"But Now..."

Reformation Sunday—October 30, 2011

Bethany Lutheran Church, Red Lake Falls, MN

Romans 3:19-28

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

This morning I have bad news, good news and better news for you.

1.   First, the bad news:  what you’ve been trying to do isn’t working.

You’ve been trying to do the right thing—attempting to live in a way that is good and true and beautiful.    You’ve been doing your duty, obeying the rules, tending your responsibilities, working hard.

But it’s just not working.  Somehow, somewhere along the way, you inevitably fall short—experience disappointment.

And that’s the pits, isn’t it?

Here, you do your best, but it’s never good enough.  It just can’t quite get you to your final destination.   Even if everything seems to be going swimmingly—even if the world is your oyster—there’s still that big dark hole at the end:  the hole where what’s left of you will one day be deposited after you die. 

Nothing you do can make that hole go away!

Five hundred years ago there was a man named Martin Luther who was intimately acquainted with this sorry state of affairs. 

Luther was born in 1483, just nine years before “Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”  He lived in a world so very different from this time and this place.  His mother thought demons caused milk to sour.  His father insisted that Martin become a lawyer.  His church thought he needed to shape up—and it offered a hundred and one ways for Martin to do that.

Martin Luther shared one thing in common with us:  he wanted to do the right thing.   And he didn’t just WANT to do the right thing—he made a valiant effort actually to accomplish the right thing.

Luther sought to align himself with Whoever was at the core of his universe.   Martin Luther wanted to please God above all things—and so he poured himself, lock stock and barrel into this worthy effort.

“How can I find a gracious God?” was Luther’s nagging question.   How can I get on the right side of the One who created me, the same One who will someday judge me?

You and I may not put it in exactly those terms, but we surely are attempting—every minute of every hour of every day—we’re trying to do the right thing, to align ourselves with the Source of all that is.

But try as we might—we always fall short.   St Paul says so rather bluntly in our Second Lesson when he declares:  “No human being will be justified in [God’s] sight by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes knowledge of sin.”   End of story—there is no law, no rule, no way of life, no moral uprightness that can ever bring us home—put us right with the Source of our life.

That’s the bad news—as old as the hills, and as fresh as this new day.   And if that bad news was all there was, we would be of all persons most to be pitied.

But remember:  I said that I had bad news, good news and better news for you.  

So here goes:   what you’re trying isn’t working….but there is another way, a whole different way, a way that we’d never come up with all on our own.

2.   The good news is that there is this other way.    And it has nothing to do with what we think or say or do—thank God!   It’s a way that’s simply bestowed upon us--comes to us out of the clear blue.  It descends like gentle rain on parched earth.  It “happens” to us when we least expect it.

Martin Luther was about ready to throw in the towel.  He had tried everything he could think of to strike a bargain with God—get on God’s good side.  

And if anyone could have pulled it off—it was Martin Luther.  He tried to fulfill those 101 expectations of his church, he confessed his sins and made amends every day.  He was so obsessed with that that one day his priest-confessor turned Luther away at the door of the confessional—telling him to come back only when he had some real, serious sins to confess!

At the end of his rope, Luther dove deeply into the Word of God…searching, seeking out, trying to find a way out.

And then one fine day “the way out” found Luther!--right here in our Second Lesson for today (that’s why we read this every year on Reformation Sunday!)  Here’s how the good news begins:   “but now!”

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

But now—a path is opened up that we weren’t even looking for.  It just appeared—took us by surprise,  showed up in our midst.

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

Here we thought that righteousness, being right with God, being aligned with God’s Kingdom was something we had to pursue with every fiber of our being….”but now”—lo and behold!—it dawned on Paul, it dawned on Luther and (pray God!) it dawns on us that God’s righteousness has been pursuing us, all along.

God’s right-wising of the world is never our do-it-yourself project.  It is God’s project, through and through.   It is God’s great work on our behalf.  And God delights in simply forking it over, letting it wash over us, covering all our sinfulness and waywardness with the waters of grace flowing from Christ’s pierced side, cascading now from the baptismal font, sweeping away all obstacles in the path, catching us up in the gracious current, the glorious under-tow of the Good News.

