Saturday Morning Walks

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.

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:

“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.

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.

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.

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:

Emily and Rob's Wedding Homily

I.N.I.
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.

S.D.G.

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.

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 >

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.

Here's What Christians Look Like

I.N.I.

A sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Virginia on 6 November 2011, whereon is celebrated All Saints' Day, and based on the Gospel for the day: St. Matthew 5: 1-12.

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord!

[text]

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today's Gospel text is one that's surely familiar to most if not all of us as the opening words of the Sermon on the Mount. Lots of sermons have been preached on these words. A pastor sometimes wonders whether he can say anything new about such a familiar text. There are things about this text, though, that bear repeating, even if you've heard them before.

One place to start is to recall that these words are called “the Beatitudes” ... although that doesn't necessarily help deal with the text, does it? The name “beatitude” is simply a reminder, built on the Latin translation, that the first word in each verse is the word “blessed.” In Latin it is “beata.” Hence “beatitude.” We could just as well call this passage “the blessednesses.”

But what does this passage have to do with All Saints Day? We're observing All Saints this Sunday, even though we're several days past the actual day on the church calendar. The first lesson today, from the book of Revelation, seems to fit real well with the All Saints theme; that lesson has Saint John's vision of “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne” of God in Heaven (Rev. 7:9). And from John's first epistle, our second lesson tells his Christian hearers “we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when [Jesus] appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (I John 3:2); giving us the understanding that there is some kind of change, some kind of new thing that our lives will change into in the future, that is, when we are standing before the throne of God

This lesson from Matthew's Gospel actually also has a forward-looking, a future-grasping sense to it. When you stop and look at these Beatitudes, you see that the second half of most of them is a future tense “they shall.” They all indicate some reward yet to come, something that hasn't happened yet, something that might not be fulfilled until – again – we are standing before the throne of God where we will see Jesus as he is. But the first half of each verse is in the present tense.

These verses tell us over an over again that certain groups of people are blessed, blessed now, and blessed because they have something that is related to their identifying trait. First of all, what does “blessed” mean? We find the word used a lot in Scripture, so we can scope out the way God uses the word when communicating with people through the Bible. What it boils down to is that 'the special feature is that it refers overwhelmingly to the distinctive religious joy which accrues to [a person] from his share in the salvation of the Kingdom of God.' [Kittel, IV,307].

Religious joy. Not wealth. That's not what the blessings are. Not success in your job. Not a big house. Not safety and security as you travel. Not general health and well-being. The word “blessed” as it is used in the Bible refers to a particular religious joy that someone gets as a share of salvation.

The point is that this joy rises up only as a result of who we are as Christian people who have been called, gathered, enlightened and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. The joy of blessedness does not rise up when we have been working hard to be better people. It doesn't come to us by luck. It doesn't just happen randomly to some people for no reason. It comes to us because of who we are are God's daughters and sons, His redeemed children, the ones bought by the blood of Jesus.

In a few words, I'd like you to take home with you today the thought that these Beatitudes describe the Christian life. They don't tell us what we have to do. They don't lay out a plan for developing our lives. The Beatitudes neither prescribe ways we've got to live, nor do they proscribe outlooks we should avoid. In these verses Jesus simply tells us “here's what Christians look like.” So this passage at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount is fitting at an All Saints Day observance because it characterizes all of the saints, all of the Christians, all those who follow Jesus.

While one could easily spend weeks working through these beatitudes one at a time, let's look instead this morning at just some of them to see ways in which this works out. For example, in verse 3 Jesus begins “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” What is this telling us? Is it saying that to be blessed, Christians need to be poor? That no rich people can enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Not really. It might well be harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (as Jesus also said; Matthew 19:24), but it isn't impossible. This description of Christians focuses on the trait Christians display of being unattached to worldly goods and riches. We might own worldly riches, but we aren't defined by them, they don't own us.

We should be rich or poor, whichever we are, part of the 99% or the 1%, knowing that neither condition makes us closer to God in itself, and neither condition means we aren't close to Him. The poor widow whom Jesus saw at the Temple exemplifies this. She wasn't held up as an example of someone especially close to God because she was poor. No, we remember her because of her attitude toward what money she did have. She placed her “widow's mite,” her couple pennies, into the offering plate and thereby gave much more than the rich Pharisees. She was poor, yes, but she was also “poor in spirit” in the sense of this Beatitude.

