I like my Saturday morning walks down to the Potomac to pick up trash. This time of year the trees are all beautiful colors. And today, pre-hurricane Sandy, the weather was warm and sunny.
First wildlife sighting this morning was just below the old tobacco barn on the farm where an antlered white tail deer came out of the woods on one side of the farm road and crossed to the other maybe 20 yards in front of me.
Then I saw 3 pairs of bald eagles -- or one pair three times -- or something like that. That's always fun. I like that I can identify their chuckling calls to each other and know to look for them.
Later on I was down at the beach and came upon a flock of at least 20 bluebirds on the sand eating seeds or bugs, flitting between the shrubs and the ground. A couple of them made their way to about 12 feet from me to investigate whether I was all that interesting. Apparently I wasn't worth further research. After a few minutes a large group of crows came along and flushed all the bluebirds and suddenly it seemed like maybe there were 50 of them, not just 20. I don't know if they were the proverbial bluebirds of happiness, but they made me happy.
Then along a wooded road I came across a white throated sparrow or two singing away. They're always a favorite of mine because I can whistle their song (though each fall I have to ask Ann whether they are the white throated or the white crown sparrows!). I can remember a time not all that long ago when I had no idea that there are as many different kinds of sparrows as there are.
Walking back up to the house I circled past the Children's Garden and through the farmyard, then up past the chicken coops. As I got a little closer to the house I heard a persistent coughing or snorting in the woods, and spied three deer whom I took to be a doe and her two young ones. These are probably the three I see most mornings these days as I drive out our driveway to work. The momma was scratching her nose with a hind hoof over and over and over again; the source of the noise that had caught my attention. I left them be and went through the gate to our yard.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Jacques Barzun
When I was studying for my Master of Sacred Theology degree, one of the textbooks in a historiography class was The Modern Researcher by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff. Barzun died this week. These lines from his obituary in the "Washington Post" caught my eye:
I like that.
“In essays and a series of books on American education, including 'Teacher in America' (1945) and 'The American University: How It Runs, Where It Is Going' (1968), Dr. Barzun presented education as having a mandate to impart 'common knowledge and common reference.' He inveighed against 'the gangrene of specialism' in college offerings that he thought would cause the 'individual mind [to be] doomed to solitude and the individual heart to drying up'.”[From “Jacques Barzun, wide-ranging cultural historian, dies at 104” Washington Post, 26 October 2012 (emphasis added)]
I like that.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Answering a Really Big Question
I.N.I.
a sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, VA on the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, also known as 14 October 2012, and based on the Gospel for the Day: St. Mark 10:17-22
Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Dear Friends in Christ,
There are lots of reasons for going to college. One of them is so that --- after graduation -- the student can get a better-paying job than he or she would have gotten without the college degree. And that usually happens. Statistics tell us that most people with college degrees earn higher salaries than most people without them, though naturally there are exceptions.
There are, of course, other reasons to go to college. A very important one is to spend some time asking the big questions in life; and, we hope, thinking about answers to those questions. These are questions like "Why are we here?" "What is the good life?" "What is truth?" "What is beauty?" "In light of all this, how should we live?" Christian liberal arts colleges like our Concordia Colleges and Universities are among the places that try to emphasize this process.
The man in today's Gospel and sermon text certainly could have benefited from going through an experience like that. Let's try to get a picture of him and what he asks. We'll look at
I. The Big Question
II. Wrong Answers to the Big Question, and
III The Christ Answer to the Big Question
First of all, this man ran up to Jesus and knelt before Him to ask his question. In translating this into the present day, I see him in a nice sweat suit, designer running shoes, swept back hair, and just the barest evidence of sweat of his face. He seems to have been an all around good guy. He certainly has a pile of money invested or available to him. He seems to have been a successful young man, maybe like a Silicon Valley start-up executive or Wall Street investment banker we read about in today's news.
He asks Jesus the Big Question. We can learn a lot simply be examining the question
He doesn't ask -- as others did -- to be healed. He doesn't ask that a relative or servant be healed. He doesn't ask Jesus to settle a dispute he is involved in. He doesn't ask Jesus one of those 'trick questions' about the Jewish Law.
This man asks our Lord the most important, most serious, question anyone can ask. He asks Jesus how to receive eternal life. He asks how to inherit it.
In one way or another, everyone asks this question at some time during their life. These days a lot of people don't pose the question using religious language. Our society is too secularized for that. These people will ask it by the way they look for meaning in life, by the things they consider important to themselves, by the things they try to achieve.
People over the years with great minds have asked this question about eternal life. Some have created huge amounts of written work as their legacy. Some have taught and thought at the world's universities. Well-known philosophers and scientists have looked through the whole breadth of the universe for an answer to this question. And they have come up empty because the question about eternal life is not one that can be answered on the basis of human thought alone.
The rich and the cultured have asked the Big Question about eternal life, too. Some have surrounded themselves with impressively large castles and mansions. They have filled their world with beautiful objects of art, with jewelry, with music, and thousands of other comforts of life. They have sought in vain among these things for any lasting meaning, or any clear answers to the key to eternal life. The question about eternal life is not one that can be answered on the basis of things made by human hands.
The poor and disadvantaged have also asked the Big Question about eternal life. In their pain, in their suffering, in their hunger and cold and loneliness, society's outcasts have wondered about eternal life. The seeds of hope in their hearts lead them to wonder about a better life in the future. They have wondered whether there is indeed anything beyond the empty bleakness of their present lives. But they have not found their own way above the rim of their cup of suffering. The question about eternal life is not one that can be answered on the basis of reflections on the sad state of one's own affairs.
The young man in today's text perhaps spoke more from the position of one who was rich and cultured, than from the vantage point of having a great mind or of being poor and disadvantaged. At the same time, he had pondered this question, he had thought about it. And there is a certain poverty in his conversation with Jesus.
The first thing to notice about this man's wrong answers is that he makes a dangerous assumption about the present state of his righteousness, He knows the proper form of address for Jesus. He answers promptly that he has kept all the commandments from the time of his youth. He figures he has it all sewn up and just needs a pat on the head form Jesus to send him on into the pearly gates. The man in the text confidently assumes he has all the right answers.
The next step, he figures, is to meet a new challenge that he wants Jesus to set before him. The form of his question points this out. "What must I do ...?" he asks. He assumes that there is another level of piety, another level of holiness, another level of perfection that he can reach, if only he does enough. The psychologists today might diagnose him as a compulsive over-achiever.
There is always inadequacy when one aims at answering this Big Question about eternal life under one's own steam. Like the young man, we can't fit all the pieces together on our own. When he asks Jesus what he must do, Jesus reminds him of the commandments. He says "You know the commandments." And then lists them. Let me read the list again, and you see if you notice anything odd about it:
"Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother."
Notice anything? There are a few things that pop out to me. First, Jesus only lists 6 commandments, not 10. Second, He doesn't list them in the order that we know them from Exodus or Deuteronomy. Third, he drops in a commandment that isn't in the list we memorized in confirmation class or Sunday School ("Do not defraud"). And fourth, all the ones Jesus lists are from the second table of the Law, the ones dealing not with our relation with God, but with our relations with people.
I believe that one thing Jesus is telling us with this list of commandments is that no matter what you do with God's Law, there's always something else. You can shorten the list. You can rearrange it. You can turn it upside down. But there's always something else you have to do or say or avoid, in order to keep the Law completely. If you want to reach eternal life through the path of the Law, you'll fall short. There's always something else.
