Pastor's Message

Sunday of July 30, 2017

7/31/2017

Readings: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus says that when the kingdom of heaven is released into the world, the birds of the air are able to nest in its branches.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for the poor. It is good news for the forgotten. It is good news for the ones we as a society ignore and drive out of mind by the decisions we make and the habits and customs we enforce and participate in everyday. The kingdom of heaven is good news for the poor: it is for the birds!
In his sermon on the mount, Jesus spelled out for us what God’s kingdom looks like.
Jesus said that everything boils down to this, “love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, AND Love your neighbor as yourself!”
These two things are inseparable. Loving God means loving your neighbor.
It means loving the neighbor by GOD’s definition, not our own definition of who our neighbor is. And God includes in the list the ones we like to leave out.
The Kingdom of God is Christ’s love made real for everyone. Christ’s love made real to, and by, you. For you. For your neighbor. For the most vulnerable, forgotten, generally hated, and neglected people.

How do we do our job, our calling, as baptized Christians--co-workers in the gospel, co-sowers of God’s kingdom?
You have to answer that for yourself in your daily life. How do you work, play, and speak (don’t forget to speak) that message in the places you already go, in the things you’re already doing everyday?
But here is what it might look like on a larger scale:
In this country, every citizen is a lawmaker, a policymaker. Every citizen has voice--if you use it. But that voice is a gift. It is power that God has given us, we, who live in this country. And it is for our neighbors.
So Think: Education for all our young people. Affordable, high quality education. That’s something Lutherans have been doing since Lutheranism became a thing;
Think: Laws that build people up and protect rather than push aside. The gospel transforms our hearts to take care of all our neighbors: to include everyone around us in love.
Think: Fair pay. Poverty is, around the whole world, the cause of things like drug abuse, bullying, and abuse. More than anything else, poverty and hardship is the cause of these symptoms. Where we spend our money and how we pay our employees is a kingdom of God issue. Stewardship of our resources and policies that take care of our neighbors is an extension of God’s love.

The gospel calls us beyond ourselves to care for our most vulnerable neighbors.
The kingdom of heaven is for birds. The gospel is good news for the poor.
In your jobs, in your families, you embody Christ’s love for the world. In your volunteering and in your voting, you embody Christ’s love.

We all know that the world isn’t perfect. But Jesus died and rose to redeem it. Jesus works his kingdom one bird’s-nest-in-a-mustard-shrub at a time.

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Sunday of July 23, 2017

7/25/2017

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Readings: Isaiah 44:6-8, Matthew 13:24-43

Jesus paints a picture of a kingdom of heaven being, or happening, when someone sows good seed. And in his next parable, when someone adds yeast. Or finally in that third parable, when someone takes and then sows the tiniest seed of goodness, and it grows to yield many good things.
That is what we understand the kingdom of heaven to be: God coming near. Jesus’ presence in Word and action, love, that enters our lives and the touches the world. The kingdom of heaven is not some physical or even metaphysical place. It is when the reign, the rule, the essence of heaven happens, right here.
Wonderful things result from the kingdom of heaven happening around us. Those small acts of God’s love grows into grain or food for others. It mixes in the world like yeast in flour until the whole thing is leavened, until the whole world is touched by God’s love. Even the tiniest action of God’s love sprouts into a great tree that is refuge for birds--for birds, which Jesus says, you are of more value than many birds. God’s love means a safe place in the world for the “least of these”.
God’s love in the world happens through people just like you. The church, the body of Christ, is a special conduit of that love. God’s love reaches to all, and especially to those who are hurting, to those who are taken advantage of, and those who are looked down upon. The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, belongs to children, to the the lowest in society. And we must remember that as we do, or do not do, for the “least of these”.

This is where the discussion of the wheat and weeds comes in. You will know a tree by its fruit. So a good act, a life that points God and shows God’s love is certainly coming from the wheat. And the opposite is true of the weeds. An act that does not produce fruit, a life leading to destruction and death and away from love and life is the result of weeds. The produce of wheat ends up in the Kingdom’s barn, and the produce of the weeds ends up in the fire, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
So are you a weed or a wheat? You can tell by the fruit of your actions. But is that really the point of this parable?
It is God alone, and in this story God’s angels, who is able to sort between wheat and the weeds. It is the Lord, the king of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts (as Isaiah says) who is the first and the last, beside whom there is no god. Christ alone sits in the judgment seat to decide: fire or barn.

I know what you’re thinking. So how do I know? Where will I go? Weed or wheat?
Well, the answer is: we are more akin to the dandelion. 100% weed. Capable of destroying the lawns of all the neighbors. 100% destined for destruction, decay, death. It’s part and parcel with being human: we are dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

And yet, the dandelion has incredible capacity for good. From the blossoms: cookies and wine; from the leaves: salad--nourishment; from the root, food and herbal tea. It is a 100% useful and good plant, like the grain of wheat.
It is Jesus alone who examines us. We do not have the capacity or authority to judge anyone. Only to participate in God’s kingdom coming near. But let it be known that the one who sits on the seat of judgement is the same one who died on the cross and now lives. He is the same one who gave his body and blood for the forgiveness of the sin of the world. The judge is the same one who called you, claimed you, and set a seal over you at your baptism.
Jesus Christ, God incarnate, takes on the sin of the world and gives in return all his own honor and glory. He takes what is yours--sin, failure, guilt and shame--he takes it all, and for it gives you all that is his--everlasting life, blamelessness, purity and perfection.
There is everything in all of us that needs the cleansing of the fire. And there is everything in all of us that Jesus Christ died and rose to redeem.
The Word of God turns a weed into wheat. Christ alone is our transformative Word.
So… weeds, sinners, who are continually being forgiven, called by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to all the world:
Go tell the good news.

