Starting at the Ending

Midweek Advent Worship
Our Savior’s, Moorhead
Advent 1/December 4, 2013
Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Let's start at the very beginning/

A very good place to start/
When you read you begin with ABC/
When you sing you begin with do re mi/….

Starting at the beginning sure makes sense, doesn’t it?  Most of the time we begin at the beginning.

Except that in the peculiar logic of the church--where the last is first and the first is last-- we tell time differently.  Our song, if we had one, would be: “Let’s start at the very ENDING…”

Let’s begin this new year on the church’s calendar by zooming way ahead, to the final future, the destination toward which we’re heading.

Truth be told, part of me is always a little annoyed when Advent begins, because someone decided, long ago, that we can’t just jump into Christmas, as much as we might like to…

We’re not allowed simply to get out all the warm fuzzy holiday stuff from the boxes in the crawl spaces, where we’ve squirreled it all away from last year….

Instead of jumping into the “hap, happiest time of the year”….we need to warm up to it, to place Christmas in the broadest possible context so that it will hit us with full force.

Let’s start at the very ENDING….let’s begin our waiting for the Christ Child by remembering where this is all heading, where God is moving us, toward the consummation of all that God has been, still is and will yet be doing in the remainder of our journey here on earth.

So in this first week of Advent we focus on the End of this world as we know it…because (like a fine engagement ring) only a setting that encompassing can hold the diamond of Christ’s first coming to us, in Bethlehem’s manger, with Mary and Joseph and angels and shepherds all standing there slack-jawed.

Let’s start at the very Ending, a very good place to start.   Because starting at the Ending reminds us that our God finishes what he starts.

That’s what we confess, week after week, when we wrap up the second article of the Creed by saying that Jesus the Son of God will come to judge the living and the dead.  Jesus came as a Baby…Jesus keeps coming in water, Word, bread, wine and community…and Jesus will come again, one last time, because God finishes what God starts.

And even though that promise sounds a little different each time we hear it in the scriptures, it all boils down to this:   God is making all things New--so get used to the notion that the current state of affairs will not be the final state of affairs.

So for old Israel, to whom Isaiah prophesied, for old Israel which was forever being run over roughshod by neighboring, conquering nations whom God used time and again to chasten his wayward people…

For old Israel, as Isaiah pictures it, the time will come when the Temple mount in Jerusalem will be raised up as the highest of all mountains, God’s own Mt. Everest….and the nations will no longer be God’s means of chastening Israel for its failure to measure up to God’s standard of justice.

No, the nations will not always be arrayed against old Israel, but rather when Mount Zion becomes the highest of the mountains, the nations will take notice and say to themselves:   "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths."

That’s one of the Bible’s images for it—one way of picturing what we know to be true:  that God is going to finish what God has started…..and that all the people who dwell on this old ball of mud will one day recycle all their weapons into gardening tools, when “Waging War 101” will no longer be part of the curriculum, when God’s encompassing peace, God’s shimmering justice will be all in all.

So as another Advent rolls around, we begin at the ending….our scripture lessons all focusing on “the Day of the Lord”…

….and with that always comes a rub.   Because if we believe Jesus will come again, one last time, we curious cats want a timetable—we hanker for the when, the where and the how of God’s final future.

In short, whenever we talk about Jesus’ final coming, we want God to dish out the details, because we forget how much the End of all things is like the Beginning of all things—an article of faith, not a piece of forensic evidence we can dissect in a laboratory.

So, we confess that God is going to wrap it all up….but then we get distracted by our own curiosity about the “mechanics” of all that…..so God has to remind us about the folly of speculation.

Martin Luther was once asked what God was doing the day before God created the world….

….to which Luther, with a wry twinkle in his eye, responded:  God was cutting hickory switches to thrash foolish persons who ask questions like that!

So right alongside all the diverse ways the Bible talks about the End of all things….in the very same verses, the Bible holds at arm’s length all our “curious cat” questions about how and when and where it will happen.

Our gospel lesson from Matthew 24 is as blunt as any of them:  “"But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Amazing!  Not even the Son of God knows when he’ll return one last time to earth.

That’s God’s business.   And if any TV preacher tries to tell you otherwise I urge you to flip the channel!

It’s God’s business—to wrap it all up, to finish the job.  It’s God’s business—how and when and where that will happen.

And if all of that is God’s business, what’s left for us?  What’s our business?