Jesus holds up a second option for his questioner when the man proudly answers that he's kept all the Law from the time of his youth. Jesus holds up the real doing of God's will. It was earlier expressed by the prophet Micah who asked "...what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8); and by Amos in today's Old Testament lesson when he said to "Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate..." (Amos 5:15). Jesus wants the man to sell all that he owns and give the money to the poor. Such a radical act of generosity would certainly qualify as an act in tune with God's will. It would be a good work that evidenced the presence of the Spirit of Christ in the young man's life. But the man was disheartened and went away sorrowful because he had many possessions (or, as another translation puts it "great possessions" which sounds like someone today who "has great stuff!").
The implication is that the man was grieved over the loss of the physical comfort his possessions afforded him. He was sad about the prospect of losing all his stuff. The implication is that the man thought he had already done everything required of him by God. Unfortunately, what he had done was to store up for himself treasures on earth "where moth and rust destroy" (Matthew 6:19); he had not stored up treasures in Heaven.
And by leaving right away, this man unfortunately misses what Jesus says next. He misses the path that Jesus lays out for him to jog on. Listen to what Jesus tells his disciples in next week's Gospel: "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." (Mark 10:27) It's impossible for us to reach up and grab the fruit of eternal life for ourselves. There isn't anything we can do to inherit it. Eternal life itself is not impossible; it's just that there is no one on earth who can achieve it by himself or herself.
The only place for us to go for eternal life is to Jesus; this much the man in our text had right. Jesus alone has the rich storehouse from which we can receive eternal life. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His blessings are lasting and His treasures are forever. His perfect obedience to God's Law cannot be matched. Jesus alone is the all-sufficient source of forgiveness and eternal life.
There is no salvation in riches. Although the Bible makes it clear that Abraham lived as a wealthy man; it also makes clear that he was saved by his faith. Job was a rich man; but he was saved through faith. Today's Old Testament lesson (Amos 5:6-7, 10-15) describes the sorry state of rich people who oppress the poor, rich people who do not exercise justice. The great size of your bank account has nothing to do with the richness of your relationship with God.
Salvation, redemption, eternal life ... the only source for these things is the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone can forgive our sins. He alone can bring us the peace and assurance that we seek.
Looking for lasting contentment in money, in education, in power, in prestige, in your work, in your family, or in anything else is a fruitless search. The young man in our text found that out the hard way. We thank God that His Son offers each of us the real key to contentment and eternal life. We thank God that it is ours simply by believing as a gift of His grace.
AMEN
And may the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
S.D.G.
a sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, VA on the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, also known as 14 October 2012, and based on the Gospel for the Day: St. Mark 10:17-22
Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Dear Friends in Christ,
There are lots of reasons for going to college. One of them is so that --- after graduation -- the student can get a better-paying job than he or she would have gotten without the college degree. And that usually happens. Statistics tell us that most people with college degrees earn higher salaries than most people without them, though naturally there are exceptions.
There are, of course, other reasons to go to college. A very important one is to spend some time asking the big questions in life; and, we hope, thinking about answers to those questions. These are questions like "Why are we here?" "What is the good life?" "What is truth?" "What is beauty?" "In light of all this, how should we live?" Christian liberal arts colleges like our Concordia Colleges and Universities are among the places that try to emphasize this process.
The man in today's Gospel and sermon text certainly could have benefited from going through an experience like that. Let's try to get a picture of him and what he asks. We'll look at
I. The Big Question
II. Wrong Answers to the Big Question, and
III The Christ Answer to the Big Question
First of all, this man ran up to Jesus and knelt before Him to ask his question. In translating this into the present day, I see him in a nice sweat suit, designer running shoes, swept back hair, and just the barest evidence of sweat of his face. He seems to have been an all around good guy. He certainly has a pile of money invested or available to him. He seems to have been a successful young man, maybe like a Silicon Valley start-up executive or Wall Street investment banker we read about in today's news.
He asks Jesus the Big Question. We can learn a lot simply be examining the question
He doesn't ask -- as others did -- to be healed. He doesn't ask that a relative or servant be healed. He doesn't ask Jesus to settle a dispute he is involved in. He doesn't ask Jesus one of those 'trick questions' about the Jewish Law.
This man asks our Lord the most important, most serious, question anyone can ask. He asks Jesus how to receive eternal life. He asks how to inherit it.
In one way or another, everyone asks this question at some time during their life. These days a lot of people don't pose the question using religious language. Our society is too secularized for that. These people will ask it by the way they look for meaning in life, by the things they consider important to themselves, by the things they try to achieve.
People over the years with great minds have asked this question about eternal life. Some have created huge amounts of written work as their legacy. Some have taught and thought at the world's universities. Well-known philosophers and scientists have looked through the whole breadth of the universe for an answer to this question. And they have come up empty because the question about eternal life is not one that can be answered on the basis of human thought alone.
The rich and the cultured have asked the Big Question about eternal life, too. Some have surrounded themselves with impressively large castles and mansions. They have filled their world with beautiful objects of art, with jewelry, with music, and thousands of other comforts of life. They have sought in vain among these things for any lasting meaning, or any clear answers to the key to eternal life. The question about eternal life is not one that can be answered on the basis of things made by human hands.
The poor and disadvantaged have also asked the Big Question about eternal life. In their pain, in their suffering, in their hunger and cold and loneliness, society's outcasts have wondered about eternal life. The seeds of hope in their hearts lead them to wonder about a better life in the future. They have wondered whether there is indeed anything beyond the empty bleakness of their present lives. But they have not found their own way above the rim of their cup of suffering. The question about eternal life is not one that can be answered on the basis of reflections on the sad state of one's own affairs.
The young man in today's text perhaps spoke more from the position of one who was rich and cultured, than from the vantage point of having a great mind or of being poor and disadvantaged. At the same time, he had pondered this question, he had thought about it. And there is a certain poverty in his conversation with Jesus.
The first thing to notice about this man's wrong answers is that he makes a dangerous assumption about the present state of his righteousness, He knows the proper form of address for Jesus. He answers promptly that he has kept all the commandments from the time of his youth. He figures he has it all sewn up and just needs a pat on the head form Jesus to send him on into the pearly gates. The man in the text confidently assumes he has all the right answers.
The next step, he figures, is to meet a new challenge that he wants Jesus to set before him. The form of his question points this out. "What must I do ...?" he asks. He assumes that there is another level of piety, another level of holiness, another level of perfection that he can reach, if only he does enough. The psychologists today might diagnose him as a compulsive over-achiever.
There is always inadequacy when one aims at answering this Big Question about eternal life under one's own steam. Like the young man, we can't fit all the pieces together on our own. When he asks Jesus what he must do, Jesus reminds him of the commandments. He says "You know the commandments." And then lists them. Let me read the list again, and you see if you notice anything odd about it:
"Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother."
Notice anything? There are a few things that pop out to me. First, Jesus only lists 6 commandments, not 10. Second, He doesn't list them in the order that we know them from Exodus or Deuteronomy. Third, he drops in a commandment that isn't in the list we memorized in confirmation class or Sunday School ("Do not defraud"). And fourth, all the ones Jesus lists are from the second table of the Law, the ones dealing not with our relation with God, but with our relations with people.
I believe that one thing Jesus is telling us with this list of commandments is that no matter what you do with God's Law, there's always something else. You can shorten the list. You can rearrange it. You can turn it upside down. But there's always something else you have to do or say or avoid, in order to keep the Law completely. If you want to reach eternal life through the path of the Law, you'll fall short. There's always something else.
