Sermon for Ash Wednesday - Mt 6:16-21

                                                                                    Ash Wednesday

                                                                                    Mt 6:16-21

                                                                                    3/6/19

            “He really telegraphed that pass.”  Commentators for basketball and football games use this expression when a player throws a pass and it is stolen or intercepted.  They use it to describe a situation in which the player locked onto and kept looking directly at the teammate to whom he was going to throw the ball.  Alerted to the exact location where he was going to throw the ball, defenders were able to anticipate the throw and steal or intercept it.

            In some ways, it is surprising that this metaphor still exists.  The telegraph was, of course, a nineteenth century technology that used a wire to send a signal.  A long line of poles carrying the wire extended from one location to another.  It was obvious where the line was going.  I’ve always assumed that it is point of connection for the metaphor.  In an era when there were telephone lines, it still made sense.  As new generations live in the wireless era of life, I wonder if the metaphor will die.

            The sermon for Ash Wednesday is one in which I always feel like pastor telegraphs the point of his sermon.  Congregation members know exactly what the pastor is going to say in the sermon before he even starts.  They know exactly where it is going. 

            Now in one sense every sermon is like this.  You know that every sermon is going to have Law and Gospel. You know that every sermon will be about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

            But the content of the sermon is not always this obvious.  Most texts have a number of different ways you can approach them as the preacher.  There are certainly days in the church year when the general point of the sermon is obvious before the pastor starts.  So, you know that on Christmas the focus will be the incarnation of the Son of God, and on Easter it will be the on resurrection of Jesus Christ.  But even there, I think there are a number of different ways you can approach it based on the different texts that are available.

            To me, preaching on Ash Wednesday feels very much like preaching for Thanksgiving.  On Thanksgiving, you know exactly what I am going to talk about: giving thanks.  And today, Ash Wednesday, you already know exactly what I am going to talk about: repentance.

            And indeed that is precisely what I am going to do.  I am because the primary focus of the season of Lent that begins today is repentance.  It’s not the only one.  Historically in the Lutheran church, and for that matter also the early Church, catechesis – teaching about the Christian faith – has also been an important part of Lent.  But that is certainly secondary. The main focus – the emphasis of today and the whole season of Lent is repentance.

            To repent is to recognize our sin; to be sorry about our sin; to confess our sin before God as we turn in faith towards Jesus Christ for forgiveness. We do this during Lent because the season prepares us for Holy Week and Easter.  It prepares us to remember how Jesus suffered and died for our sins on the cross of Good Friday. Lent places our attention on the reason the Lord did this for us – our sin. When we do so, there can only be one God pleasing response: We repent.

            Since we are talking about repentance, the beginning of our text may seem like a strange place to start.  Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount: “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

            You may be thinking: “No problem here.  I don’t fast. I can’t be doing anything wrong.”  Coming out of the Old Testament, fasting was part of Jewish piety. While Jesus and the New Testament don’t command fasting, it is clear Jesus assumes that his followers will be doing it.  It was indeed a common part of Christian piety as well – and that includes Lutherans.  After all, Luther writes in the Small Catechism about the Sacrament of the Altar, “Fasting and bodily preparation are certainly fine outward training.”  Fasting is about disciplining the flesh, and then the time that would have been be used eating is given to the reading of Scripture and prayer.

            Fasting is just one of three common Jewish religious activities that Jesus talks about in this section of the sermon: he addresses the giving of alms, prayer and fasting.  He introduces the discussion by saying: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”

            Our Lord warns about making a show of our piety in order to draw attention to ourselves and make us look good in the eyes of others. He says that instead we should do these things in ways that so that only God knows.  Then they are being done in faith and not because of sinful motivations.

            Certainly, our Lord’s warning is something that we do need to hear.  There is always the danger that we will do the right thing for the wrong reason. And when your motivations are sinful, it doesn’t matter if the action itself is a good thing.  In God’s eyes, it is sinful.

            However, Jesus spoke these words in a culture that highly valued faith in Yawheh and the practices associated with faith.  A person wanted to be perceived as being pious and faithful.  But what about our world today?  Here, the opposite is often true.  The pressure of the world sets itself against acting in ways that reflect the Christian faith. 

            For us Jesus could have said, “Be careful to practice your righteousness before other people.”  In fact, he actually did because he said in the previous chapter: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, 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 who is in heaven.”

            The real issue that confronts us tonight is the reason we do something or we choose not to do something.  Our Lord says at the end of our text, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  What we treasure – what we really value – is what will determine our actions.  And you know what you call that?: a god.  Do we avoid doing what is right because we want the world’s acceptance?  Do we do what is wrong because we want the world’s acceptance? Both are sinful not just because of our action. They are sinful because of our motivation.  They are sinful because we break the First Commandment as we fear, love and trust in something other than the one true God.