Good news:  there is another way.  And this way has found us.  It has captured us with God’s astonishing mercy.   It is, even now, making us brand spanking new—new creatures, in Christ Jesus.

Bad news:  what you’re trying isn’t working.

Good news:  there is another way—God’s way of hunting us down with mercy and a fresh start and the promise of new creation.

3.   But here’s even better news:   this other way isn’t just a bright idea or a  “live option” or a great possibility plopped down in our laps—an alternative God cooked up for us in the spur of the moment—something that might do the trick, if we’ll just be smart enough to choose it.

No, the better news is that this way, Jesus’ way is what God had in mind all along.   As Paul puts it in our text, Jesus “disclosed” what God has always been about—Jesus has revealed that God’s righteousness isn’t God’s possession—but it’s God’s modus operandi…God’s action plan played out in the world. 

God is, always has been, and always will be in the right-wising business!   God isn’t just coming to us, hat in hand, to make us a great offer.   God intends to effect 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, he was imagining a cross and an empty grave.  God was getting ready to send his beloved Son into the world.  Before the first sunrise ever took place, God had designs on you to name you and claim you and never let you go.

And because all of this is God’s gift to you—a sheer, unadulterated bonus of undeserved mercy—you now have better things to do than nervously trying to measure up to expectations that will always be beyond your grasp.

You now can just float—float in God’s mercy.  

I often think of a Roman Catholic bishop I knew down in southern Minnesota.   Raymond Lucker served the Diocese of New Ulm until cancer stole him away.  While he was dying Ray often spent free time at a little farm place he owned near Renville, MN.  Once a friend found Ray, sitting in a lawn chair in the bright sunshine of a Minnesota summer morning.  “What are you doing, Ray?” the friend asked.   “Nothing,” Ray 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 ever lifted a finger to do one good thing for God, God had already done all good things for you, in Christ Jesus. 

And where does that now leave us?  Floating in the grace of God, held tightly by God, riding the baptismal river, and calling to others on the shore:  “Come on in.  This water is fine!”

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Lighting up the Cosmos

75^th Anniversary Sunday—Immanuel of Wadena
October 16, 2011
Matthew 5:13-16

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

“You are the light of the world,” Jesus tells us here in Matthew chapter 5.   Ponder that simple statement with me for a few moments.  Notice some things that might easily escape us in this overly-familiar passage.

1.    First, you are.   You are the light of the world.

Our Lord Jesus doesn’t give us something to aspire to here.   He isn’t like the proverbial commencement speaker who challenges graduates bedecked in their caps and gowns to see that “the sky’s the limit—they can reach for the stars,” if they simply put their minds to it.

Our Lord doesn’t lay an assignment or a project or a “woulda coulda” on us, here.   Jesus doesn’t tell us:   you really should be light.  You oughta try real hard to shine.

No, instead Jesus says simply:  you are.   You are the light of the world.

It is a fait accompli—an accomplished fact.  It is a promise, not a possibility.   It’s true simply because the Author of Light and Life says so.  When Jesus speaks, things happen, identity is given, purpose is granted, reality is transformed in the most unexpected and amazing of ways:  you are the light of the world.

This morning we give thanks for the light that has shown forth from this congregation for three-quarters of a century.   This amazing historical booklet—one of the most thorough, most thoughtfully-put-together anniversary booklets I’ve ever seen—this booklet offers more than a Joe Friday “just the facts” rendition of information.  This is a journal of highs and lows, opportunities and challenges, even successes and failures—making it one of the most honest congregational histories I’ve read, as well.

But what shines through, again and again, is the giftedness of this community of light and life in Jesus Christ.   There is a givenness—a God-givenness—about your life as a church.   You came into being--in the Great Depression no less!--and you survived and thrived and weathered all sorts of storms and went through a killer tornado….because God apparently has wanted you to be here.

God has said to you, and God keeps saying to you:  you are!   You are the light of the world.   You are because I have brought you forth, given birth to you, kept you going, continued to trim your wick and replenish your oil so that your light might blaze forth--unabated, unabashed.

You are.  You are here.  You are Immanuel (God-with-us!), because God has seen to it.   Thanks be to God.

