"But now..."

 

St Matthew’s Lutheran Church, Thompson, ND/Reformation Sunday/October 25, 2020 (online)

Affirmation of Baptism & Installation of Pastor Tawanda Murinda

Romans 3:19-28

 In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

 This morning I have three different kinds of news for you.

 First, the bad news…but then the good news….and finally—wait for it!—I’ll share the best news of all!

     1.     First the bad news:   we’re stuck and we can’t get ourselves unstuck.

 We’re stuck—oh boy are we stuck!   This morning, as if we need to be reminded, most of us are stuck at home or wherever else we’re catching this online worship service.

 And the reason we’re stuck somewhere else than in our  beloved church home in Thompson, ND, is that we and everyone else in this world are stuck in a viral pandemic, the likes of which  we haven’t seen in a century!

 This coronavirus that has snaked its way across the whole globe is the freshest proof  that we live in a world that’s simply not what its Creator intended it to be….proof that the creation itself is groaning in pain and anticipation of the new creation God is preparing for us all.

 But for now, we’re stuck,  and we can’t get ourselves unstuck….and as if the pandemic itself wasn’t awful enough—our inability to come together, agree with one another, and take  some fairly easy steps that could defeat this virus—the fact that we human beings haven’t gotten our act together globally places the responsibility for our “stuckness” squarely on our own shoulders…

 …while also exposing all sorts of other ways we’re stuck and cannot get ourselves unstuck, like:

·       Being stuck in age-old prejudices over race, ethnicity, language and culture;

·       Or being stuck in economic systems that don’t give everyone a fair shake;

·       Or being stuck on a planet experiencing climate change at a frightening pace, marked by “extreme weather events”—wild fires and hurricanes, for example, that keep hitting us with astonishing frequency and force.

 And why are we stuck in all these ways?   It’s because we and the whole human race are stuck in sin:  sin, understood not just in terms of  unlawful or hurtful things we say or do, but in terms of a condition, a force with a life of its own, causing us to be “curved in on ourselves”  (as Martin Luther liked to say).

 Today’s bad news is that we’re stuck in sin and all the disastrous effects of sin—and we can’t get ourselves unstuck…which is why we hope for and cry out for a path out of this wretched situation.  It’s why we’re starving to hear even a shred of good news.

 2.     And--thanks be to God!--there is good news:   God has already opened up for us a path, a solution, a way forward to get unstuck!

 And you already know, I’m guessing, where this is leading:  which is to  Jesus, of course!

This good news has nothing to do with what you and I think or say or do.  It is, rather, simply bestowed on us—out of the clear blue.  It descends like gentle rain on parched earth.  It “happens” to us when we least expect it.

That certainly is how it happened for our Lutheran church’s namesake, Martin Luther, who was born in 1483.

Growing up in Germany during the Middle Ages, Martin Luther wrestled with his own brand of stuckness.   He was stuck in a feverish, desperate attempt to make himself acceptable to a God whom he feared more than he loved—a God whose church in that time offered 101 ways to “get right” with the Almighty.

If anyone could have pulled that off—it was Martin Luther.  Day after day he labored—performing good works, confessing all his sins, making amends for those sins. 

 Luther became so obsessed with “going to confession,” that one day his frustrated priest-confessor turned him away at the door into the confessional—commanding Luther not to come back until he had some real, serious sins to confess!

So instead, at the end of his rope, Luther dove deeply into the Word of God…searching, seeking, trying to find a way out of his stuckness in sin…

….until one fine day “that way out” found Luther!--right here in the words of today’s Second Lesson from Romans chapter three. 

God’s good news burst into Luther’s life through just two words:    “but now!”

Those might be the two sweetest words in the whole Bible:  “But now”—something new bursts forth, a turning point arrives…something other than “trying just a bit harder” to live our lives well.

But now—a path opened up that Martin Luther wasn’t even looking for.  It just appeared—taking Luther completely by surprise.

“But now,” sings St. Paul here in Romans chapter 3, “but now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed…the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”

Here Luther thought that being right with God, being aligned with God’s Kingdom, was something he had to pursue with every fiber of his being….

…”but now”—lo and behold!—it dawned on Luther that God’s righteousness had been pursuing him, all along.

Following in Luther’s footsteps, we 21^st century Lutherans, have come to know and trust that God’s righteousness—that is, God’s way of making the world right again--is never our do-it-yourself project.  It is God’s good work, from start to finish.   It is God rescuing us—completely “free of charge.”

And here’s the best thing:  God delights in simply forking it over, letting it wash over us, covering all our sinfulness and waywardness with the saving water of our baptism into Christ Jesus.