Jesus holds up a second option for his questioner when the man proudly answers that he's kept all the Law from the time of his youth. Jesus holds up the real doing of God's will. It was earlier expressed by the prophet Micah who asked "...what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8); and by Amos in today's Old Testament lesson when he said to "Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate..." (Amos 5:15). Jesus wants the man to sell all that he owns and give the money to the poor. Such a radical act of generosity would certainly qualify as an act in tune with God's will. It would be a good work that evidenced the presence of the Spirit of Christ in the young man's life. But the man was disheartened and went away sorrowful because he had many possessions (or, as another translation puts it "great possessions" which sounds like someone today who "has great stuff!").
The implication is that the man was grieved over the loss of the physical comfort his possessions afforded him. He was sad about the prospect of losing all his stuff. The implication is that the man thought he had already done everything required of him by God. Unfortunately, what he had done was to store up for himself treasures on earth "where moth and rust destroy" (Matthew 6:19); he had not stored up treasures in Heaven.
And by leaving right away, this man unfortunately misses what Jesus says next. He misses the path that Jesus lays out for him to jog on. Listen to what Jesus tells his disciples in next week's Gospel: "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." (Mark 10:27) It's impossible for us to reach up and grab the fruit of eternal life for ourselves. There isn't anything we can do to inherit it. Eternal life itself is not impossible; it's just that there is no one on earth who can achieve it by himself or herself.
The only place for us to go for eternal life is to Jesus; this much the man in our text had right. Jesus alone has the rich storehouse from which we can receive eternal life. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His blessings are lasting and His treasures are forever. His perfect obedience to God's Law cannot be matched. Jesus alone is the all-sufficient source of forgiveness and eternal life.
There is no salvation in riches. Although the Bible makes it clear that Abraham lived as a wealthy man; it also makes clear that he was saved by his faith. Job was a rich man; but he was saved through faith. Today's Old Testament lesson (Amos 5:6-7, 10-15) describes the sorry state of rich people who oppress the poor, rich people who do not exercise justice. The great size of your bank account has nothing to do with the richness of your relationship with God.
Salvation, redemption, eternal life ... the only source for these things is the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone can forgive our sins. He alone can bring us the peace and assurance that we seek.
Looking for lasting contentment in money, in education, in power, in prestige, in your work, in your family, or in anything else is a fruitless search. The young man in our text found that out the hard way. We thank God that His Son offers each of us the real key to contentment and eternal life. We thank God that it is ours simply by believing as a gift of His grace.
AMEN
And may the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
S.D.G.
Monday, October 08, 2012
To Such Belongs the Kingdom of God
I.N.I.
a sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Virginia on the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, a.k.a. 7 October 2012, and based on the Gospel for the day, St. Mark 10:13-16
Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus,
Dear friends in Christ,
Today's Gospel is a short story that sounds all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it? Little children coming to Jesus to be blessed by Him. The disciples try to stop them. (The disciples are the opposition in this story; there always has to be some kind of opposition, for dramatic interest if nothing else, and the disciples are it.) But Jesus overrides their decision and scoops up the kids in a loving embrace.
It's a familiar story, I hope. Maybe you remember the picture from Sunday School, as I do. Jesus in long white robes sitting in the midst of a crowd of children, his arms around them. And there's the song, too: "Jesus loves the little children, All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black, brown white, They are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."
That's all true, of course, But there's more to this passage than that.
Of special interest to us today are the things Jesus says. Two sentences: "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God." and "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." These should cause us to ask why and how the kingdom of God belongs to children; and to ask what it means that we need to receive the kingdom of God like a child.
So what is it about children that is so compelling to God? Is Jesus here focusing on "the innocence of children"? No. There's no such thing in Scriptures where "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." No, there must be something else. But what characteristic could it be that draws children and God's kingdom together in such a way? As I thought through the characteristics of children that would have been obvious both then and now, for all children across the world -- the world in which some children are poor and some are rich, some spend their days and nights hungry while others are obese, the world in which some are happy and others sad, some pampered and others abused -- it seemed to me that a very universal characteristic is that children are powerless.
Children need others to care for them, to provide them basic food clothing and shelter. Children need to be protected. They aren't legally allowed to do things that adults are. They aren't physically able to do things that adults do. They can't much change their environment to their liking. The littlest ones cry; older ones can stomp and pout; but all that does is to call to an adult to make a change in the child's world. The children themselves are really powerless to make that change.
And look at this text. If we read it again we see that what happened in verse 13 was NOT that the children saw Jesus and flocked to him, singing and laughing. The Bible tells us that "they were bringing children to him" (Mark 10:13). Whether they were babies begin carried, or preschoolers being led by the hand, or elementary school aged children being pushed forward, the point is that the children were being brought, that they didn't come under their own power, and it wasn't their own idea. And "to such belongs the Kingdom of God."
Then in verse 15 Jesus says that "whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it". You might wonder how that works. Does it mean that all our adult evangelism is a waste of time? Does it mean that the only ones who can come to faith are the children? Well, you can almost hear Nicodemus in the background calling "Oooo, oooo, I know this one! Call on me!" Nicodemus would remember John chapter 3 where he asked Jesus 'Born again? Can a man enter again his mother's womb to be born a second time?' Well, no, of course not. Being born again and receiving the kingdom of God like a child means to receive the kingdom the same way a child would receive a gift. It means receiving the kingdom with a sense of wonder and joy, and full of the knowledge that we didn't really deserve it, that we had done nothing to earn it.
As adults we're pretty convinced that we've earned birthday presents by surviving yet another year; that we've earned a bonus at work by putting in extra hours; that we should get something when we leave a job because we really did work hard at it when we were there. But children have none of that sense of entitlement yet.
That's how everyone needs to receive the kingdom of God: knowing that we have done nothing to deserve it, nothing to earn it, knowing that we are not entitled to it.
These two themes: the powerlessness of the recipient, and the lack of entitlement, are really Scriptural themes about salvation and redemption and sanctification. They are the core themes in the Bible about our relationship with God.
In the Old Testament the people were powerless to come to the Lord, and certainly not entitled to anything he gave them. They were chosen out of real obscurity when the Lord called Abraham. It wasn't like he was just hanging around on the street corner there in the desert waiting for the Lord finally to show up and offer him a ride. He was just a 75 year old nobody living in Haran when the Lord said to him in the beginning of Genesis 12 "go from your country and your family and everything you know to the land I will show you, where I will make your family into a great nation" (because you're nothing and nobody now). Eventually Abraham's 12 great grandsons moved to Egypt during a famine and their descendants became slaves to the Egyptians. But again the Lord called these powerless people to Himself and though a series of miraculous interventions got them out of Egypt. They kept wandering away from the Lord's desire for them. He gave them a detailed set of Laws and a sacrificial system, but again and again they were powerless to avoid going their own way. The Lord led them to a land and helped them secure it my conquering its inhabitants, but they kept wandering away. The prophets called them back. They then came for a while, but it didn't last.
These people of God weren't very often doing much godly, it seems. They certainly weren't entitled to entry into the kingdom of God. Their leaders were often false. As individuals they often worshiped idols instead of the true God. You really start to wonder whether their real purpose wasn't to act as lessons for us, to teach us that people cannot and will not gravitate toward God on their own.
In the New Testament we see the same thing. The people of Jesus's time were just as powerless to come to Jesus on their own. He had to call them, they didn't follow on their own. These children were brought to him, it wasn't their own idea to come to Jesus. St. Paul writes his epistles full of advice and admonition trying real hard to straighten people out and get them back to God. And even he admits that the good he himself knows he should do is what he finds himself not doing.
In our time we are just as powerless to come to Jesus on our own. We are just as lacking in any real entitlement to the kingdom. Our sin and selfishness keep us back. Our pride inflates our sense of self-worth. Our greed pushes us to gather stuff around us for all sorts of reasons: so we have more than other people, to insulate us from the world, because we're afraid of being alone, or who know why? The point is still that nobody ever thinks on his or her own, "Hey, what a marvelous idea I've just had! I think I'll storm the gates of Heaven and become Jesus's best friend this afternoon. " Never happens. Nobody has that idea on his or her own.