2.    But there is more here in this verse.   Jesus says YOU are the light of the world.

What’s curious about that is that, if we know our Bibles, we remember that elsewhere Jesus described himself in the same terms.   John 8:12 (my confirmation verse!) goes like this: “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’”

So, here we were thinking that Jesus is the light of the world, as by rights it should be.   Jesus is the one who shatters the darkness of sin, death and the power of the devil.  Jesus shines the piercing light of God’s Word and God’s truth into all the dark corners of this world.  Jesus is the light of the world—according to John’s Gospel.

But this same Jesus puts a different spin on that phrase here in Matthew’s gospel:  looking us right in the eyes, telling each one of us and anyone else who cares to listen:  “YOU…you are the light of the world.”

So, which is it?   Who is the light of the world—Jesus, or those to whom Jesus speaks when he says “you are the light of the world?”

The answer, I think, is that Jesus sometimes has a hard time telling where he leaves off and we begin—we who are his beloved ones, his sisters and brothers, his Body in the world.   Jesus identifies with us for whom he has suffered, died and risen again.   Jesus the Light “identifies” so closely, so completely with us, who now live in the Body of Christ, that he who is the light thinks nothing of calling us the light of the world as well.

Jesus takes us that seriously, don’t you know?   YOU are the light of the world.

Which is to say:  you shine in dazzling ways because you bear the light Jesus has put within you.   It’s a borrowed, reflected light that shines through us—always, always, always….and yet just because it is a borrowed light (we borrow the light from Jesus!) it shines no less brightly.

YOU are the light the world, declares Jesus….and there’s another thing we need to say about that YOU.  It’s a “you all” sort of pronoun.  It’s plural, not singular.   YOU ALL…YOU TOGETHER….YOU IN THE COMPANY OF YOUR FELLOW DISCIPLES…you collectively are the light of the world.

And that shines through in the story of Immanuel Lutheran Church, too, doesn’t it?   For 75 years you have learned and relearned how the “holy togetherness” of the church frees you to tend the gospel, encourage one another, create vital programs, and sustain sacred space for all those things to happen--while supporting God’s mission in the world.

You ALL….you together have borne and continue to bear the light of Christ in the world. 

I’m struck by how often in your history you grappled with the dilemma of taking care of internal matters in the congregation—while also finagling ways to reach out into the community and beyond.   That has been a lively debate, a healthy discussion here.

You’ve been unwilling to have it only one way—looking after yourselves.   You have persistently wanted to have it both ways:  tending your life right here as Immanuel Lutheran, but also expanding mission efforts beyond your four walls….whether through Habitat for Humanity…or generous mission support giving….or your “mission of the month” emphasis….or projects like Mission Jamaica.   You’ve been able to cover all those bases because it has never been about you (a single congregation all by itself)….but it has been about YOU ALL, you together, whom our Lord Jesus calls (collectively!) the light of the world.

3.    Third, Jesus says to us:  YOU ALL ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.   Your bearing of the Christ-light serves the cosmos—it’s the universe that you light up.

Rather an audacious thing to be thinking about, let alone speaking out loud!

I recall a phrase that the late President Pamela Jolicoeur of Concordia College, coined.   Coming from southern California—where everything is big and splashy and colorful!—and arriving in the harsh environment of the Red River Valley…..Dr. Jolicoeur observed that we northwestern Minnesota Lutherans are known for our “militant modesty.”

Our motto, with apologies to Garrison Keillor, might go like this:  “Don’t you be thinking you’re anything special!”

But Jesus isn’t buying any of that.    Jesus isn’t looking for wallflowers who blend into the background unnoticed.   Jesus, rather, audaciously tells us:  you are the light OF THE WORLD, you light up the whole cosmos!

Now, stick that in your pipe and smoke it! 

God lays no small plans for us.   God harbors no small expectations of us.   God intends for us to intrude upon the darkness of this world and let the dazzling light of Jesus Christ shine to full effect.

You, my dear sisters and brothers, you light up the universe.   So, please, never sell yourselves short.

