes, he is open in inviting all to come to him. But Jesus has a goal in mind – he has a purpose, and that purpose is not simple acceptance of sin.

This fact becomes clear as Jesus describes the joy over the lost who are now found. After the first parable he says, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” After the second parable he adds, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

For Jesus, being found means repenting. It means confessing sin as sin and then turning away from it. Earlier in this Gospel when faced with the same accusation from the Pharisees Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus is not in the business of accepting people for who they are. Instead he calls sin what it is because he is in the business of providing the forgiveness of sins. If “I am ok” and “you are ok” there would have been no reason for Jesus to go to the cross. 

But, I am most certainly not ok, and neither are you. And that is why Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead. He died as the atoning sacrifice sent by God. He died in your place as he received God’s wrath against your sin. Because of this, you are now a forgiven child of God. And then in his resurrection he began the new life that will be yours on the Last Day.

Being found means that now we continue to repent. Through the work of the Spirit who gave us new life in baptism we seek to live in ways that are true to God’s will. And when the old man trips us up, we repent and return to our baptism. We confess our sin. We don’t attempt to justify it. We don’t tell others that they should accept it. We repent. We return to the forgiveness that we have in Christ because we have shared in his saving death through the water and the Word of Holy Baptism.

Yet because we have received this from our Lord, we also now seek to bring Jesus’ brand of love to others. This means that we do show kindness and concern towards those who are different from us – even those who are engaged in overt sin such as the cohabiting man and woman, or the homosexual couple. We care about their needs and seek to assist them. And we also love them enough to tell them the truth – for that is the most difficult kind of love in today’s world. We speak the truth … not in anger or spite. But we speak in the hope that through repentance and Spirit worked faith the lost will be found. And as Jesus says in today’s Gospel lesson, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”