Well, that's a problem. So how is it that people come to be with God? How is it that you or I came to be with Jesus? How is it that anyone has ever come into the Kingdom of God? It's clearly not under our own steam, by our own power. The answer is that we have to admit we are powerless. We have to be brought to Jesus the same way that these children were brought to Him. At root, we have to be called by the Holy Spirit, gathered by Him into the family of God, enlightened with the gifts of the Spirit, sanctified by His power. Embrace that fully. We can do none of that ourselves.
Then in order to remain in the kingdom and to be sustained here, we have to rely on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to make our life a Christian life, sanctifying us wholly. We are purely passive in this process, too. We have to be. God does this work in us and brings it to completion on the day of Christ. Which also means that remaining childlike in God is a lifelong process. "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it" AND "to such belongs the kingdom of God." The vision of this that Jesus has is not that the powerless enter the Kingdom, and then take it over running the kingdom the way we think it ought to be run. It is and remains the kingdom of God.
St. Peter underlines this is his first epistle when he writes to us that we should, "like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation." (1 Peter 2:2) We can think, therefore, of the Christian life in this context as a long childhood. We are forever childlike, never quite fully mature, ever growing.
This is how we then live: like children. For it is to such that the Kingdom belongs. Think of the ideal happy child. That is your model today for Christian living. The child and the Christian are both playful, curious, unencumbered by the weight of the world, unaware of danger, protected from harm, having their needs provided for, always learning, enjoying simple things like a blowing the seeds off a dandelion or hearing the same story and song over and over and over again.
Wouldn't the world -- wouldn't the Church -- be a better place if more of us approached our days with such child-like wonder, amazement, and ease? We prayed in the Collect earlier on that our heavenly Father would "Grant that, by [his] Holy Spirit, we may always think and do those things that are pleasing in [His] sight." Here is how we can enact that prayer: by being the child of God who has entered and now possesses the Kingdom. St. Paul works toward his conclusion of 1 Corinthians 13 by writing "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man I gave up childish ways" (I Cor. 13:11), but he seems to be contrasting our present earthly life with a heavenly perfection and maturity. He doesn't seem to be saying that the childish will be put away in this life but in the next.
Meanwhile -- while we are still children here in this life -- when we fall don and need to be cleaned, God washes us off. When we need to be fed, God has a holy meal for us. God's house is our house. God's family is our family.
Looking forward to that day when we'll be scooped up in the arms of Jesus one by one and welcomed home to Heaven, each one of us relies on Baptism to keep us clean, each one of us relies on Holy Communion to feed us. On our own, we're powerless to do anything at all in relation to God. But when God has called us, we are no longer on our own. We are God's daughters and sons, we are his children. And we are called to live lives of childlike wonder and amazement at the things God does for us, the things he does through us.
So, for example, our existence depends on God. We wouldn't be here unless He called everything into being, and us in particular. And our salvation depends on Jesus. If Jesus had not died on the cross in our places and then risen to life on Easter morning, we would still be living under God's condemnation. And our continuing lives as God's children depends on the Holy Spirit sustaining us day by day, week by week, year by year. So whether we are 2 or 20, 9 or 90, we are all dependent children before God.
Let the children come unto Jesus, don't hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God. Truly, Jesus says to us, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.
And He takes us in His arms and blesses us, laying His hands on us.
Amen
S.D.G.
a sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Virginia on the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, a.k.a. 7 October 2012, and based on the Gospel for the day, St. Mark 10:13-16
Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus,
Dear friends in Christ,
Today's Gospel is a short story that sounds all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it? Little children coming to Jesus to be blessed by Him. The disciples try to stop them. (The disciples are the opposition in this story; there always has to be some kind of opposition, for dramatic interest if nothing else, and the disciples are it.) But Jesus overrides their decision and scoops up the kids in a loving embrace.
It's a familiar story, I hope. Maybe you remember the picture from Sunday School, as I do. Jesus in long white robes sitting in the midst of a crowd of children, his arms around them. And there's the song, too: "Jesus loves the little children, All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black, brown white, They are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."
That's all true, of course, But there's more to this passage than that.
Of special interest to us today are the things Jesus says. Two sentences: "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God." and "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." These should cause us to ask why and how the kingdom of God belongs to children; and to ask what it means that we need to receive the kingdom of God like a child.
So what is it about children that is so compelling to God? Is Jesus here focusing on "the innocence of children"? No. There's no such thing in Scriptures where "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." No, there must be something else. But what characteristic could it be that draws children and God's kingdom together in such a way? As I thought through the characteristics of children that would have been obvious both then and now, for all children across the world -- the world in which some children are poor and some are rich, some spend their days and nights hungry while others are obese, the world in which some are happy and others sad, some pampered and others abused -- it seemed to me that a very universal characteristic is that children are powerless.
Children need others to care for them, to provide them basic food clothing and shelter. Children need to be protected. They aren't legally allowed to do things that adults are. They aren't physically able to do things that adults do. They can't much change their environment to their liking. The littlest ones cry; older ones can stomp and pout; but all that does is to call to an adult to make a change in the child's world. The children themselves are really powerless to make that change.
And look at this text. If we read it again we see that what happened in verse 13 was NOT that the children saw Jesus and flocked to him, singing and laughing. The Bible tells us that "they were bringing children to him" (Mark 10:13). Whether they were babies begin carried, or preschoolers being led by the hand, or elementary school aged children being pushed forward, the point is that the children were being brought, that they didn't come under their own power, and it wasn't their own idea. And "to such belongs the Kingdom of God."
Then in verse 15 Jesus says that "whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it". You might wonder how that works. Does it mean that all our adult evangelism is a waste of time? Does it mean that the only ones who can come to faith are the children? Well, you can almost hear Nicodemus in the background calling "Oooo, oooo, I know this one! Call on me!" Nicodemus would remember John chapter 3 where he asked Jesus 'Born again? Can a man enter again his mother's womb to be born a second time?' Well, no, of course not. Being born again and receiving the kingdom of God like a child means to receive the kingdom the same way a child would receive a gift. It means receiving the kingdom with a sense of wonder and joy, and full of the knowledge that we didn't really deserve it, that we had done nothing to earn it.
As adults we're pretty convinced that we've earned birthday presents by surviving yet another year; that we've earned a bonus at work by putting in extra hours; that we should get something when we leave a job because we really did work hard at it when we were there. But children have none of that sense of entitlement yet.
That's how everyone needs to receive the kingdom of God: knowing that we have done nothing to deserve it, nothing to earn it, knowing that we are not entitled to it.
These two themes: the powerlessness of the recipient, and the lack of entitlement, are really Scriptural themes about salvation and redemption and sanctification. They are the core themes in the Bible about our relationship with God.
In the Old Testament the people were powerless to come to the Lord, and certainly not entitled to anything he gave them. They were chosen out of real obscurity when the Lord called Abraham. It wasn't like he was just hanging around on the street corner there in the desert waiting for the Lord finally to show up and offer him a ride. He was just a 75 year old nobody living in Haran when the Lord said to him in the beginning of Genesis 12 "go from your country and your family and everything you know to the land I will show you, where I will make your family into a great nation" (because you're nothing and nobody now). Eventually Abraham's 12 great grandsons moved to Egypt during a famine and their descendants became slaves to the Egyptians. But again the Lord called these powerless people to Himself and though a series of miraculous interventions got them out of Egypt. They kept wandering away from the Lord's desire for them. He gave them a detailed set of Laws and a sacrificial system, but again and again they were powerless to avoid going their own way. The Lord led them to a land and helped them secure it my conquering its inhabitants, but they kept wandering away. The prophets called them back. They then came for a while, but it didn't last.