And you here at Immanuel have lived that out in so many ways.   You have been not just a “consumer” of pastors—but you have produced pastors and other church leaders, other servants of the Word.  You have dispatched sons and daughters out across the globe.    Several of your pastors have wound up being called into wider-church ministries.   You have done things like “Miracle Sundays” (which doesn’t sound very “militantly modest”)….and when the Big One roared through town in June of 2010, you were bold in your efforts—with other neighbors  in Wadena—to declare, rather defiantly, that a big old tornado isn’t going to get you down.

Militant modesty may have its place, but Jesus our Lord calls us to something grander.  I love the fact that one of your goals for this anniversary celebration is “to create excitement for the future of Immanuel’s ministry.”

Well here’s what God has to say about that—God who called Immanuel into being, God who binds you in a holy togetherness, God who sets before you a whole world of possibilities for your next 75 years and beyond.   Jesus looks you in the eyes and says to you today:  “you are….you all are…the light of the world.”   Whatever awaits you, you will continue to arise and shine…for this is your Lord’s promise to you: you will light up the world, with God’s own dazzling brilliance.

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

The Right Stuff

Awe-Filled Worship and Life:  Rethinking Stewardship

October 9 and 16, 2011

Revelation 21:1-5a and Galatians 2:19b-20

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

When I was a little boy, like lots of other little boys back in the 50s and 60s, I was fascinated by the U.S. space program.   My friends and I never missed a rocket launch on TV, and astronauts were our heroes. 

Four of us, when we were all in third grade, even decided to become a team of astronauts….and, so the story goes, I would be their chaplain!

What we little boys didn’t realize, though, was how rigorous the training program had been for our heroes—astronauts like Alan Shepard, Wally Schirra, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong.

We didn’t know, for starters, that all astronauts had to be in tip-top physical condition.  We didn’t know how highly educated they were…how they had gone through basic training in the military…how they had been subjected to a host of intense simulation experiences.  

The reason for all that was that astronauts needed to function in an environment of weightlessness.  They had to survive G-forces of 6 or higher, had to be proficient scuba divers, had to tread water for extended periods of time.   Astronauts truly had to have “the right stuff.”

What might have given us pause—my third grade companions and I—was the reality that many things astronauts went through in their training made them deathly ill.  Simulated experiences of weightlessness caused dizziness, even nausea.  Getting spun around in G-force simulators could make them pass out.  Our heroes were always being pressed to the max!

Here, silly me, I thought reading a book or taking a class might be enough, to become an astronaut. 

But no.  The hundreds of men and women who became U.S. astronauts all had experience a world that they had yet to know—a world so unlike this world—the disorienting, gravity-free world of outer space. 

Here in the 21^st chapter of Revelation we catch a glimpse of how God is even now fashioning a new creation—a new heaven and a new earth that we are destined for, that we have yet to experience in its fullness.  

Through our baptism, through being incorporated into Jesus Christ, we are already, in a sense, residents of this new world…though we’ve just started to experience its height and breadth and depth.

God’s new creation is so unlike this world—so very different from our life in the midst of space and time and gravity—that we can only imagine it, in tiny “bites,” and fleeting glimpses.  Truly Paul was right when he wrote that for “now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.” (I Cor. 13:12)

We venture to speak of the “life of the world to come,” only because we are already in training for it even now.   And, as was the case with U.S. astronauts, such training involves so much more than passing a class or reading a book.

You and I are, rather, called to prepare ourselves for God’s new creation now, by experiencing, by practicing intensely the life that God is giving us, the life to which God is leading us.

This analogy of the astronauts and their training is a way for you and me to think about our lives as Christians, as followers of Jesus.  

Indeed, everything we do and are as God’s beloved people is preparing us for the amazing life that yet awaits us.   God invites us to start living now, in eager anticipation of the fullness of life in God’s kingdom.  

God invites us to lean into his promised future, by acting today in ways that will become natural for us in God’s tomorrow.

Hence, all the talk about and attention to “faith practices” in the church.

Think of “faith practices” as what Alan Shepard, Wally Schirra, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong did to become astronauts—rigorously, continually, painstakingly preparing themselves for a world they could only imagine.

That’s what it’s like for us to be “in training” now for the New Creation that God is surely bringing our way. 

We know how to live in this “heavy,”gravity-ruled world that is passing away—but what about living into the freedom and gracious “weightlessness”--of the world that is to come?   That is something else!