She knew that the riches of this world really belong here in this world. And that believers are citizens of Heaven, only here on earth for a while. Writing about this beatitude, Martin Luther wrote that “While we live here, we should use all temporal goods and physical necessities the way a guest does in a strange place, where he stays overnight and leaves in the morning.” [Luther's Works, XXI, 13]. What a great image that is! We are only on earth for a short while, and during our stay God gives us various things for our use, but that doesn't make these things ours. Start to think of all your money and resources as a guest towel and bedsheets; they're nice to have while we visit, but we leave them behind when we go home. No regrets. No sadness. These amenities weren't ours to begin with, and they didn't become ours just because we used them a while. Everything we “own” on earth falls into this category.

So, in our spirits, we Christians are poor whether we have a lot of stuff or not. We realize we don't “own” things. How does that define us as blessed? Because we know that we have a treasure stored up for us in Heaven. We have the Kingdom of God awaiting us! What amazing riches that gives us.

What about the verse that says “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”? (Matt. 5:8) Maybe that one gives you trouble. After all, being “poor in spirit” - well, we can see ourselves being poor. And with “Blessed are those who mourn,” well everyone will mourn at some point, we know that, too. But this talk of being “pure in heart”? Who are we to think that this phrase describes us even for a moment?

Maybe we should go off somewhere away from all the distractions of the world, away from people, away from business and advertising. Maybe then we could work on being pure in heart. Except that God doesn't want that, because if he did, then why would he honor our earthly callings? Scripture speaks of this pure heart and mind in a manner that is completely consistent with being a husband, a wife, a child, an employer, an employee, a teacher, a student ... consistent with being, in other words, a person fully engaged in our world. If we all abandoned our society and culture to go try to be pure in heart away from it all, we would not be doing any of God's creation any good (not to mention the people whose lives still need to be touched by God through our presence among them).

So “what is meant by a 'pure heart' is this: one that is watching and pondering what God says and is replacing its own ideas with the Word of God. This alone is pure before God, yes, purity itself, which purifies everything that it includes and touches.” So writes Luther. He continues, “therefore though a common laborer, a shoemaker, or a blacksmith may be dirty and sooty or may smell because he is covered with dirt and pitch, still he may sit at home and think: 'My God has made me a man. He has given me my house, wife, and child and has commanded me to love them and to support them with my work.' Note that he is pondering the Word of God in his heart; and though he stinks outwardly, inwardly he is pure incense before God. But if he attains the highest purity so that he takes hold of the Gospel and believes in Christ ... then he is pure completely, inwardly in heart toward God and outwardly toward everything under him on earth. Then everything he is and does, his walking, standing, eating, and drinking, is pure for him; and nothing can make him impure.” (Luther's Works XXI, 34)

That's all it takes to be rendered pure before God. Sticking with the Word of God that purifies us in our faith, and sticking with the word that teaches us our duty to our fellow human beings. And that's how we “see God” (in the words of the Beatitude). When we have faith that Christ is our Savior, then we see immediately that we have a gracious God. Faith leads us to the throne, and opens our eyes so we see the overwhelming, superabundant grace and love of God for us. That's what it means to “see God,” not with our physical eyes, but with the eyes of faith.

One more Beatitude that has special appeal is in verse 9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Jesus describes Christians as peacemakers. Not just as avoiders of conflict, but as people actively involved in creating peace. Martin Luther again says that “the Lord here honors those who do their best to try to make peace, not only in their own lives, but also among other people, who try to settle ugly and involved issues, who endure squabbling and try to avoid and prevent war and bloodshed.” (Luther's Works, XXI, 39)

Here we see that peacemaking is an active role. And there are so very many places to exercise that capacity we each have within us. We start especially where we are. We calm our own reactions when someone else slights us, when someone offends us, when someone attacks us. You and I as Christians are here described as peacemakers, so our role would be to endure the harsh, cruel words of people who might gripe and bicker and annoy, and our role is to present the best to people. We begin with our own outlooks. And we do the same to help other people with their outlooks on each other. The old joke punch line “hey, let's you and him fight” never really was all that funny and is less so now that we know Christians simply don't rile up others in arguments.