Here’s where these end-of-the-world Bible texts get really interesting.  

Because just at the point where you’d think the veil might be drawn back and we’d learn a few juicy secrets about Judgment Day….these end-of-the-world passages divert us from God’s business and point our little noses back into what’s our business.

And our business, my friends, is how we will live in the mean time…in between Christ’s first coming and Christ’s final coming. 

How now shall we live?   The Bible stubbornly keeps dragging us back to that question which is really the only question that matters.

And here’s what we’re told about our business…

From Isaiah—“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

From the Apostle Paul—“Wake from your sleep… lay aside the works of darkness…put on the armor of light”

And from our Lord Jesus himself—“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming….be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Martin Luther advised Christians to live each day as though Jesus died this morning, rose this afternoon and is returning to earth this evening.

When we put it that way, we see how in Jesus Christ every day is “charged” with the prospect of God’s promised future.  Every day spills over with the energy of God’s eternity.   Every day anticipates all that God has in store for us.

So we lean into God’s future, as if that future was already here, present, right now.

You and I are, in a sense, “from the future”—God’s final future.   We know how the story ends.   We audaciously believe that we can start living now as if God’s future had already arrived.

So if in the fullness of time oppression will be a thing of the past, we can live today daring to believe that justice will win out.

If in God’s final future war will be no more, we can live today as if peace will actually win out.

If in God’s great tomorrow there will be no more cryin’ and no more dyin’, we can live today, inhabiting life with no limits, no dead zones in our path.

If in God’s coming Kingdom there will be a place-card for everyone, we can live today as if hospitality was the kindest gift we could ever offer to others.

If in God’s New Creation the word “scarcity” will be banished from our vocabulary, we can live today as if abundance is already overflowing.

If in God’s dawning day Christ will be all and in all, we can live now as if Jesus is already in charge, exercising his strong but gentle rule over all things, starting with you and me.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Raw Materials for the New Creation

Good Shepherd, Clearbrook and Our Savior’s, Leonard
November 17, 2013
Luke 21:5-19

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

A few weeks ago I received confirmation that my body is indeed falling apart.

A physician’s assistant in Fargo showed me an X-ray of my right hand, pointing specifically to the joint between the third and fourth bones in my thumb.

What’s notable about that joint, I learned, is that there’s no longer anything inside of it—the cartilage, the shock-absorbing cushion between those two bones is gone for good.   Bone on bone arthritis pain will be my lot in life…

….and although painkillers and a splint provide some relief…and steroid shots or even surgery might help me down the line….the problem itself will not be fully healed in this life.

The only cure for what’s ailing me is the resurrection.

Other parts of my body are also deteriorating, but I have visual proof of this one, this tiny joint that makes my whole hand ache.

Not that I have any business complaining… 

Some of you probably have bigger sources of pain.  In truth, we’re all falling apart….and not just us, either.   This whole world and everything in it is slowly being chipped away.   Every person, every creature, and everything made by human hands has a limited shelf life.  None of it will last forever.

That’s the bracing truth Jesus names here in Luke 21.   Oohing and aahing at marvelous architecture and lavish decorations of Jerusalem’s temple….Jesus’ friends weren’t expecting to hear his sober assessment:  “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

We and everyone else—this entire old creation—none of it is going to last forever in its present form.

Jesus’ hearers “got” that immediately.  They realized that Jesus was talking about the Day of the Lord, the grand climax toward which all history is heading:  “‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?”

They were intensely curious and so are we.   Who doesn’t wonder about the final future of this old world?   Yes, we may live most of our days skirting such big, momentous questions….but life has a way of hemming us in, grabbing our attention, making us wonder.   Whether it’s a typhoon in the Philippines or the latest report on global climate change or the incessant gridlock of our national government or the personal prayer lists we keep—with an endless revolving door of loved ones in stress or sickness or grief….we wonder how our lives and the life of this old creation will conclude.

And Jesus helps us with these questions in his gospel lesson from Luke 21.  

Jesus helps us by reminding us of things we easily forget…

·      ….that it’s a fool’s errand to speculate about the end of the world or to follow the latest “prophet” who claims to have uncracked the secrets of God’s apocalyptic timetable…

·      ….Jesus reminds us to be patient as history moves toward its conclusion in familiar ways that should not surprise or terrify us—that time will stretch out a while longer, with wars and natural disasters and cosmic events that will take our breath away and make us wonder….