These people of God weren't very often doing much godly, it seems. They certainly weren't entitled to entry into the kingdom of God. Their leaders were often false. As individuals they often worshiped idols instead of the true God. You really start to wonder whether their real purpose wasn't to act as lessons for us, to teach us that people cannot and will not gravitate toward God on their own.
In the New Testament we see the same thing. The people of Jesus's time were just as powerless to come to Jesus on their own. He had to call them, they didn't follow on their own. These children were brought to him, it wasn't their own idea to come to Jesus. St. Paul writes his epistles full of advice and admonition trying real hard to straighten people out and get them back to God. And even he admits that the good he himself knows he should do is what he finds himself not doing.
In our time we are just as powerless to come to Jesus on our own. We are just as lacking in any real entitlement to the kingdom. Our sin and selfishness keep us back. Our pride inflates our sense of self-worth. Our greed pushes us to gather stuff around us for all sorts of reasons: so we have more than other people, to insulate us from the world, because we're afraid of being alone, or who know why? The point is still that nobody ever thinks on his or her own, "Hey, what a marvelous idea I've just had! I think I'll storm the gates of Heaven and become Jesus's best friend this afternoon. " Never happens. Nobody has that idea on his or her own.
Well, that's a problem. So how is it that people come to be with God? How is it that you or I came to be with Jesus? How is it that anyone has ever come into the Kingdom of God? It's clearly not under our own steam, by our own power. The answer is that we have to admit we are powerless. We have to be brought to Jesus the same way that these children were brought to Him. At root, we have to be called by the Holy Spirit, gathered by Him into the family of God, enlightened with the gifts of the Spirit, sanctified by His power. Embrace that fully. We can do none of that ourselves.
Then in order to remain in the kingdom and to be sustained here, we have to rely on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to make our life a Christian life, sanctifying us wholly. We are purely passive in this process, too. We have to be. God does this work in us and brings it to completion on the day of Christ. Which also means that remaining childlike in God is a lifelong process. "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it" AND "to such belongs the kingdom of God." The vision of this that Jesus has is not that the powerless enter the Kingdom, and then take it over running the kingdom the way we think it ought to be run. It is and remains the kingdom of God.
St. Peter underlines this is his first epistle when he writes to us that we should, "like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation." (1 Peter 2:2) We can think, therefore, of the Christian life in this context as a long childhood. We are forever childlike, never quite fully mature, ever growing.
This is how we then live: like children. For it is to such that the Kingdom belongs. Think of the ideal happy child. That is your model today for Christian living. The child and the Christian are both playful, curious, unencumbered by the weight of the world, unaware of danger, protected from harm, having their needs provided for, always learning, enjoying simple things like a blowing the seeds off a dandelion or hearing the same story and song over and over and over again.
Wouldn't the world -- wouldn't the Church -- be a better place if more of us approached our days with such child-like wonder, amazement, and ease? We prayed in the Collect earlier on that our heavenly Father would "Grant that, by [his] Holy Spirit, we may always think and do those things that are pleasing in [His] sight." Here is how we can enact that prayer: by being the child of God who has entered and now possesses the Kingdom. St. Paul works toward his conclusion of 1 Corinthians 13 by writing "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man I gave up childish ways" (I Cor. 13:11), but he seems to be contrasting our present earthly life with a heavenly perfection and maturity. He doesn't seem to be saying that the childish will be put away in this life but in the next.
Meanwhile -- while we are still children here in this life -- when we fall don and need to be cleaned, God washes us off. When we need to be fed, God has a holy meal for us. God's house is our house. God's family is our family.
Looking forward to that day when we'll be scooped up in the arms of Jesus one by one and welcomed home to Heaven, each one of us relies on Baptism to keep us clean, each one of us relies on Holy Communion to feed us. On our own, we're powerless to do anything at all in relation to God. But when God has called us, we are no longer on our own. We are God's daughters and sons, we are his children. And we are called to live lives of childlike wonder and amazement at the things God does for us, the things he does through us.
So, for example, our existence depends on God. We wouldn't be here unless He called everything into being, and us in particular. And our salvation depends on Jesus. If Jesus had not died on the cross in our places and then risen to life on Easter morning, we would still be living under God's condemnation. And our continuing lives as God's children depends on the Holy Spirit sustaining us day by day, week by week, year by year. So whether we are 2 or 20, 9 or 90, we are all dependent children before God.
Let the children come unto Jesus, don't hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God. Truly, Jesus says to us, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.
And He takes us in His arms and blesses us, laying His hands on us.
Amen
S.D.G.
Out for a Columbus Day Hike
Out on the A.T. last night. Drove up to Pen-Mar County Park after preaching the three services at Our Savior Lutheran, Arlington, VA; hiked two hours north, crossing the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania, got to Deer Lick Shelter about 5 minutes before the rain that had been promised all day arrived; had one of the two shelters to myself; moon came out in the middle of the night, but it was overcast again when I got up this morning to a wet 38 degrees. Talked to a Washington County, MD [yeah, I know, Washington County ... can't get away from him even on a day off!] parks employee when I got back to the park and he told me that 90% of the hikers treat the property with respect. That's good to know.
Pictures below:
Pictures below:
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Emily and Rob's Wedding Homily
A wedding homily for Emily Rebecca Bodling and Robert Michael Brock as they are married on 2 September 2012 at the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa.
Psalm 126:3 "The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy."
Some weeks ago, my mother told a story at the dinner table about my early life, when I would have been about 5 years old, the age of our two flower girls here. I won't bore everybody with the story, but it hinged upon a decision that could have gone one of two ways.
If that one little thing (a very little in the history of the world) had changed, then the whole rest of my life would have diverged from there. I quickly realized that, with the way one thing leads to another, I likely wouldn't have been sitting there listening to that story.
That's the "butterfly effect" that chaos theorists talk about wherein a butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the globe, and through a chain of accumulating events that build up and build up, eventually the result is a tornado on the other side of the globe. Or maybe a tornado gets stopped because of the butterfly. It's impossible to tell, really.
That's the effect of little things adding up.
And this psalm verse reminds us that the Lord has done great things for us. Greatest, of course, would be giving us Jesus as our Savior from sin. But He also works other great things in our lives.
So a question: is a wedding a little thing or a great thing?
I believe that what we're doing today, that what God is doing here today, that this wedding is the great thing. It's a great thing resulting from lots and lots of little things that have accumulated over, well, over the whole course of your lifetimes, but also traceable even back centuries.
Start with the night you met. Suppose one of you had decided to stay home that night. A little thing in the grand scheme of history, but had that happened it could mean we aren't standing here today. Or suppose, Emily, you had decided to go to nursing school someplace other than Des Moines, there are lots of nursing schools and you could have picked any of them; or what if you, Rob, had taken a job in Dubuque or someplace else rather than Des Moines. Those would have been little things, really, in the course of human history, but they are part of the sequence of events that brought us here today and are setting the course of your future life.
All these little things in our lives add up to big things. And God calls us, nudges us, pushes us sometimes, even roadblocks us at times, trying to get us to live the lives he would like us to live, making great things happen to and for us. So here we are.
We're participating in a grand thing today that the Lord has done for us. And we are filled with joy.
Where do we go from here? The rest of your life will be made up of lots and lots of little things that will build up to great things in your lives as individuals and your life as a couple.