This gracious water of Baptism into Christ sweeps away all obstacles in our path, pulls us out of our stuckness, and catches us up in the gracious current, the glorious under-tow of God’s Good News.

3.     Which brings us to the best news of all!   God’s way of making us and the whole world right again in Jesus Christ, isn’t just a bright idea or a  “live option”—an alternative God cooked up for us in the spur of the moment—a rescue plan that just might do the trick, if we’re smart enough to choose it.

No, the best news of all is that this way, Jesus’ way is what God has had in mind all along.  

As Paul puts it in our text, Jesus “disclosed” what God has always been about.   Jesus discloses that God’s righteousness isn’t God’s possession—but rather, it is God’s modus operandi—God’s way of  being God for us, played out in real time in this world. 

God is, always has been, and always will be in the business of setting things to right—making you and me and the whole creation NEW once again!

God doesn’t come to us, hat in hand, to make us an offer he hopes we’ll accept.

No, but rather:  God rolls up his sleeves and goes to work in us, in order to open us up to this goodness.   God chooses to accomplish  this way in our lives.  It is our destiny!

Before the first star began to twinkle, God was thinking of you.  Before God created anything, God was already envisioning a Cross and an Empty Grave at the very center of human history.   Before the first sunrise ever took place, God had designs on you--to name you and claim you and never let you go.

That, my dear young friends—Ava, Reese, Kate, Zakary, Drew and Zane—it’s what the six of you are affirming today.   You’re saying your own Yes to the Yes God said to you when you were baptized.

And because all of this is God’s gift to you—you are free from everything that makes you stuck.  

In Jesus Christ, we’re simply set free:  free to float in God’s mercy.  

Years ago I got to know Raymond Lucker the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of New Ulm MN until cancer stole him away.  In his last days Ray often visited a little farm place he owned near Renville, MN. 

One day a friend found Ray, sitting in a lawn chair in the bright sunshine of a Minnesota summer morning.  “What are you doing?” a friend asked.   “Nothing,” Bishop Lucker replied.  “I’m just sitting here, letting God hold me.”

Reformation Day is about floating on the sheer grace of God, living in the confidence that before you and I ever lifted a finger to do one good thing for God, God had already done all good things for us, in Christ Jesus. 

And where does that leave us? 

It leaves us free from all our “stuckness”…free to say thank you….and free to  live the life we were created for:  trusting God, loving our neighbors, and caring for this good earth. 

It doesn’t get any better than that.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

 

Giving to God What Already Belongs to God

Goose River Lutheran Church, Hatton, ND

October 18, 2020 (Celebration of Ministry/Holy Closure)

Pentecost 20/Matthew 22:15-22

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

“Public figure accosted by rival groups of critics”

No, that’s not the latest newspaper headline in this wild and wooly political campaign of 2020!

It is, rather, a lens for exploring our gospel lesson from Matthew 22 which begins on this ominous note: “Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap [Jesus] in what he said…”

Not unlike nosy reporters or pushy political operatives in this autumn of 2020, the Pharisees want Jesus to go on record saying something that will come back to haunt him.  They were plotting how to trick Jesus into making himself look bad—just as he moves through the same fateful week in which He will face a treacherous betrayal, a crooked trial, and a brutal crucifixion

The Pharisees, in this case at least, had allies:  a rival Jewish group, known as the Herodians.

Normally these two Jewish “parties” were at odds with one another, especially over how they related to the Romans who had conquered their nation.  Eking out an existence under the harsh thumb of their far-off Roman emperor, the Pharisees tended to oppose the Romans, while the Herodians tended to collude with the Romans.

But what united these rival groups, in our gospel today, was their shared suspicion of Jesus, which is why they posed this ticking time bomb of a question to him:  “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the [Roman] emperor or not?”  

Can a devout, God-fearing Jew pay the required “poll tax” demanded by the Roman emperor?

Seeing right through their ruse, Jesus asks his questioners why they’re “putting him to the test.”  And then he asks them to show him one of the Roman coins used to pay the poll tax—a tax that signified the Jews’ subjugation to Rome, a tax that raised revenue to support Rome’s oppressive government.

Jesus’ questioners were surprisingly quick to produce one of the denarius coins they used to meet their tax obligations to the Romans.  

But now it was Jesus who put his opponents under a microscope, by asking them to read  the inscription on the coin.  Archaeologists suggest the inscription may have read like this:   “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, majestic son of the majestic God.”

What’s too bad here is that all we have are the words Jesus uttered—with no hint of his tone of voice or any gestures he might have made.   

I picture Jesus holding up that Roman coin—to show how small and inconsequential it was!--as if to say:   “give to the emperor exactly what you owe—about a day’s wages, and not a penny more.”