So, living in this old world that expects us to fill up every available minute with work and play and  “busyness”….God cajoles us into acting as if our time were in God’s hands, and not our own.  And so we regularly observe Sabbath time, ceasing our killer schedules and intentionally doing nothing productive once a week, so that we might learn afresh how well God runs the universe without any help from us!

Or, swimming in a culture that throws at us all sorts of competing “scripts” and “stories,” designed to claim our complete loyalty…God comes along and draws us out of ourselves, weaves us into God’s story.  God frees us to dwell regularly in another Word, God’s Word, that turns everything upside down.  God helps us master a new script, in which God is all in all, thus giving us a new GPS coordinate to aim for.

Or, instead of only seeking our own self-interest in this passing-away world….God pries us lose from ourselves, uncurls our turned-in-upon-ourselves ways, lures us into seeking the good of our neighbor above our own self-interest…through the faith practice of serving our neighbor.

Or, most apropos for today, living by a code that convinces us we must spend every last red cent on ourselves, a code that says, “the one who winds up with the most toys wins”…God instead catches us up into the crazy joy, the hilaritas of generosity, introducing us to the lightness, the “weightlessness,” the freedom of grace.

Doesn’t this sound great?  

But, truth be told, embracing this training, trying on these faith practices also disorients us and makes us dizzy….because living now in a way that leans into God’s future inevitably causes some motion sickness. 

If we’re really lucky, in fact,  it will kill us.

Faith practices like Sabbath-keeping, dwelling in God’s Word, praying, serving our neighbors, and embracing generosity…these faith practices will be the end of us, the end of the old person inside each of us who clings to this dying, passing-away world. 

We live here.  We die here.  End of story!

But it’s not the end of the story.   This life is just the beginning.

Just look at Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.   All these faith practices are Jesus-practices!  They have an unmistakable Jesus-shape about them.  They imprint Jesus on our lives!

…which is why Paul rhapsodizes about Jesus living within us.   “I have been crucified with Christ,” Paul declares in the second chapter of Galatians, “and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  (Galatians 2:19-20)

Herein lies our only hope—that the God who got inside this old gravity-laden world in Jesus, will keep getting inside us in the power of Jesus’ resurrected and unending life.  Unlike the astronauts of the 1960s, we do not embrace “faith practices” as solo performers.   There are always at least two persons embracing these “new creation” practices—you, and Jesus.

And precisely here we see “the right stuff” that makes us new, gets us ready for the life of the world to come.  The right stuff is the Jesus-stuff, getting down under our skins, and flowing out through us into the world around us.

So these “faith practices” are actually Jesus’ own life, being replayed now through you and through me.  

For you see, what Jesus gets a kick out of is this:  Jesus loves dressing up in our flesh and blood.  Jesus loves getting at this old dying world through us—thus refashioning it into the new heaven and the new earth where all God’s children are destined to live.

·       So Jesus in us, re-centers us in God’s own life, in which we’ll never again need to think that our “busyness” justifies us.

·       And Jesus in us, helps us learn God’s script for our lives, marinating us in a Word that re-orients everything we used to think and feel and assume.
·       And Jesus in us gets us turned “inside out” for the sake of our neighbors in the world.
·       And Jesus under our skin inspires in us the sheer delight, the wild joy of going crazy with our possessions, giving generously for the sake of God, God’s mission, God’s people and God’s world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

The Next Generation: "The 2020 Crossover"

The Next Generation:  “The 2020 Crossover”

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward.  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth.  Psalm 127:3-4 (NKJV)

Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.  Deut. 5:16

One of the privileges of my ministry is the opportunity to meet and learn from other leaders across our state and nation.   Last month, as I retreated for 24 hours with other “heads of communions” that are part of the Minnesota Council of Churches, we heard a compelling presentation from Mr. Tom Gillaspy, the state demographer for Minnesota.

Statistics or “Sadistics?”

Now, I realize that statistics aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.   (When my daughter took a college class in the subject, she deliberately mispronounced “statistics” as “sadistics!”)  But we can learn much, for the sake of mission and ministry, about what statisticians study on a daily basis.   Demographers like Gillaspy carefully count the “trees” so that we can discern how the “forest” seems to be growing or not growing, as the case may be.