One thing you should know, Rob, is that Emily is not a glass half full kind of woman. Neither are her siblings. That's not how they were raised. But they aren't glass half empty people either! These kids look at the glass and say "hey, that glass is completely full: half of it has water in it and half of it has air." They tend to look at things creatively. And they know that nature abhors a vacuum.
The glass of your marriage is also completely full, abhorring a vacuum. There's the part of the glass that has the two of you in it. And then there's the other stuff. What will fill the rest of the glass of your marriage? Will it be filled with children? [I've taken a poll among your parents and we would be in favor of that, but it's not our decision, so we'll let it go at that.] Will it be filled with stuff like kitchen gadgets and Vikings paraphernalia? Or kitchen gadgets emblazoned with Vikings logos? Will your marriage glass be filled with experiences? Or with dead air? It will be filled with something. Your new job as a married couple is to see that the glass of your marriage is filled with good things, with proper things, with unifying things, with helpful things. All the little things, all the little flaps of a butterfly wing, that God uses in creating a great thing that fills us with joy.
When we talked a while back you spoke of a married couple you both kind of admire, a couple you look to as a successful pair [And talk about pressure on the rest of us! I'm not sharing the names of the role models, so all of us married couples are on notice to be on our best behavior, especially when Rob and Emily are around]. I counseled you then to keep an eye on that couple -- and on others, too -- to see if you can figure out why their marriage seems to work, and maybe why some others seem not so happy. Watching other people handling stress and joy and challenges and blessings, watching all those little things will add to your total experience of life, guiding and challenging and drawing and cautioning you.
And remember that there are lots and lots of ways to handle similar situations. Some are definitely poor or destructive ways to deal with stresses or blessings. But among the good ways you'll observe, remember that you can use them as examples, or hints, or suggestions and see if they work with your personality, temperament, your tempo, and your budget. Some will work for you; some won't. You two will look at things differently from other couples.
And this is important: you are also going to look at things differently from each other at times. When you do, remember that here, too, an awful lots of things aren't necessarily right or wrong. For example, who washes the supper dishes? Does the toilet paper come off the top or the bottom of the roll? Is the toothpaste tube supposed to be squeezed only from the bottom or can it be squeezed from the middle? What goes at the top of the Christmas tree, a star or an angel?
I believe the right way to answer those vexing questions of married life is sort of like looking at the glass as completely full. What I mean is that there's usually another way, a middle way, a creative, fully and mutually satisfying compromise way that can turn a problem area upside down and actually, really bring joy where there may have been tension.
Little things can peck away at a marriage, but don't you let them. See that other little things add up together to a great thing that the Lord will do for you. The Lord has already done great things for us, and today we all join you in being really, really filled with joy.
Amen.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Teaching the Hungry
I.N.I.
a sermon to be preached on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost, 22 July 2012, at our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Virginia; the Gospel for the day being St. Mark 6:30-44
Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord,
[read text]
Dear Friends in Christ,
It's been styled as a grand outdoor picnic. It's been called a spiritual retreat that got derailed. It's been used as an example of snowballing generosity, and proclaimed as a miracle of astounding proportions.
The miracle of the feeding in today's Gospel is, or should be, familiar to all of us. There are 2 crowd feeding miracles in the Gospels: one with 7 loaves feeding 4,000 people that appears in Matthew and Mark; and this one with 5 loaves and 2 fish that feed 5,000 people in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For you Bible trivia fans, you will take note that this feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle of Christ that appears in all four of the Gospels. It doesn't take much reflection to come up with the idea that these feedings, and this one in particular, are important. Why else would God cause them to be preserved for us so many times?
Trusting that the miracle story is familiar to you, I want to look with you this morning at an aspect of it that might not have been emphasized in other sermons and Sunday School lessons based on these verses that you have heard. Some of you who know me well might think now that I will dwell on verse 32, "So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place." Since God has given me the gift of being an introvert, there is some appeal in that. But that's not where I want to turn your attention. Rather, I'd like us to start with verse 34, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things."
In a place and time of great need - such as the Holy Land was when Jesus walked the earth - He met that need with His teaching. There were people there with debilitating and disfiguring diseases. There were people there out of work. There were orphans and widows. There were the divorced and and about to be divorced. There were depressed people and alcoholics; thieves and abusers. There were all sorts of people with all sorts of needs (including some who were hungry!), and when Jesus saw them, His heart went out to them. He had compassion on them.
This crowd of hungry people were hungry for more than food at this point. Whether they realized it or not, they hungered and thirsted for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). And, boy, would they ever be filled! Jesus met their varied needs by teaching them "many things." We don't know the exact content of His teaching on this occasion. We do know that it met their needs, particularly their core, central need.
Jesus had identified the whole crowd's need for direction, for a leader. They were clearly "sheep without a shepherd". Now chances are that few if any of us have enough direct personal experience with flocks of sheep to catch the real drift of this phrase. I know I don't. But I know enough about sheep to know that they're pretty much given to wandering. This past spring the little lambs at Mount Vernon learned how to escape from their enclosure and repeatedly took to wandering aimlessly, once (I'm told) even into the Mansion itself. Sheep just don't have focus and direction when left to themselves. When people are acting like sheep they, too, get quite lost.
So Jesus began as He always does, right where the need was the greatest. Everyone in that large crowd was at a different place in their spiritual lives, just like all of us in this smaller crowd are this morning. For one person in the crowd Jesus offered his pure words of forgiveness and comfort. Another got challenged with God's Law, before he got the grace he didn't know he needed. Surely, the Lord's teaching many things reached different people differently. Some already knew the condemnation of the Law. But some still needed to hear it. As it was then, so it is now.
And when it comes down to it, we the Church too often still have the initial reaction of the Lord's disciples. What was their response to this crowd? What did they suggest be done with them? Did the disciples share in the way that Jesus "had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd"? (Mark 6:34) Did the disciples teach the whole crowd the whole counsel of God, rightly dividing Law and Gospel so that the many people heard the "many things" each needed?
Well, not really. "The disciples came to Him, 'This is a remote place,' they said, 'and it's already very late. Send the people away....'." (Mark 6:35) Send the people away, they said! Jesus, we came away by ourselves in the boat to get away from the world. And here You are teaching them. Send them away, Lord! Please!
Do we ever stop to think that in the 21st century Church we are often those disciples? We want to be off by ourselves with Jesus where we can report to him everything we've done recently (Mark 6:30). Yes, that's good. We should spend time alone with the Lord, probably more that any of us regularly do. Whether it's by going off into a closet to pray (Matt. 6:6), or by going away on a group spiritual retreat as the disciples thought they were doing at the beginning of today's Gospel (Mark 6:30), or even by going off by ourselves into the hills to pray as Jesus Himself did after finally dismissing this crowd (Mark 6:46) ... whatever our method or setting (and it should really be some combination of them) we all need to spend more time with God.
But, again, I fear that today's Church -- just like the nascent Church there on the shores of Galilee -- all too vociferously pleads with Jesus to "send the [crowd] away." It seems that a lot of times we don't want to deal with them. We don't want to deal with their needs. We don't want to deal with their sins. We're okay with different kinds of people from different backgrounds and classes and nationalities in the Church (most Christians today seem to welcome other brothers and sisters in Christ who arrive freshly washed by Baptism, all clean and shiny, ready to be active in the local congregation). What we aren't okay with are the people in the crowd who have needs.
We're afraid of what they'll do to us. We're afraid they will contaminate us. We're afraid that because they are spiritually in a real different place from us, that they will somehow "be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:39) But you know from the end of Romans chapter 8, that no such thing could happen. All these fears we have about the crowds are paper tigers, with no power to harm us. These fears need to be thrown out and left behind. "Perfect love casts out all fear" (I John 4:18).