Jesus acknowledges that Caesar has a rightful claim on all his subjects—to bear the cost of running his entirely earthly empire.   Give this little man his little bit!

And then I picture Jesus stretching out his arms as far as he could, as he goes on to say:  “And give to God—God the Maker of all, God the First and the Last---give to God what belongs to God!”

…which included, by the way, all those tiny coins destined for the emperor’s treasury--for the emperor’s poll tax was also part of God’s “everything!”

Well that shut them up—these Pharisees and the Herodians—who, “when they heard this…were amazed; and they left Jesus and went away.”

But I bet they were still pondering, still turning over in their minds how Jesus had responded to their “gotcha” question…..and I especially wonder how they might have reflected on that second question:    What did Jesus have in mind  when he commanded them to give to God what is God’s?

That, my dear friends, is the question I hope you and I will also take home with us today.

What is Jesus asking of us and everyone else, when he says: “Give to God what belongs to God?”

…to which the short, sweet answer is: “Everything!”

If (as it says in Psalm 24:1)…if ‘the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it’--then we are duty bound to give everything to God…

…and while that certainly includes lots of stuff, it also encompasses realities that, though intangible, matter more than all the things we can see, touch, or hold!

·      Give God all your loyalty…100% of your allegiance.

·      Give God all your love…every drop of devotion you can muster.

·      Give God all your gratitude…every last “thank you” that flows from your lips!

·      Give God your deepest trust and your most ardent faith!

·      Give God—and God alone!--all the glory and praise God deserves.

That’s a pretty tall order, though, isn’t it?

On our own, the very last thing we want to do is give God everything that belongs to God.    On our own we’d just as soon keep it all for ourselves—so self-centered, so  “curved in upon ourselves” that we are.

But God has not let us languish in such a sorry, selfish state!   God came to earth and walked among us in Jesus Christ to pry us loose from ourselves….to die for our selfish waywardness…and thus to open us up to live as the precious daughters and sons whom God created us to be.

This great good news—news we never tire of hearing—news that’s as essential as food, clothing and shelter—this great good news is why Goose River Lutheran Church, has existed for 136 years!

For you see, although each individual believer is precious in God’s sight…we individuals proclaim God’s surpassing goodness best by coming together.  

So when Steele County ND  was being settled by waves of Norwegian immigrants in the late 19^th century, it was only natural that they banded together in congregations designed to become beacons of  God’s light  here on the ND prairie.

So your congregation was founded in 1884, when some of these new citizens of the USA gathered at the Halvor Berg farm and—in an act of profound faith in God--began meeting together in local country school houses until your first church building was erected in 1888.

Goose River Lutheran Church’s “birth story” is a powerful reminder that nearly all of our ND rural congregations existed as communities of people, long before they became identified with a building….or, in your case, a series of buildings—thanks to the tornado and the fire that destroyed your first two church buildings (!)

What led your forebears to establish this congregation was a profound act of faith, trusting that God deserves our “everything”—and that a living, breathing congregation is what best equips us to praise God, spread the gospel, raise our children in faith, serve our needy neighbors, and extend our Christian witness across the globe:  joyfully proclaiming that there is a God who has given us everything so that, in faith we might return that everything to the One who made us and in Jesus Christ remade us to be God’s people.

And now, if I may share with you a pastoral word as you approach the holy closure of your congregation:   I urge you to take this step in the confidence that bringing your corporate existence to conclusion is just as much of an act of  profound faith as was the establishing of your congregation back in 1884.

The reason I say that is that the Church, the eternal community of Jesus Christ is always being enfleshed in an ever-changing world. 

My dear friends, you don’t need me to remind you of how much has changed over the last 136 years. 

Looking at the demographics of this area, we notice that Steele County peaked in 1910 with a population of 7600 persons…and we also notice that today’s Steele County has a quarter of the population the county had in 1910.

Despite facts like population decline in rural areas, we may still struggle to acknowledge it’s time to bring the mission of this congregation to its conclusion.   We could even blame ourselves, imagining that if we had just believed a little harder or worked more energetically—we could restore this congregation to its original size , scope and level of energy.

As people who believe that God has given us everything, freeing us to give back to God our “everything,” we know that we’ll continue living out our Christian faith and witness, even after this congregation is dissolved and the doors of this precious building are closed.

It is an act of profound faith to do so:  an act of trust that the same God who has made everything will draw you into new circles of fellowship with other believers, so that you’ll continue to give back to God all your devotion, all your love for one another, and all your determination to keep sharing the Good News of Christ wherever you go, through whatever fresh faith community welcomes you into its fold.  

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.