·      ….Jesus reminds us that increasingly this faithless world will not feel like home to people of faith like us…that we may even endure the sting of dis-respect or persecution, simply because we stubbornly cling to the God who alone holds the future in his hands.

Nothing is more surprising in this gospel lesson, though, than the way Jesus calls us to a deeper engagement with this dying world—an engagement that seems counter-intuitive.

Most folks, when they contemplate how no one and nothing in this world lasts forever….most folks are easily paralyzed by either abject fear or dark depression.    We want to avert our eyes, turn our faces away, get lost in cocoons of distraction…

….but Jesus, rather, calls us to step out and speak up, in the face of the falling-apart-of-it-all:   “This will give you an opportunity to testify,” he contends—in the face of the paralysis that is always seeking to overcome us, limited, bounded creatures of space and time.

This hope-engendering word from Jesus is consistent with the entire biblical witness regarding the End-Times.   As God’s dearly beloved children, who know that whatever fate brings our way God will make sure that “not a hair of [our] head[s] will perish”….our awareness of the passing-away-ness of everything earthly does not reduce us to apathy or inaction.

Quite the contrary!   For we believe that in Jesus Christ we have seen what God does with death, decay and destruction.   We realize that God is in the “resurrection business”…..that the passing-away of this old creation is the precursor, the necessary pre-requisite for the New Creation that even now is being prepared and beginning to dawn upon us.

So we look at our faults and failings and falling-apart lives in the sheer confidence that these are the very raw materials of the New Day, the New Creation that God is laboring to bring forth, even today.

And all of that has begun, decisively, in the oddest of places:   on the garbage heap outside of Jerusalem where everything old and sinful and mortal was nailed to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ….where you and I and everyone else have been crucified with Christ and buried with him through our Baptisms into death….so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we too might walk in newness of life!  (Romans 6)

That, that, my dear friends is what allows us to be brutally honest about the End, the conclusion of our lives and the culmination of all things.   For we wait with eager anticipation for a new heaven and a new earth!

And we believe so firmly that God is accomplishing this New Thing, that we find ourselves “leaning into” it even now.   We travel through this mortal life in the confidence that God will not be finished with any of us until we are raised again with our Lord Jesus Christ, when God makes all things new.

Jesus does not advise his hearers in Luke 21 to hoard canned food, or stockpile a stash of weapons, or dig a fallout shelter or do anything else to hunker down in and cling to this old dying world and all its here-today-gone-tomorrow ways.

No, Jesus calls us to step up and speak out—in word and deed—because we know how the story ends and we know the One who alone holds the future in the palm of his loving hands!

Friends, the world is dying for this good news, this hopeful, alternative way of facing the future. 

Because, when Jesus talks about the End of all things he draws our attention not to mysterious timetables or speculation about disasters or fascination with Armageddon-like battles…

When Jesus talks about the End of all things he consistently directs our attention back to what we are called to do now, today, before the End arrives.

The best way to get ready for the End of all things is to be about the work God has given us to do today:  trusting God, loving our neighbors, caring for the earth….bearing witness in word and deed to the only One who knows what lies ahead, who holds the future.

Once in colonial New England there was a total eclipse of the sun.  This inexplicable cosmic event took place while the colonial legislature was in session.  When the eclipse brought sudden, unexpected darkness over the land (in the middle of the day!) a number of lawmakers panicked—and some moved that the session adjourn.

But then a legislator arose and said:  “Mr. Speaker, if it is not the end of the world and we adjourn, we shall appear to be fools.  And if it is the end of the world, I should choose to be found doing my duty.  I move, sir, that candles be brought so that despite the darkness our work may continue.”

If the end is coming, where should you and I be found?  Hunkered down in a fallout shelter, hiding?   High on a mountaintop dressed in white ascension robes—waiting?   Shut up in a church building—praying?

Here’s Jesus’ response:  If the End is coming let us be engaged in the world—witnessing to God’s loving lordship, in word and in deed.

And as we are about those tasks, we travel in God’s promise that it’s not really our business as much as it’s God’s business in and through us.   “So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance,” Jesus concludes here in Luke 21, “for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

More Than Meets the Eye

Bethany/Williams and Mt Carmel/Roosevelt, MN
November 10, 2013
Luke 20:27-38

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

There’s more than meets the eye here in this gospel lesson.  