We actually go out of our way to soften words and turn aside blows. Even “if you are the victim of injustice and violence, you have no right to take the advice of your own foolish head and immediately start getting even and hitting back; but you are to think it over, try to bear it and have peace.” (Luther's Works, XXI, 40). It takes two to quarrel, of course, and by stepping aside and refusing to argue, we not only avoid fighting but we move toward creating peace. If only nations would do that, too. But you know what? Nations are made up of individual people, and if enough individual people cultivated this Christian attitude, our world would be a more peaceful place.

The reward for this peacemaking is multifaceted. Yes, we will be less stressed when we are personally at peace. Yes, our families and communities and churches and workplaces will all be calmer more pleasant places to live when we are at peace. And yes, the international scene will be more livable when nations of peacemakers are cooperating rather than in conflict with each other. But more than any of that, people will look at us and they will call us – God will call us – “sons and daughters of God.” That's an eternal benefit that outlasts the good of peace on earth. Children of God! When we join with the saints who have gone before us to complete the family circle of God in Heaven, we will know that peacemaking on earth was only a prelude to the full peace there that passes all human understanding. There in Heaven we will join with “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” (Rev. 7:9) Think of it as the melting pot to end all melting pots if you want, but it will be the culmination of all our earthly peacemaking efforts, when we stand united with all these people so different from us, but engaged in praising God at his throne.

These, then, are examples of how the Beatitudes from the beginning of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 describe the Christian life as it is lived on earth. There is a real sense of the “now, but not yet” in all of the promises wherein we have the Kingdom of God now, but not yet as fully as we will in Heaven; where we are comforted now, but not as completely as we will be when we see Christ face to face; where we are satisfied now, but will only feel it completely and forever when we join the rest of the saints above. But remember also the “now” part. Don't forget that these eternal blessings are for us now as the saints of God in the Church on earth. St. John wrote in today's epistle that “we are God's children now” and meant that the blessings of faith are present among us as we go about our daily lives.

Christians are peacemakers, we are pure in heart, we are merciful, we are persecuted for righteousness' sake, and all the rest. But not in the manner of some list of “9 Habits of Successful Christians” self-help book. These aren't traits that only special people can display after years of disciplined hard work and effort, years of prayer and fasting, decades of dedicated training and practice. These traits are things that Christians simply are. By the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we exhibit them more clearly today than yesterday. When we slip back into the world's way of looking at things – as we surely will for as long as we live in this world – then we stop and pray for forgiveness, we refresh ourselves in God's Word, we accept the renewal given us in the Sacrament. Why? Because that's what the saints of God do, and we are among those saints, both now and in the life to come.

May our eyes ever be open to the truths of the Beatitude blessings in our lives. 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.

Seek First the Kingdom of God

I.N.I.

A sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, VA on the 11th Sunday after Pentecost, also called 8 August 2010, and based on the Holy Gospel for the Day, St. Luke 12:22-34, especially verses 31 and 32

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord,

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In my experience preaching in various congregations from the assigned lessons for each Sunday, I find some Sundays that either the lessons don't seem to fit together so well or that it's hard to find a really sweet nugget in them to bring into the pulpit with me. This isn't one of those Sundays. All three of our lessons fit together well and are chock full of wonderful words of God for us to chew on and enjoy. The struggle this week was more a case of having to decide what to leave out for another time. This explains why I am not focusing on Abram, and God's really big promises to him; or Abram's belief in God that the Lord credited to him as righteousness. It explains why I am not picking up the echo of our Genesis lesson that we have in Hebrews 11, where we hear the beginning of that great exposition on faith as the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen, ending in the middle of the chapter but with again the story of Abram's faith.

And it explains why I settled on the two verses from Luke 12 that I am calling our attention to this morning. 'Seek first the Kingdom of God – strive for – his kingdom, and all these things (I'll touch on what things later on) will be added unto you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom – He wants to, and He will.'