What Jesus is calling His Church to do is to welcome in the crowds of misfits and sinners and arrogant people, the weak and the broken, the lost and those who think they know their way but are depending on a broken spiritual GPS unit. Jesus said to His disciples and He says to us, "You give them something to eat."
Maybe some need food for their bodies. Maybe they need some intellectually satisfying food in the way of sound teaching. Some may need more in the way of emotional sustenance. Jesus would have us sit the world's crowds down in our midst and feed them from what we have. And surely the thing we have that everyone can benefit from is a spiritually sustaining fellowship.
This is how the prophecy in today's Old Testament lesson is fulfilled, where the Lord says that "they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing" (Jeremiah 23:4). Jesus is the long-promised righteous Branch who sets up shepherds to take care of His scattered sheep.
All "who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13) as we heard in today's Epistle. Everyone is brought to God through the cross of Christ. Jesus brought this about "by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances" (v. 15), reconciling "us [all] to God in one body through the cross" (v.16). Now "you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone" (vv. 19-20) This is the message of peace that Jesus extended to those crowds on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. While the disciples (who should have known better) wanted to send the crowds away, Jesus wanted them brought near. He wanted them brought close so badly that He was willing to die for them.
Our Church today needs to reflect this wide, welcoming gesture to the world. God's love is for everyone, for all people. It isn't just for people who look and think like us. It's not just for people who act and react like us. We dare not beg Jesus to "Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages" (Mark 6: 36). We dare not remain under the accusation spoken in Jeremiah that "you have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them." (Jeremiah 23:2). Rather, we want to respond positively to Jesus when He tells us "you give them something to eat" (Mark 6:37). By the power of the Holy Spirit that washes over us in our Baptism, and by the forgiveness that consumes us when we receive Holy Communion, we are able to welcome and care for the world's crowds that today still appear like sheep without a shepherd.
S.D.G.
a sermon to be preached on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost, 22 July 2012, at our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Virginia; the Gospel for the day being St. Mark 6:30-44
Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord,
[read text]
Dear Friends in Christ,
It's been styled as a grand outdoor picnic. It's been called a spiritual retreat that got derailed. It's been used as an example of snowballing generosity, and proclaimed as a miracle of astounding proportions.
The miracle of the feeding in today's Gospel is, or should be, familiar to all of us. There are 2 crowd feeding miracles in the Gospels: one with 7 loaves feeding 4,000 people that appears in Matthew and Mark; and this one with 5 loaves and 2 fish that feed 5,000 people in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For you Bible trivia fans, you will take note that this feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle of Christ that appears in all four of the Gospels. It doesn't take much reflection to come up with the idea that these feedings, and this one in particular, are important. Why else would God cause them to be preserved for us so many times?
Trusting that the miracle story is familiar to you, I want to look with you this morning at an aspect of it that might not have been emphasized in other sermons and Sunday School lessons based on these verses that you have heard. Some of you who know me well might think now that I will dwell on verse 32, "So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place." Since God has given me the gift of being an introvert, there is some appeal in that. But that's not where I want to turn your attention. Rather, I'd like us to start with verse 34, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things."
In a place and time of great need - such as the Holy Land was when Jesus walked the earth - He met that need with His teaching. There were people there with debilitating and disfiguring diseases. There were people there out of work. There were orphans and widows. There were the divorced and and about to be divorced. There were depressed people and alcoholics; thieves and abusers. There were all sorts of people with all sorts of needs (including some who were hungry!), and when Jesus saw them, His heart went out to them. He had compassion on them.
This crowd of hungry people were hungry for more than food at this point. Whether they realized it or not, they hungered and thirsted for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). And, boy, would they ever be filled! Jesus met their varied needs by teaching them "many things." We don't know the exact content of His teaching on this occasion. We do know that it met their needs, particularly their core, central need.
Jesus had identified the whole crowd's need for direction, for a leader. They were clearly "sheep without a shepherd". Now chances are that few if any of us have enough direct personal experience with flocks of sheep to catch the real drift of this phrase. I know I don't. But I know enough about sheep to know that they're pretty much given to wandering. This past spring the little lambs at Mount Vernon learned how to escape from their enclosure and repeatedly took to wandering aimlessly, once (I'm told) even into the Mansion itself. Sheep just don't have focus and direction when left to themselves. When people are acting like sheep they, too, get quite lost.
So Jesus began as He always does, right where the need was the greatest. Everyone in that large crowd was at a different place in their spiritual lives, just like all of us in this smaller crowd are this morning. For one person in the crowd Jesus offered his pure words of forgiveness and comfort. Another got challenged with God's Law, before he got the grace he didn't know he needed. Surely, the Lord's teaching many things reached different people differently. Some already knew the condemnation of the Law. But some still needed to hear it. As it was then, so it is now.
And when it comes down to it, we the Church too often still have the initial reaction of the Lord's disciples. What was their response to this crowd? What did they suggest be done with them? Did the disciples share in the way that Jesus "had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd"? (Mark 6:34) Did the disciples teach the whole crowd the whole counsel of God, rightly dividing Law and Gospel so that the many people heard the "many things" each needed?
Well, not really. "The disciples came to Him, 'This is a remote place,' they said, 'and it's already very late. Send the people away....'." (Mark 6:35) Send the people away, they said! Jesus, we came away by ourselves in the boat to get away from the world. And here You are teaching them. Send them away, Lord! Please!
Do we ever stop to think that in the 21st century Church we are often those disciples? We want to be off by ourselves with Jesus where we can report to him everything we've done recently (Mark 6:30). Yes, that's good. We should spend time alone with the Lord, probably more that any of us regularly do. Whether it's by going off into a closet to pray (Matt. 6:6), or by going away on a group spiritual retreat as the disciples thought they were doing at the beginning of today's Gospel (Mark 6:30), or even by going off by ourselves into the hills to pray as Jesus Himself did after finally dismissing this crowd (Mark 6:46) ... whatever our method or setting (and it should really be some combination of them) we all need to spend more time with God.
But, again, I fear that today's Church -- just like the nascent Church there on the shores of Galilee -- all too vociferously pleads with Jesus to "send the [crowd] away." It seems that a lot of times we don't want to deal with them. We don't want to deal with their needs. We don't want to deal with their sins. We're okay with different kinds of people from different backgrounds and classes and nationalities in the Church (most Christians today seem to welcome other brothers and sisters in Christ who arrive freshly washed by Baptism, all clean and shiny, ready to be active in the local congregation). What we aren't okay with are the people in the crowd who have needs.
We're afraid of what they'll do to us. We're afraid they will contaminate us. We're afraid that because they are spiritually in a real different place from us, that they will somehow "be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:39) But you know from the end of Romans chapter 8, that no such thing could happen. All these fears we have about the crowds are paper tigers, with no power to harm us. These fears need to be thrown out and left behind. "Perfect love casts out all fear" (I John 4:18).
What Jesus is calling His Church to do is to welcome in the crowds of misfits and sinners and arrogant people, the weak and the broken, the lost and those who think they know their way but are depending on a broken spiritual GPS unit. Jesus said to His disciples and He says to us, "You give them something to eat."
Maybe some need food for their bodies. Maybe they need some intellectually satisfying food in the way of sound teaching. Some may need more in the way of emotional sustenance. Jesus would have us sit the world's crowds down in our midst and feed them from what we have. And surely the thing we have that everyone can benefit from is a spiritually sustaining fellowship.
This is how the prophecy in today's Old Testament lesson is fulfilled, where the Lord says that "they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing" (Jeremiah 23:4). Jesus is the long-promised righteous Branch who sets up shepherds to take care of His scattered sheep.