At first glance, this sounds like an off-the wall argument in a high-falutin’ debate society.  The Sadducees conjure up a wild-hare scenario—and then try to use it to prove a point.

To understand this crazy business, you need to remember that there wasn’t much of a social safety net in Jesus’ day.   There was no Social Security, no county human services department, no “welfare.”   Women and children were especially vulnerable—and usually regarded as little more than property.

When Jesus walked the earth, a woman needed a man in her life, just to survive.   So girls lived in their father’s home until they married, and then they belonged to their husbands.  If all went well, the couple would produce children, especially sons—and the sons would watch out for their aged parents, especially their widowed mothers.

But what if all that went haywire?   What if a woman’s husband died before giving her children?   The man would have failed to produce heirs; and the woman would lose whatever old-age support system she might have had.    So Moses devised a backup system:  if a woman’s husband died prematurely, her brother would take her as his wife—to produce children, especially sons.

Now I know this sounds strange and distasteful, especially for women and girls….but you have to “get this” in order even to understand the point these hyper-traditionalist Jews, the Sadducees were trying to make here in Luke 20.

The Sadducees come to Jesus, with this scenario of a brother taking his deceased brother’s wife—and the Sadducees drive the whole business to the point of absurdity.   What if not just two brothers, but seven brothers all took the same woman as wife—each one of them dying before fathering a child with her?   What if that happened?   Whose wife would the woman be after they would all be resurrected from the dead?

The Sadducees concoct this off-the-wall scenario to prove a point:   that there can’t be such a thing as the resurrection of the dead.   The Sadducees contended that the resurrection is not clearly taught in the oldest part of the Bible, the first five books of Moses.  Moreover, it’s illogical that the dead could be raised again—body and soul.    The Sadducees thought they had cornered and defeated Jesus with their argument.

But there’s more here than first meets the eye.   And Jesus says as much.    Without even responding to their seven-husbands-one-wife scenario, Jesus goes back to the heart of the matter and talks not about the hows and whys of the resurrection.

Rather, Jesus speaks about God.    The Sadducees’ God was just too small.   That’s why, as the old joke goes, they were “sad-you-see” (Sadducees).

God is not the God of the dead, declares Jesus to the Sadducees.   God is bigger than death.   God is not limited by the constraints of this world—with its imperfect justice, its laws and traditions, its comings and goings, its births and deaths.   

And because God’s life extends above and beyond all that, so does everyone who belongs to God—living or seemingly dead though they may be.

The Sadducees want to speak about logical impossibilities.   But Jesus insists on speaking of God, the same God who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush (in Exodus 3) and identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.   God speaks of Moses’ ancestors—long dead and buried—but God speaks as if those ancestors are “right there”—no longer dead, but alive in the fullness of God’s own unending life.

There’s more here than first meets the eye.    Jesus is always doing that sort of thing in the gospels—always busting out of old arguments and pinched, brittle assumptions that hold us back.  Jesus is always breaking open the astounding promises of God—always helping us see above and beyond the circumstances of the moment.    If there is any hope for us, says Jesus, it is not in ideas or possibilities or even doctrines like the “doctrine” of the resurrection.  Our hope is always in God—the God of the living, the God who insists on sharing his own eternal life, even with the likes of you and me.

There’s more here than first meets the eye.    That’s a watchword for us, too—sons and daughters of God, children of the resurrection, destined in Jesus Christ to live forever in the fullness of God’s own life.  When our God starts looking “too small,” when things appear too cut and dried to us, as they did to the Sadducees—we need to take another look at it, in the light of God’s own boundless, unending life.

Take ourselves for example.  

There’s more to us than meets the eye.   Do we have any idea what God accomplishes in God’s world through our daily lives?   Do we see ourselves, as God sees us, bearing his light from the baptismal font out into our homes, our schools, our workplaces, wherever we travel the other six days of the week?   Do we have an inkling of all the good God does through our hands, our voices, our feet in the world?

There’s more here than first meets the eye.   

That applies to our congregations, as well.  How do you look at the community of faith that gathers week in and week out?   Do you ever see it as God sees it—as an outpost of the Kingdom of God in the world?   Do you realize how your congregations are beacons of hope to those around you—just by your coming together, your cracking open of the Word of God, your baptizing and feeding of one another with Christ’s body and blood—all signs of the life of the world to come?

There’s more here than first meets the eye.  