In the midst of a wide-ranging presentation on the U.S. Census of 2010, Mr. Gillaspy dropped one  factoid that has been exercising my imagination.   As I reported in my Next Generation column last March, it may surprise us to realize that in 17 of the 21 counties of our synod there are more children and youth under the age of 18 than there are senior adults who are age 65+.    In fact, this is and has been true across our entire state of Minnesota, as well.

But in less than a decade all of this will change.   Gillaspy shared a chart that revealed the population trend-lines, for youth and seniors, as crossing over in 2020.   When this “2020 Crossover” hits, our state will have more seniors than youth.

Awareness of this reality is already influencing political debate in Minnesota.   Two of the biggest portions of our state government’s budget involve education aid to public schools offering K-12 education and support for long-term care for needy seniors.   In this regard, Gillaspy pointed out that what it costs us to educate one K-12 student for one year is roughly what it costs us to maintain one senior adult in a long-term care facility for one month.

Pause for a moment, and let that sink in. 

Having recently served as power-for-attorney for a frail elderly adult, I can testify to the truth of Mr. Gillaspy’s observations.  I was startled at how quickly my late mother’s financial resources were drawn down by each monthly rent check paid to her assisted-living facility.  Yikes!

Inter-Generational Competition

One of the implications of these demographic trends is the disturbing specter of inter-generational competition and even strife.   Frail elderly persons (whose ranks many of us will be joining!) will need more and more from a system whose resources are not infinite.   Young workers will be supporting—through their Social Security and Medicare taxes—a burgeoning number of senior adults, making it all the more challenging to save up for their own retirements.

Precisely at this point we as people of Christian faith are called to speak up and enter the political discussions swirling around us.   Perhaps even more vitally, we need to engage deeply in the cultural conversation about the place and role of all the generations on our planet—from the youngest to the eldest.

Getting In A Word Edgewise

We come to these encounters with some deep convictions, drawn from the wellspring of biblical wisdom.   

First, we have a bias against viewing the world solely through the lens of “what’s in it for me.”    We have been fashioned by a generous Creator who bestows gifts in just one way:  abundantly.  There is enough to satisfy everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.   Living as Christian disciples we are called to speak out from the profound apostolic perspective that “you are not your own…you were bought with a price” (I Cor. 6:19b-20a).

Second, we will resist every effort to pit the interests of one generation over against the interests of another generation.   The scriptural witness is that God values the whole human family and the whole human being in every stage of development from the dawn of life to the sunset of earthly death—and, indeed, God’s care extends beyond earthly death, in the power of Christ’s Resurrection!  

The psalmist rightly calls children a heritage from the Lord (Psalm 127).    We have a profound stake in the Next Generation of disciples.   But we also care deeply about those who have walked long in Christian faith.  The Fourth Commandment was given, originally, for the sake of older parents—an injunction to adult “children” not to abandon or dis-respect the generation that brought them into this world.   When we exercise proper care for all the generations, we will taste the fruits of the Fourth Commandment, which includes a promise:     “so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you”  (Deuteronomy 5).

Third, we will cling to the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus.   These are sobering, even desperate, times.   If we stare right into the teeth of the awful truth that demographers bring to our attention, we will lose heart. 

But, as I am fond of saying, demography is not necessarily destiny.  We believe, teach and confess that the God in whom we trust is the God who specializes in “hopeless cases.”   The great British writer and Christian apologist, G.K. Chesterton, hit the nail on the head when he observed:  “Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”

Beating Back Paralysis

As I write this column, I have fresh memories of our two weeks with five visitors from the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC).   The AELC carries out its mission and ministry on the teeming sub-continent of India—with 1.2 billion citizens of the world’s largest democracy.   A signature ministry of the AELC involves youth and education; church-sponsored schools are one of many “open doors” to India’s “seekers” who want to find out about the way of Jesus Christ.