This all sounds fine. Maybe you've sung some of these words in songs or hymns. They're probably familiar words. But at second thought, it might appear that they don't sound too Lutheran. Lutheran Christians have a kind of automatic response against if-then, work-reward passages. And that's what this passage could sound like. It's as if Jesus is telling us that once we get out our compass and maps, fire up the GPS unit, pack our bags and set off to hunt up the Kingdom of God – once we work hard to find it and get into it – then the Father will let us in or something (that little detail seems lacking in our text) and will also give us earthly blessings, especially food and clothing. And that sort of talk about rewarding our hard work of going out and hunting for God doesn't sound properly orthodox to us, it doesn't sound like good Lutheran teaching. Well, it isn't, really. But that's not what the text is saying.

What the text is saying is significantly different. Let's unwrap the meaning so that we can get to the point where we will see that all Christian people will eagerly seek first the Kingdom of God. A very good place to start is with the a-b-c of God's abundant blessed caring for each of His creatures, for you and for me. God's abundant blessed caring for us should be where we start and end our every prayer about earthly things. God's care for us overflows more than we could ever think to ask for. God's care for us blesses us in more ways than we can imagine or count. Yet we sometimes, perhaps often, don't really believe in it. Sometimes we use some other standard and think we've been left out of God's blessings. Or perhaps we let greed and covetousness run our day-to-day lives. Maybe we get jealous of what other people have. In those cases we show a lack of faith in God. And that always gets us in trouble.

We should, instead, seek first the Kingdom of God. What is this word “seek”? One translation has “strive for”. Others say “continue to be eager for” or “set your mind upon,” “set your hearts on,” “be concerned about.” It's as if the translators are struggling to capture the sense of Jesus's original word. For good reason. The dictionaries point out that the word He used has two senses: one is “seeking” in the sense of a shepherd searching for a lost sheep (Matthew 18:12) or a woman seeking a lost coin (Luke 15:8); the other sense is in a holy 'demand' by God who expects fruit from a tree (Luke 13:6) or faithfulness from a servant (1 Corinthians 4:2). So there are 2 sides to “seeking.” There is looking for what belongs to you; and there is a patient, hopeful expectation of what is due.

And neither of these senses of the word “seek” indicate working hard to get something that isn't already given to you. In other words, that picture of getting out a map and hunting for God's Kingdom, and then pounding on the door to be let in, is all wrong. The Kingdom of God is already ours. It has already been given to us. It's just that, in our sin and self-centeredness, we've lost sight of it. So we should patiently search for what we already have by the grace of God. We should look as the good shepherd searches for the one lost sheep. We should sweep the house looking for where we dropped the valuable coin like the woman. We should wait patiently and expectantly, looking down the road like the father of the Prodigal Son. We should keep returning to the fig tree year after year looking for fruit. What we are seeking is already ours. God has already given it to us.

Jesus gave us another way to remember this process. In the Lord's Prayer, He told us to pray “Thy Kingdom come.” Now, we believe that God's Kingdom comes whether we pray for it or not, but in this petition of the Prayer we pray that it comes also to us. We pray that God's Kingdom may prevail among us, so that we may be a part of those among whom God's name is hallowed. We are praying for the flowering of what is already planted in our hearts. We are seeking the Kingdom of God in all the various ways and places it already is.

So, what IS the Kingdom of God? Simply, it's what we confess regularly in the creeds: that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, into the world to redeem us from sin, death and the Devil, and to bring us to Himself and rule us as our king of righteousness, life and salvation. To carry this out, God gave us His Holy Spirit to teach us through the Word, to call us through the Gospel, to enlighten us with His gifts, to strengthen and keep us in the one, true faith. THAT is “the Kingdom of God.”

When we “seek first the Kingdom of God” what we are doing is praying that all this may be realized in us, and that God's name may be praised through His holy Word and in our lives. So we are seeking to remain faithful to what was begun in us at Baptism, and to grow in faith through leading holy lives. And we pray that , led by the same Holy Spirit, many others may come into the Kingdom and become our brothers and sisters in the faith.

God's Kingdom comes to us in two ways as we seek it. First, it comes here and now through the Word and faith; and second, it comes in eternity through the Second Coming of Jesus. Seeking it, we pray that it may come to those who are not yet in it, and that it may come by daily growth in us all both now and in eternity when we go home to Heaven. As we are strengthened in the faith, God's Kingdom comes to us. As we live Christian lives, God's Kingdom comes. As we extend the outreach of His Church, we seek God's Kingdom. That's how we seek the Kingdom of God. That's how we set our hearts and minds on it. That's how we concern ourselves with it. That's how we focus our attention on the Kingdom.