That’s especially true when you pause to consider all the ways God is forever turning you disciples of Bethany and Mt Carmel churches “inside out” for the sake of the world.  As the love God has lavished on you overflows through you to the world—what happens then?  

·      The hopeless are cheered up.

·      Seekers find faith.

·      Empty stomachs are filled.

·      Reconciliation trumps strife.

·      Justice is achieved.

·      Bold risks are taken.

·      The outlines of God’s promised future start to become clear.

·      Forgiveness goes viral.

·      People are pointed toward Jesus.

There’s more here than first meets the eye.   Even as you pass the offering plate up and down the aisle—do you stop to see, not just what goes into that offering plate, but what comes out of that offering plate?   

Because God is so much bigger than we can even imagine….because God fills up both time and eternity….because God also stoops into time and space to walk with us and among us, God can do amazing things even with the dollars we offer whether they be many or few.

·      God knits Christians together, births new communities of faith, reinvigorates old communities of faith.

·      God calls out and equips ordinary folks for servant ministries.

·      God clears away the fog and guides his people.

·      God defeats intractable diseases like malaria.

·      God sends ambassadors, healers, teachers of the faith across the globe.

·      God forgives sins, restores hope, defeats the devil.

·      God raises the dead—on that we can depend.

·      God raises us up—daughters and sons of God, children of the resurrection who live not in paralyzing fear but in liberating hope.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

 

Seven Reasons Why Campus Ministry Deserves Our Support in 2013

Pastors Simon Fensom and Randy Skow-Anderson singing together again during the 60th Anniversary Celebration for Lutheran Campus Ministry at Minnesota State University Moorhead on November 2, 2013.   I offered thbe following remarks during the program.

Seven reasons why the time is ripe for us to  

·      multiply our prayers for,
·      ramp up our engagement with, and
·      increase our financial support for Lutheran campus ministry.

1.    Because campus ministry is deep in our DNA as Lutherans—heirs of a renewal movement that began in a University nearly 500 years ago.   “Martin Luther was the original campus pastor!”

2.   Because campus ministry is already a precious asset for our ELCA (and a principle of asset-based thinking is that we take stock of assets already on the plus-side of our ledger-book—and we build on those assets).   We have a wonderful history of engagement in campus ministry (tradition), talented boots on the ground (personnel), and an array of facilities (resources).  We have skin in this game—and we’d be fools not to keep building on these assets.

3.   Because campus ministry is one of the best ways our ELCA is trying to scratch the itch we’re all concerned about—what about our youth and young adults?   How does an aging church claim and reclaim persons in the first third of life?

4.   Because campus ministry is something Lutherans are temperamentally and theologically suited for.   Ours is a grace-driven, missionally-imaginative, wonderfully welcoming approach to living the Christian life.   Our confidence in God’s unconditional love and our predilection for relational evangelism allows us to meet young adults where they’re at, walk alongside them through all the ups and downs of young adulthood, learn from them, and equip them for life and service.

5.   Because campus ministry recognizes that our Lutheran sense of “vocation” is a signal contribution we offer to American higher education---a world that’s already talking about something (vocation) that has been in our wheelhouse for nearly five centuries.  Our campus pastors and others involved in campus ministry have the great good fortune to “be there” for young adults in one of the most formative times of their lives—when they’re seriously wrestling with the question:  “What shall I do with my life?”   We in campus ministry get to enrich that discernment process by reminding young adults that in the water of Baptism we all are ordained/set aside/sent for service to the neighbor in any and every walk of life.    Young adults are ripe for rich vocation-oriented encounters and connections, and Lutheran campus ministry is aptly suited for such conversations.

6.   Because Lutheran campus ministry has been, still is and will continue to be on the leading edge of our church….willing to go places not all congregations are ready to go….unencumbered by some of the negative baggage people associate with “the church”—offering safe, inviting opportunities to walk alongside young adults.   Perhaps this is why campus ministry continues to produce a disproportionate number of future leaders for church and society (which is why we need to be careful when talking about the “campus ministry numbers game”).

7.   Because campus ministry recognizes that young people today are best described not as secular—but as seeking--hungering for meaning and abundant life and God.    Too often those of my generation and older view young people as a problem—“what’s wrong with them that they’re not involved in ‘our’ church?”   Campus ministry is one of the arenas in which we move beyond such unhelpful approaches, because we realize that young adults are interested in God, curious about authentic spirituality, and open to meaningful service in God’s world.   Campus ministry is wonderfully-gifted for addressing the desire of young adults to discover holistic ways of following God, e.g. not pitting telling the story of Jesus with walking in the way of Jesus, not regarding witness and work as separate or “opposed” realities.