As we visited some of the splendid long-term care facilities in our synod that are affiliated with our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, our AELC friends talked about the fact that they don’t have anything comparable to our long-term care system.    All too often, the elderly in India are reduced to begging—and their families end up abandoning them.   (This isn’t necessarily as cruel as it sounds; some families are forced to choose between feeding the children or caring for the seniors, as a matter of economic necessity.)  This is a source of piercing pain for our sisters and brothers of the AELC.

 As we express care for all the generations on Earth, let us not allow paralysis to keep us from pondering the ministry implications of the “2020 Crossover.”   Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ cannot sit out this critical discussion in our political life and in our wider culture.   God calls us to give voice to the convictions that arise from the Word of God, for this time and place.   God invites passionate Jesus-communities to enter the fray and ask ourselves:  “How might we reshape our ministries to respond to the challenges that will come with the ‘2020 Crossover?’”

 Walking together into God’s tomorrow,

 Bishop Larry Wohlrabe

Northwestern Minnesota Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
God’s work.  Our hands.

For reflection and discussion:

1.      What feelings do you experience as you read about the “2020 Crossover?”

2.      Where do you already see signs of inter-generational competition in our communities?

3.      The column lifts up three implications from biblical wisdom for how Christian disciples will engage in the cultural conversation about the “2020 Crossover.”   What other implications for this discussion do you draw from God’s Word?

4.      What is one way your congregation might start preparing now for the ministry challenges that will come with the “2020 Crossover?”

This is the tenth in a series of columns on Bishop Wohlrabe’s “Next Generation” vision (available at http://www.nwmnsynod.org/BISHOP'S%20PAGE.htm)  for the NW MN Synod.   These columns are designed to equip the disciples and leadership groups such as church councils, for faithful and fruitful ministry.   Feel free to use the column for personal reflection or group discussion, e.g. church council meeting devotions/discussion.

Renewing Strength

NW MN Synod Women’s Organization Convention

Redeemer Lutheran Church, Thief River Falls

September 10, 2011

Isaiah 40:31

“…those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

When I turned 40 my dear sister sent me a birthday card that I’ve never forgotten.   I don’t remember the artwork or the sassy verse that was on the card, but I do remember what my sister wrote to me, inside that card.

She was trained as a nurse, you see, and for some reason she thought that my turning 40 was a good time for her to remind me of all the ways that life declines at that point—to remind me that age 40 truly is “over the hill.”  

My sister poured it on pretty thick…mentioning the loss of brain cells, loss of visual acuity and hearing, loss of muscle tone, loss of bone density.  You name it—everything starts falling apart, heading downhill after age 40

“Gee, sis—thanks for bringing this to my attention!”  Thanks for making sure I remember all the ways that as I age, I lose the strength I once enjoyed.

I thought of that as I pondered your theme verse about “renewing strength.”   Yes, that’s what we’re all looking for—isn’t it?  A way to regain lost territory, recover lost ground, get back in the game, be restored to what we once were.  

But how does that happen?

A couple of years ago my physician gave me his answer, in the form of a book entitled:  Younger Next Year.    It’s a book about how one can halt, even reverse the effects of the aging process.   Not by going on a particular diet.  Not by taking a special pill.  Not by resting or doing yoga or engaging in some sort of mind-over-matter meditation.

No, the way to restore strength is to exercise, pure and simple….to be so committed to regular, vigorous physical activity that you make plans now to spend some time exercising on the morning of the day you die.

Strength is restored, not by resting, not by reposing on a feather bed, not by taking it easy.

Strength is restored by regularly encountering, bumping up against, “pushing yourself” against some form of stout resistance.  

You get stronger when you work, even over-work, your muscles.   When the coach yells “make it hurt,” he’s doing you a big favor, urging you to take a step toward restoring your strength.

In short you restore your strength by expending your strength.

Now, you might be thinking:  that’s all well and good—if we were here for advice on our physical health, here to think about restoring the strength of our bodily muscles.

But what’s the connection between all of this and the “things of God?”   What if the “muscle” that needs to be worked happens to be your soul, your faith?

Strange as it might seem, ask the question that way and the answer is still basically the same:   if  your soul has grown weak, if your faith is flabby, if your spirit is what needs to be restored, the best thing that can happen to you is to exercise it by encountering some resistance—especially resistance that God allows to come your way—maybe even resistance that God actually brings upon you.