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Sunday of July 16, 2017

7/17/2017

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Readings: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

The parable of the sower is a tale that stretches our imaginations. It challenges us to think bigger about what God is up to in the world, and it makes us consider whether we might more fully participate in the reign of God.
Every time I asked why someone came to their church I got the same cause: a relationship, a connection. With people, and with God.
We like to say that Jesus is our salvation, or freedom. And that Jesus gives forgiveness, and life. But those words are a bit overused, too abstract, and for most people can be quite meaningless.
But these are the actual things that happen when we have relationship in and with Christ.
I’m not talking about some abstract life-after-death salvation. I’m not talking about hollow, everything-is-ok-now forgiveness.
I’m talking about real, tangible, part of your everyday: life and salvation. And this is for us by sheer gift from God. I’m talking about relationship.
Relationship with Jesus himself, and relationship with those in the world around you.

Relationship with God and with God’s people is:
tangible salvation,
new life,
gift of God.

God’s mission, God’s work in the world, is relationship.

Observe, the same Jesus Christ in whose name we gather holds us together, as the church united in baptism; and he holds the whole world together (just as Colossians says, “In him, all things in heaven and earth were created...He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”).
So, unity, peace, is the vision of our gracious and loving God: Christ-centered relationship with one another, with the earth, with God.

I believe that this is what God is up to in the world;
that the reign or kingdom of God on earth is when peace and unity flourish because we are in good, holy relationship with one another and with God.
And I know this is God’s vision for all people--not for only the Christians, or only the Lutherans, not for only the Americans. For all people.
For All.

I know this because today in our Gospel, when the sower went out to spread seed, that seed went everywhere. It didn’t stay in the field or on the good soil.
That seed, God’s love, God’s word (which is love), did not stay within any boundaries or walls. It went on the path, it went in the thorns, it went on the rocks, it went to the dirt.

God’s word is here in church. Yes. We know it because we can feel it, touch it. We are washed by it in baptism. We can taste it at communion.
It is here.

But God’s Word is cast, thrown, sowed, outside of these walls. It is on the streets, in your places of work and play, at your schools.

If we concern ourselves only with God’s Word within the walls, we miss (according to this parable) at least 3 out of 4 of the places where Jesus is!
I’m not sure if the church is in decline as many say--maybe the attendance is down in places. But the Word of God is not confined by the pews or the walls. God’s loving relationship extends to all places.
And you, beloved and baptized children of God, believe it or not, you have a share in God’s mission in the world. Yes, you, through your baptism are co-workers in the sharing of God’s Word of Love. To each other,
and to ALL.

The very fact that this is a parable urges us to stretch our imaginations, think outside our normal parameters, go deeper. So we have a summons that is resonant with a command that comes later in Matthew. A summons to go beyond our own prejudices and biases, beyond our cultural and social circles, and sow the word of God’s love for all people. “Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19)

We can continue to stay only in the garden, or we can also, in joyful response to our own salvation, follow God’s Word sown in the world. We can be ones who help sow God’s Word in all the world.

Because God is already there.

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Sunday of July 9, 2017

7/10/2017

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Readings: Romans 7:15-25a, Matthew 11:16-30

Following Jesus is a way of life that is continual repentance.
Jesus’ words of condemnation to the crowds in Matthew 11:20-24 are worrisome when we really examine our own nature. As St. Paul wrote, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it (verse 18).” He wrestles with this inability to really live up to God’s law and Jesus’ commands as well as we should. “I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members (Romans 7:22-23).” Like the laws of motion, or thermodynamics, there is for Paul the inescapable law of sin.

As Christians, we are both saint and sinner. We are freed from the power of sin by our baptism into Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, but the fullness of that promise is yet to come. So, the Christian life is one of continual repentance, continual turning, again and again back to our Savior who alone frees us from the destructive power of sin: again, and again, day after day. St Paul writes, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” It is Jesus Christ our Lord, alone, who is our freedom.
Hear these words of Jesus today, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus offers rest for you. He offers rest for all of us, and for the whole world with those quiet, tender words, “come…”
His is an invitation that is not passive. His invitation is one that goes to death on the cross and back to life to pursue every one of you. He takes on all the sin of the world, and still he calls, “come.”
His invitation is soft and tender, but it is the most powerful, loving, surprising, and persistent invitation. And it has the power to call even the most wretched of people and situations to life and salvation.
Hear the call of Jesus today: at the communion table, at the baptismal font, in your daily prayer, in your everyday business and play…

“Come to me all you… and I will give you rest.”

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Sunday of July 30, 2017

Readings: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Sunday of July 23, 2017

Readings: Isaiah 44:6-8, Matthew 13:24-43

Sunday of July 16, 2017

Readings: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sunday of July 9, 2017

Readings: Romans 7:15-25a, Matthew 11:16-30

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