Ever-Ready, Always-Listening, Endlessly Merciful

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Barnesville, MN
Pentecost 22-October 20, 2013
Luke 18:1-8

If the parables of Jesus don’t leave you chuckling with delight or shaking your head in bafflement or just a little hot under the collar…..you probably haven’t heard them in all their richness and glory.   Because—whatever else we may think of Jesus’ parables—in the first place, they’re simply “thumpin’ good” stories!

And the parables are proof positive that Jesus was willing to go to any length to get his point across.   Jesus was always ready to skate right on the edge of propriety, in order to draw our attention to what God is up to in our midst.

So this morning we have before us a parable inhabited by two indomitable, unforgettable characters.

First there is this judge who always, it would appear, operated as a law unto himself.   

This judge neither fears God nor respects people.   He is not bound by religious principles. Nor is he beholding to the latest opinion poll. 

This judge must have had a lifetime appointment!

He reminds me of the ruthless banker in a small town, who doled out loans with a legendary stinginess.    This banker took peculiar pride in the high-quality glass eye he had—a glass eye that almost perfectly matched his one good eye in both size and appearance.    

So one day a poor dirt farmer, hat in hand, humbly came to the banker’s office, seeking a loan so he could plant his spring crop.    The farmer, stammering, made his case while the banker idly stared out the window.

In response to the farmer’s plea for credit, the banker replied that he’d help the farmer out if he correctly guessed which of his two eyes was the glass eye.

After carefully studying the banker’s face for several moments, the farmer guessed that the glass eye was the banker’s left eye.

Amazed that he’d guessed correctly so quickly, the banker asked the farmer how he knew his left eye was the glass eye.  “Because when I studied your left eye—compared to your right eye—I thought I detected some compassion in it!”

Just so, in Jesus’ parable, the unrighteous judge was a hard-nosed, unsentimental bully, accustomed to having his own way, as he stingily doled out justice.   Folks hearing Jesus tell this parable would have had this man “pegged.”   Each hearer, no doubt, could think of someone they knew who was just as bull-headedly arrogant as the unrighteous judge.

And then there’s the pleading widow in this parable.    In terms of the power dynamics of this story, she clearly operated at a disadvantage, compared to the judge.  

This widow was utterly powerless.   She was a woman in a rigidly male-dominated culture.  Moreover, she was a widow—bereft of the husband who once provided her with standing in the community. 

This poor, pleading widow had only one trick up her sleeve.   She was utterly shameless in her persistence before the unrighteous judge.  If he turned her down one day, she was back again the next, continually knocking at his door.

Perhaps you have known such persons.   When I was senior pastor at Our Savior’s on the blue-collar north side of Moorhead, we had a steady stream of needy folks coming to our church office for financial assistance in making ends meet.   Some of their faces became familiar to us, and I grew to appreciate their tenacity--their utter lack of shame in pleading for help.   As our long-time church secretary once told me:  “These folks  are so focused on putting bread on the table for their children that they will do anything to piece together a living…”

So the pleading widow exercised the only power at her disposal—the power of persistence…

….and in the end, that proved to be enough to win out over the judge’s refusal to do the right thing. “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,” the judge muttered to himself—“yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’

Sometimes even an utterly unrighteous judge will execute justice—despite himself!

And then who had the last laugh—the powerful man or the powerless woman? 

Now, my friends, that’s just a thumpin’ good story, told with an economy of language that makes the point unmistakable.

And what was that point?   More specifically, why did Jesus spin this particular yarn?

I think simply this:   to reveal God unfailing mercy by painting a vivid, memorable image of how God does not—never, ever, ever—treat us.

The unrighteous judge is the exact mirror opposite of our ever-ready, always-listening, endlessly merciful God.

When I was a seminary student many years ago I had two professors of preaching.  One of them had completed no formal graduate work in homiletics, the art of preaching.  But he was a great preacher, and we seminarians soaked up all sorts of learning simply by hearing him preach.

The other professor had a doctorate in homiletics but was abysmal in the pulpit.  He couldn’t preach his way out of a paper bag.  