There is a deeply biblical pattern in that, and we see it in spades here in Isaiah 40—the source of your theme verse about “Renewing Strength.”

In the first 39 chapters of Isaiah we see how God allowed, how God handed over his chosen people to come up against some of the worst resistance they ever experienced:  the soul-robbing, strength-draining resistance of the Exile.  

After centuries of disobedience and waywardness, God allowed his precious people to reap the fruits of their faithlessness by permitting their enemies, the Babylonians, to kidnap them, remove them from their home in the Promised Land and haul them off to a far country.

Talk about “encountering resistance!”   Exile like that wiped out most other ancient nations and tribes—and by all accounts the Exile nearly spelled the end for the people of Israel, too.

But if God allowed the extremity of exile to come upon them, it was not in order to bring Israel’s life to an end.  

No.   God, instead, tested and tried the temper of his people, in the refining fire of persecution and exile, to bring them up against the kind of resistance that could have killed them—all of it, in order to bring them out of exile, restore their strength, and give them wings to soar like eagles once again.

That’s what Isaiah starts to sing about starting here in this hinge chapter—chapter 40 of his book.  Here in chapter 40 the prophet hones in, like a laser, on the two questions that dogged the people of Israel as they languished for years in Exile, far, far from home.

First, they wondered if God still had the stuff to help them, to bring them out of the hole they had dug for themselves.   Israel wondered, in the first place, if God could help them….

…which is why Isaiah goes to such lengths earlier in this chapter to magnify the immensity and the incomparability of his God: 

Have you not known? Have you not heard?...

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

   and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;…

who brings princes to naught,

   and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

Could God help us?   That was the first question the exiles asked themselves…but it quickly led to a second, even more poignant question:  if God indeed could help us, would God actually do so?   Does God still care enough about us, to give us a second chance?

If the first question inquired into God’s power, the second question delved even deeper, into God’s mercy….which is why just two verses before our theme verse, we read this hinge sentence in this hinge chapter of Isaiah’s book:

[God]  does not faint or grow weary;

   his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

   and strengthens the powerless.

Isaiah is sure of two things—two things his exiled sisters and brothers longed to know for themselves.  Isaiah recognizes the incomparable power of God….a power that is seen most clearly in the unfathomable mercy of God.

God can help them in their weakness—with one hand tied behind God’s back.

But the even better news is that God will help them in their weakness.   God’s power is made known chiefly in showing mercy.

….those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

   they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

   they shall walk and not faint.

Notice please, the deep comfort of all these “shalls.”

But notice also the strenuousness of these “shalls.”

God restores strength to his people as they exercise the strength that God alone gives them.   Faith’s muscularity is restored as we flex the faith-muscles that God has already given to us.  

We realize that we’re not weary—because we’re already running.  It dawns on us that we no longer feel faint—because we’re up on our legs, walking  brisklytoward God’s tomorrow.

This is a peculiar business, isn’t it?  It’s about God’s ways, not our ways.   It’s about God trying and testing those whom God loves.   It’s about faith more precious than gold, being purified in the Refiner’s fire.   It’s about Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the … joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame…”  (Hebrews 12:2).

I don’t know that we should think of ourselves as living in an Exile time.   But I do know that these are scary, unsettling days on our planet.   Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of 9/11. 

Over this past decade it has come to seem as though everything we thought we could count on is up for grabs—my goodness, even the post office is ready to go belly up!   In our country, across our world, even in our church—everything we used to just take for granted seems to have evaporated.   The only constant is change.   What can we count on?   Who can restore us?

Can God get us out of this mess—does God have the power to do that?   And even more importantly, will God save us—does God still care about us enough to draw us up out of the soup we’re in?

Listen to Isaiah as he pours the gospel into our ears!

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

   the Creator of the ends of the earth….

He gives power to the faint,

   and strengthens the powerless…. 

 …those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

   they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

   they shall walk and not faint.

The resistance you feel, the obstacles you’re up against just may be how God is restoring your strength in your exercising of it. 

Why are eagles so good at flying?  Because they fly a lot, every day, in the strength that God freely gives to them.

God can give you this same strength.   Better yet, God will give you this same strength.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.