            So on this Ash Wednesday we consider our lives according to the Ten Commandments. We consider what we do and fail to do in rejecting God’s will for our lives and world. We consider the reason that we do these things and fail to do these things.    

            We recognize our sin. We are sorry for it because it is sin committed against God. We confess our sin to God and ask for forgiveness. We turn in faith towards Jesus Christ, confident that because of his death on the cross he has won forgiveness for us.  Our Lord said, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Jesus Christ did give his life as a ransom for you. Your forgiveness and salvation did not come cheap. It cost his holy precious blood, and his innocent suffering and death.

            Yet in his love, Jesus Christ did this for you.  He received the wrath of God against your sin.  He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” as he experienced what you deserve.  And because he has done this for you, your sins have been taken away.  When you repent; when you are sorry for your sin; when you confess your sin to God and ask for forgiveness, God does exactly that.

            He does so because this is precisely what he wants to do. God is the One who said to the prophet Ezekiel, “‘As surely as I live,’ declares Yahweh, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’”  God calls us to repentance because he wants to forgive.  He has done everything needed to give us forgiveness in the death and resurrection of his Son.  God calls us to repent; to be sorry for our sin; to confess our sin to him as we believe in his crucified and risen Son. And he forgives our sins.  

    

    

   

           

           

             

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent.  During Lent we repent of our sins and rededicate our lives to living out our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection.  

Scripture reading:

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep and say, “Spare your people, O LORD, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” Then the LORD became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. The LORD answered and said to his people, “Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. (Joel 2:12-19)

Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God, You despise nothing You have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.  Create in us new and contrite hearts that lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness we may received from You full pardon and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Mark's thoughts: Dust, sin, and death

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  These words are spoken during the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday.  They recall how God created the first man, Adam. Genesis 2:7 tells us, “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden and told him, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).  God had given dominion over all creation to Adam.  He gave him every tree to eat … except for one.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil became the located means by which Adam kept the First Commandment.  He showed that he feared, loved and trust in God above all things by not eating of that one tree.

God gave Adam yet one more blessing.  In fact, it was the greatest blessing.  There was no helper that corresponded to Adam. So God created Eve from Adam to be one flesh with him.  She was the perfect complement and Adam exclaimed, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23).  

Blessed in every possible way, Adam and Eve were not content to remain God’s highest creation. Tempted by the devil, they succumbed to the desire to be God.  They sinned, and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet in eating, the only thing they learned was that God was right.  Sin brought death.  It returned them to the ground out of which Adam had been made.  It returned them to dust.

In the Fall, all of mankind was plunged into sin and death.  Since the day of the Fall, sinful people have conceived and given birth to sinful people (John 3:6).  Sinful people sin, and the result is always death since as Paul wrote, “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

This is the brutal fact that we confess on Ash Wednesday. We confess that we are sinners.  We are not merely people who commit sin.  We confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean.  Those who confess this have no hope of life with the holy God.  Those who sin, die.

 “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  These words are spoken during the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday.  Yet as the words are spoken, the ashes are placed on the forehead in the shape of a cross.  Those who are by nature sinful and unclean have no hope, so God the Father sent His sinless Son into the world in the incarnation.  The tree that had been the means of the Fall became the means by which God freed us from sin.  Paul wrote, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us--for it is written, “‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13).

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent during which we repent.  We confess our sin and prepare to remember again how Jesus Christ was hanged on a tree in order to free us from sin.  Our sin brought Him death, as he received the punishment we deserve.  In death he was taken down from a cross and buried in a tomb.  Yet we enter into Lent knowing that death would not have the final word. Sunday, the first day of the week, would follow Good Friday. 

Sermon for Quinquagesima - 1 Cor 13:1-13

                                                                                    Quinquagesima

                                                                                    1 Cor 13:1-13

                                                                                    3/3/19

            My predecessor at Good Shepherd, Pastor Schmidt, served as pastor of this congregation for sixteen years.  Had it not been for health issues, no doubt, he would have served longer.  This summer, I will have been pastor at Good Shepherd for thirteen years.  It’s taken awhile, but I am gaining on Pastor Schmidt and before too long I will tie and then pass him.  And no one would have been more pleased by that than Pastor.

            Come July we will be able to say that during the last twenty nine years, Good Shepherd has had two pastors.  The average tenure of pastors during that time will be fourteen and a half years.  It’s not hard to figure out why this has been so. Good Shepherd is a very good place to be a pastor. Our congregation supports and respects of the Office of the Ministry.  The members here are interested in learning, and very open to practices that are biblical and firmly grounded in catholic heritage of the Lutheran church.  We have friendly and loving people.  On two occasions my family and I have been the recipients of the congregation’s care and support: first when Amy ended up bedbound because of the pregnancy with Michael, and then again when she had brain surgery.