And yet I figured out a way to learn from him nonetheless.  I found that if I as a budding preacher did everything the opposite of how he did it—I just might become a fairly decent preacher.

It’s been said that no one is utterly useless; you can, after all, always serve as a horrible example to someone else!

That would be the unrighteous judge here in this parable.  

Carefully trace the outline of this awful judge’s face—and then reverse that image, turn it around 180 degrees….and you’ll catch a glimpse of God, who doesn’t need to be brow-beaten into responding to us, who sits on the edge of his seat—eager to hear us, who starts to answer our prayers even before we give them voice!

Whenever you make your case before God, whenever you throw yourself “on the mercy of the court” before God--you will never walk away empty-handed.

And we’re talking about more than just your personal “wish list,” here.   We’re talking about the big, wide, deep prayers that bubble up from deep inside of us---prayers for God’s merciful, sustaining presence with us…pleadings for the advent of God’s peaceable kingdom among us….longings for God’s good and gracious will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven.”

The first century Christian community for whom Luke wrote his gospel probably knew what it was like to be backed up against a wall by persecution.   They no doubt lived with the nagging frustration of crying out to God and not getting the answer they sought as quickly as they wanted it.

Jesus told and Luke retold this parable to bring them—and us—the courageous trust we all need, sooner or later--to believe that God never turns a deaf ear toward us and that God will never leave us hanging high and dry.

In fact, our faith will run out long, long before God’s tenacious grip on us will ever give out.  (I take that to be the thrust of Jesus’ final question here in our gospel lesson.)

And even then, when our knuckles are bruised from knocking, when our voices have become hoarse, when laryngitis stops us dead in our prayers, another voice will pick up where we leave off--the gentle whisper of the Spirit who continually pleads for us “with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). 

My friends, when it seems that you and I just can’t pray any longer, let us remember Who it is we’re praying to--the One “who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us--will he not with him also give us everything else?”  (Romans 8:33)  

When we lose heart in our praying, let us not forget that Someone else will pick up our petitions and plead our cause before God the mercifully responsive righteous Judge who will never, ever, ever send us away empty-handed.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Finding God's Focus

Breckenridge Lutheran Church, Breckenridge, MN
October 13, 2013—75^th Anniversary
Luke 17:11-19

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Have you noticed how much unfocused pain and anger there is out there—floating around in today’s world?

It’s unsettling, how accustomed we’ve become to news reports about terrorist bombings or mass shootings that seem to pop up almost weekly.    Angst over the mess in Washington DC—a paralyzed, gridlocked Congress, a government shutdown—our national frustration with that has “settled in” like so much background noise.   And there are always multiple, personal versions of this unfocused pain….our prayer lists always brimming with new sufferers, fresh grief, the latest “situation” that makes us wonder if hope is still alive.

There always is lots of unfocused pain, unfocused anger, unfocused frustration in this world….

….and that’s exactly where this story of the Ten Lepers begins.  

Jesus happens upon a scene that was all too common in the ancient world:  a small leper colony, pitiable souls afflicted by a disfiguring skin disease that carried with it extreme social ostracism.  Lepers in Jesus’ day were treated like “the walking dead.”

I picture these wretched men constantly voicing their unfocused heartache, their unfocused longing for healing and restoration.   Day in, day out, whoever passed by could hear their distant moaning, pleading, imploring anyone who might come within earshot.

Wherever Jesus traveled he brought focus to such unfocused suffering.

For Jesus, voices of sufferers never get lost in the crowd….the cries of the injured and the sick never, for Jesus, fade away into so much “background noise.”

Jesus heard, Jesus noticed, Jesus saw with laser-like clarity each of these ten sorrowful men….Jesus allowed them to come into sharp focus…not merely to pity them, but to transform their situation…to dispatch them on a new journey from despair to healing.

And as that happened….as the ten lepers daringly took Jesus at this word and began making their way to the local holy man who could certify them as healthy….on the way to their restoration they were healed.

…so that, suddenly, the unfocused pain of these ten lepers was transformed into equally unfocused joy..  Ten men about as down on their luck as men could be—suddenly thanking their lucky stars!

But one of these men, for some odd reason, believed that more than luck was in play here.  This tenth leper—a despised ethnic outsider, no less—this Samaritan focused his rejoicing, realized this was not all happenstance, returned to Jesus, and gave thanks—focused thanks where thanks was due.