All "who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13) as we heard in today's Epistle. Everyone is brought to God through the cross of Christ. Jesus brought this about "by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances" (v. 15), reconciling "us [all] to God in one body through the cross" (v.16). Now "you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone" (vv. 19-20) This is the message of peace that Jesus extended to those crowds on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. While the disciples (who should have known better) wanted to send the crowds away, Jesus wanted them brought near. He wanted them brought close so badly that He was willing to die for them.
Our Church today needs to reflect this wide, welcoming gesture to the world. God's love is for everyone, for all people. It isn't just for people who look and think like us. It's not just for people who act and react like us. We dare not beg Jesus to "Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages" (Mark 6: 36). We dare not remain under the accusation spoken in Jeremiah that "you have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them." (Jeremiah 23:2). Rather, we want to respond positively to Jesus when He tells us "you give them something to eat" (Mark 6:37). By the power of the Holy Spirit that washes over us in our Baptism, and by the forgiveness that consumes us when we receive Holy Communion, we are able to welcome and care for the world's crowds that today still appear like sheep without a shepherd.
S.D.G.
Monday, July 16, 2012
345 years ago today -- on 16 July 1667 -- one of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers died. Her name was Anna Grote Robrahn. We don't know just when or where she was born, but it was likely somewhere in northern Germany and in the early 1620s. (Anna's husband, Clawes Robrahn, was born in Pogez, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany in 1622.)
Anna and Clawes married in neighboring Carlow, Germany on 17 October 1648. They had 7 children between 1649 and 1659: Ties, Trine, Hans, Claus, Johann, Anna, and Engel. I'm descended through Anna's daughter Trine, who was born 11 December 1650.
Clawes was the village mayor ("der Schulze," or "der Schultheiss") in Pogez. He re-married on 17 September 1667, just two months and a day after Anna died. (Was the official mourning period 2 months?) Clawes and his new young bride ("young" as in 22 years younger than he was!) had another 8 children over the next 20 years. Clawes died in 1693 in the village of Pogez, the same place Anna died.
The other interesting thing about my ancestor Anna Grote Robrahn was that the German church record book all this information comes from says that the cause of her death was "als Hexe verbrannt."
For those of you without any German, that means she was burned as a witch.
< see http://www.pfhl.de/Kirchspiele/frz/2760.htm >
Anna and Clawes married in neighboring Carlow, Germany on 17 October 1648. They had 7 children between 1649 and 1659: Ties, Trine, Hans, Claus, Johann, Anna, and Engel. I'm descended through Anna's daughter Trine, who was born 11 December 1650.
Clawes was the village mayor ("der Schulze," or "der Schultheiss") in Pogez. He re-married on 17 September 1667, just two months and a day after Anna died. (Was the official mourning period 2 months?) Clawes and his new young bride ("young" as in 22 years younger than he was!) had another 8 children over the next 20 years. Clawes died in 1693 in the village of Pogez, the same place Anna died.
The other interesting thing about my ancestor Anna Grote Robrahn was that the German church record book all this information comes from says that the cause of her death was "als Hexe verbrannt."
For those of you without any German, that means she was burned as a witch.
< see http://www.pfhl.de/Kirchspiele/frz/2760.htm >
Sunday, May 20, 2012
After much back and forth I think I have discovered that for me and my intended goals, it makes more sense to do bibliographic work and take notes using Zotero than Evernote. Big deal, huh? Well it might be.
I hope to be researching and writing in the broad and as-yet not-too-clearly defined area in the history of the Appalachian Trail. I am not too sure what I mean by that. The Trail is pretty well-defined. My research and writing goals are not.
So on I go. This blog may become active again. It may be a place I take public note of whatever I find that I think might be of interest to others. It might be a lot of things. But, if it really becomes active, it should be more than merely a place to record notes from hikes I take.
Zotero was created, as I understand it, as a free software for academics in the humanities to use for corralling their bibliographies and reading lists. But what I just discovered is that one can also attach an infinite (?) number of notes to each source. THAT was my real sticking point. (Or one of them.) I couldn't quite see how taking notes on the sources could easily be accomplished. Maybe it was a recent update of the software. Or maybe I just hadn't dug deeply enough. Anyway, voila!
What I'm not yet completely convinced of is the long-term preservation of notes and bibliographies. I'm old enough, or old-fashioned enough to fear cloud storage, to fear hard-drive failure, to fear out-dated hardware and software (anyone want a master's thesis written in Bank Street Writer on an Apple IIe and stored on several 5.25 inch floppy discs?). Luckily I have it printed out on actual paper; there's a paper copy at my seminary library; and there are microfiche copies in a couple libraries around the country.
Will whatever I'm putting into Zotero live as digital data for as long as I would like it to? One can say that everything on the Internet lasts forever, but it doesn't. Someone somewhere is maintaining it as transient bits and bytes on a server. Yes, lots of copies keep stuff safe, but that isn't intended for my personal data. So I'm still working on that part of my puzzle.
Evernote still seems to me to be an excellent tool for 'on the road' collection of stuff. At the moment I picture using it for grabbing information from random sources, particularly ones that are not online digital sources (a road sign, photograph I take at a conference, a menu in a restaurant, whatever). Then if it needs to be incorporated into my research database and notes, transferring it -- by hand if necessary, or by finding a way to connect the two, even if jury-rigged.
The web at the moment seems full of scholars and researchers, academic and otherwise, looking for the one best tool to meet their needs along these lines. I'm adding my voice. Maybe I'll be one of the people who ends up happy with his choice over the long run, and keeps adding notes about how it's going.
I hope to be researching and writing in the broad and as-yet not-too-clearly defined area in the history of the Appalachian Trail. I am not too sure what I mean by that. The Trail is pretty well-defined. My research and writing goals are not.
So on I go. This blog may become active again. It may be a place I take public note of whatever I find that I think might be of interest to others. It might be a lot of things. But, if it really becomes active, it should be more than merely a place to record notes from hikes I take.
Zotero was created, as I understand it, as a free software for academics in the humanities to use for corralling their bibliographies and reading lists. But what I just discovered is that one can also attach an infinite (?) number of notes to each source. THAT was my real sticking point. (Or one of them.) I couldn't quite see how taking notes on the sources could easily be accomplished. Maybe it was a recent update of the software. Or maybe I just hadn't dug deeply enough. Anyway, voila!
What I'm not yet completely convinced of is the long-term preservation of notes and bibliographies. I'm old enough, or old-fashioned enough to fear cloud storage, to fear hard-drive failure, to fear out-dated hardware and software (anyone want a master's thesis written in Bank Street Writer on an Apple IIe and stored on several 5.25 inch floppy discs?). Luckily I have it printed out on actual paper; there's a paper copy at my seminary library; and there are microfiche copies in a couple libraries around the country.
Will whatever I'm putting into Zotero live as digital data for as long as I would like it to? One can say that everything on the Internet lasts forever, but it doesn't. Someone somewhere is maintaining it as transient bits and bytes on a server. Yes, lots of copies keep stuff safe, but that isn't intended for my personal data. So I'm still working on that part of my puzzle.
Evernote still seems to me to be an excellent tool for 'on the road' collection of stuff. At the moment I picture using it for grabbing information from random sources, particularly ones that are not online digital sources (a road sign, photograph I take at a conference, a menu in a restaurant, whatever). Then if it needs to be incorporated into my research database and notes, transferring it -- by hand if necessary, or by finding a way to connect the two, even if jury-rigged.
The web at the moment seems full of scholars and researchers, academic and otherwise, looking for the one best tool to meet their needs along these lines. I'm adding my voice. Maybe I'll be one of the people who ends up happy with his choice over the long run, and keeps adding notes about how it's going.
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