            Of course, not every congregation is this way.  I had a conversation with a pastor not long ago who was telling me about his first call.  It had been a very difficult experience, and it was clear that this was not unique.  During the hundred plus year history of that congregation, the average length of the service by pastors was four years.  The congregation had a history of chewing up pastors and spitting them out. 

            Of course, some of the problem must have been individual pastors along the way.  But when a congregation has such a consistent track record over so much time it becomes pretty clear that there is something wrong in that setting. There is something endemic in that group of people.  For whatever reason, congregations have their own character.  There are patterns of behavior that keep showing up generation after generation.

            Corinth was definitely one of those congregations where it was hard to be a pastor.  We see this in both of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians.  The church there was a source of tremendous frustration for Paul as they challenged him.  And the next time we hear about the congregation things have not changed.  About fifty years later in the letter known as First Clement, Clement writes from Rome to Corinth because they have removed a pastor without cause.

            Not long ago I preached on the end of 1 Corinthians chapter nine and the beginning of chapter 10.  We saw that the problem there was the issue of meat sacrificed to idols.  Now, in chapter thirteen Paul is in the process of addressing another problem – an effort that begins in the chapter twelve and runs all the way through chapter fourteen.

            The problem this time was that the Corinthians were enamored with those works of the Spirit – those gifts – that were showy and called attention to them.  In particular they valued speaking in tongues.  This speaking in praise of God occurred in a way that was not understandable by others.  Paul didn’t deny that this happened.  In fact he said it was something he experienced.  But he is very clear that is it not something that builds up others. In chapter fourteen Paul will say that if there is no one to interpret a person speaking in tongues, then the person needs to remain silent.

            The Corinthians thought they were spiritual people who had it made.  They were secure in salvation and were uniquely gifted by God.  There were interested in those things that were spectacular and showy – things that called attention to them.  The apostle Paul is trying to lead them in another direction.  In the previous chapter he had written, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

            Paul wants them to value the many different gifts that the Spirit gives to the church.  And he wants them to understand how those gifts all serve the church as a whole and not the individual believer. He has just described the Church as the Body of Christ – a body that we became part of through baptism.  Paul said, “But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”

            In our text, Paul wants the Corinthians to recognize that what unites the believers together in Christ is love.  Of course, the source of this love is what God has done for us in Jesus.  He has told them, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  He has told them that, “Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.” And of course in chapter fifteen he will powerfully declare how the resurrection of Jesus Christ has defeated death for us.

            For those who have received this love of Christ, all that is done with the gifts the Spirit gives is done in love.  In the verse just before our text Paul says, “But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.” The more excellent way is the way of love, because without it nothing that we do means anything.  Paul says at the beginning of our text, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

            In some of the most famous words of the Bible, Paul goes on to describe what love does and does not do.  He says, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

            What comes to mind when you hear these words?  If we are honest, we recognize that we have not always been patient and kind.  We have envied and been resentful.  We have not always borne and endured the challenges of our vocations.

            That is true.  And that is why you are here this morning.  You are here to hear the Good News that because of Jesus Christ, death and resurrection that doesn’t matter.  Baptized into Christ you have been washed, sanctified and justified. Jesus Christ has just told you in Holy Absolution it doesn’t matter because he has forgiven you.  Because of what Jesus did for you on the cross, as far as God is concerned your sin never happened. And what God says is the way things really are.  He sees you as someone who is in Christ.  When it comes to your sin, God sees Christ and not you, and so your sin is gone.  All you have is Jesus and his righteousness; Jesus and his holiness.

            And there is more good news.  Paul wrote in the previous chapter, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”  You have received the Holy Spirit.  You continue to receive the work of the Spirit through the Means of Grace. The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is at work in you. And so the power of Christ’s resurrection is at work in your life now.

            It is the Spirit who enables us to look at these words and think, “Yes, that is what I want to do!”   We have received God’s love in Christ.  This word of God today renews our attention on what the Spirit of God now prompts us to do; what he leads us to do; what he gives us the ability to do.

            Because of Jesus’ love for us we seek to be patient and kind.  We resist the urge to envy or boast.  We don’t insist on our way, but instead put others before ourselves. We bear the burdens God gives us in our vocations. We endure the hardships this may entail.

            The source of this love is unlimited for it comes from Jesus Christ the risen and exalted Lord.  Through his Spirit he continues to lead and strengthen us to do these things.  He does this now.  He will do this tomorrow. He will always do this.  Paul says in our text, “Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.”

            The love of Christ will carry us on to the Last Day. Paul says, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  Right now we don’t understand all that God is doing. We don’t follow through on God’s love perfectly.  But Christ’s Spirit sustains us in faith.  He sustains us in hope until the end. 

            As he does, we look for the day when the risen and ascended Lord will return.  When he does, we shall see him face to face.  We will know and understand fully what God’s will is, even as we will be able to do it perfectly.  No longer will we need faith.  No longer will we need hope.  Instead the love we receive now from God in Christ is the same love in which we will live forever.