My dear friends, as we celebrate the 75^th Anniversary of Breckenridge Lutheran Church, I invite us to ponder all the ways in which this congregation, and indeed every living congregation, brings focus to all the experiences of our lives.

Congregations are communities of Christ where all that is unfocused in our daily lives becomes focused, properly focused, on the God who forgives, heals, restores, indeed resurrects us in Jesus.

Whether you’ve always realized it, Breckenridge Lutheran has functioned like a lens for your lives for three quarters of a century.  This congregation has offered focus to all that has come your way.

So children are born or adopted…wanderers, lost souls are found by God…and the natural rejoicing that accompanies such new life finds focus—time and again—when we gather around this baptismal font where hundreds of persons have been born again to a living hope in Jesus Christ.  

·      Think back--how many baptisms have you witnessed here at Breckenridge Lutheran?  

·      And as you embark on a mission planning process, how will the people of Breckenridge Lutheran move out even more imaginatively, more energetically to be God’s seeking, saving voice, hands and feet in this community?

But those who’ve  been found by God and baptized into Christ don’t just stay frozen in time.   We grow, we unfold, we learn in the community of Christ.  We’re more like rushing rivers than stagnant pools, thank God!  And all that growing and learning has found focus here as the scriptures have been opened, to add color and texture to the fabric of faith.  

·      How many Sunday school lessons, catechism classes, Bible studies, confirmation Sundays have you been part of here at Breckenridge Lutheran?  

·      And as you launch into the next leg of your journey together, what new paths of discipleship will you embrace as God brings focus to your lives by passing on the clarifying, vivifying “lens” of faith in Jesus Christ?

As this life of daring faith unfolds, though, we will continually encounter challenges and opportunities, roadblocks and open doors…..and all of that finds focus here as this community of faith tackles issues, jumpstarts new ministries, takes on risks and obligations for the sake of serving God’s mission. 

I’m struck by the fact that this congregation was born in the decade of the Great Depression, during FDR’s second term as president, on the eve of World War II.   Breckenridge Luthearn was birthed in hard times…and through the years you’ve weathered more hard times.  I still remember my brother-in-law Roger Johnson’s video footage from the flood of 1997, as Roger and Linda paddled a canoe from their old home on 8^th Street down to where Krebs Motors used to be!  

Hard times didn’t prevent the founders of your congregation from taking the risk of starting a church.  They found focus in the Good News of Jesus Christ—focus that gave them courage.   During the flood of 1997, your congregation showed how Christians view hard times—as the raw materials for ministries of caring and hope, service that matters in the midst of a natural disaster.

·      So, how many brainstorming or planning meetings have you been part of here at Breckenridge Lutheran—generative conversations aimed at finding ways to respond to the challenges and opportunities plopped down in your laps?

·      And as you step forward from this anniversary year into God’s future, how will your congregation continue to make a difference in God’s name here in Wilkin County?

Death has also crept into our lives, time and again, as fellow travelers have been snatched away from us whether by disease or accident….and all that grief and loss and wondering has found focus here where hundreds of baptized children of God have been commended to the arms of their Savior. 

·      So please ponder:  how many funerals have you attended here at Breckenridge Lutheran over these past 75 years?

·      And how will your congregation continue to be one of those few places in the world where people are honest about death and even more honest about the Resurrection that God has in store for all of us, in Jesus Christ?

All along the way I’ve been describing….all along the way life throws both its best and its worst at us….and we respond constantly, in delight or despair.   All of that finds focus here in this house of prayer, because like the Samaritan, like the Tenth Leper we know Whom to turn to in the ups and downs of life. 

·      How many times have you prayed here in this place, bringing into sharp focus all the thanksgivings and intercessions you had within you?

·      And pondering the decades to come how will your prayers take you to the new places, the promised future that God has in store for us all?

So much of life that might otherwise pass by us in a blur or a haze becomes, focused, sharpened, clarified, “tuned up” here in congregations like this.  In a few moments we’ll sing about that in these words:  “Come, thou Fount of ev’ry blessing, tune my heart to sing they grace…”  (ELW #807)

Thanks be to God for Breckenridge Lutheran Church!   Thanks be to God for this community of faith, gathered in this place week in and week out so that our eyes might be focused and our hearts tuned to sing God’s grace in Jesus Christ our strong Savior, compassionate Healer, loyal Friend and daring Guide.

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.