And did you notice that we're NOT focusing our attention and prayers upon? It's often hard to see what isn't there until someone points it out. Let me point it out. We are not focusing our attention and prayers on a crust of bread or a shred of cloth. We aren't looking for food and clothing. We aren't looking for earthly, temporal, temporary blessings. Leap back to St. Luke 12:22-23 where Jesus says “I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you are to eat or about your body, what you are to wear. For life is ore than food, and the body more than clothing.”

You and I have a direct connection with almighty God, the creator of the Universe through Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord. He has given us an eternal, priceless treasure by forgiving us our sins and giving us eternal life in Heaven. That's something way, way more than any of us would have ever thought to ask for on our own. Yet that's what God has given us. And because He is God, he claims the honor of giving us far more abundantly and liberally than anyone can comprehend. Like a deep, eternal, inexhaustible fountain that flows with more and more and more cold water on even the hottest day of the driest month, God keeps on giving to His children. He wants us to ask many and great things of Him. And He wants us to ask confidently.

Imagine, if you will, a rich and powerful person who calls to and invites a homeless beggar to ask for anything he wants. Imagine that the rich person is willing and ready to give lavishly. And imagine that the beggar only asks for some loose change to help make up the price of a cup of coffee. Would the rich person be indignant, upset, even angry? If you are the beggar, and don't ask the rich person for some substantial gift, then shame on you! Because God is the rich person in this little story and we are the beggars.

God's joy and purpose is to see to our blessing and comfort. Asking him merely for a little food and some clothing is a kind of insult to God's generosity. He has promised and is intent on giving us so much, so many blessings, we would be despising His gifts to barely croak out a petition for a morsel of bread.

The fault in this case lies wholly in our unbelief which does not look to God even for enough to satisfy our bodies, let along expect, without doubting, eternal blessings from God. Therefore we must strengthen ourselves against unbelief and seek first the Kingdom of God. Then, surely, we will have all the other things in abundance, as Christ teaches here in Luke's Gospel.

How do we strengthen our faith? By relying on God's grace which brought us that faith in the first place. His powerful grace comes to us in His Word, and in the Sacraments. We hear the Law and the Gospel in the words of the Holy Bible as we see how our sin is condemned, but how we are forgiven because of the death of Jesus. What a relief! What a source of inspiration and power! We are baptized people and therefore rely on the promises wrapped up in that cleansing whenever sin gets the upper hand again. We use the promises of God to fight off the attacks of Satan. We've been baptized! The evil one has no power over us any longer! And we are nourished in this life, both as we fight off the evil foe and as we carry out our God-given mission in life, by coming regularly to the Sacrament of the Altar, Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper. The “altar” reminds us that it is because of Christ's sacrificial death that we are here. The communion reminds us that we gather with other believers who are going through similar struggles, and finding the same godly assurances and love that we seek. The supper reminds us that what we have here was instituted by Jesus Himself as a way to feed us His true body and blood, strengthening and preserving us in the one true faith unto life everlasting.

We're in a great position. We have a loving and powerful God Who forgives us our sins and wants to sustain us in our earthly lives as well. He gives us the directions and means to approach Him, seeking His blessings. He has already promised to clothe us more gloriously than Solomon or the lilies of the field, and to feed us more regularly and fully than He feeds to birds who don't know how to farm and grow their own food. “Don't be afraid, little flock, for it is God's good pleasure – His delight! – to give you the Kingdom.”

So let's eagerly seek first the Kingdom of God. It turns out, as we've seen, that it's a very Lutheran thing to do – as, of course, it should be because it's a very Christian thing to do, because it comes from the lips of Jesus and is recorded in the Bible. Let's seek out the Kingdom like a shepherd searching for a lost sheep that he wants to rescue. Let's longingly search for it like the Prodigal Son's father looked down the road for his returning child. Let's keep checking like the farmer stopping in regularly, expectantly, hopefully, faithfully to see whether there's ripe fruit on the tree. We know the Kingdom of God is there for us with all its attendant blessings. Let's seek it out. Let's find it.

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.

The Crazy Man and the Pigs

I.N.I.

A sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Virginia on 20 June 2010, that is, the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, and based on the Holy Gospel for the Day, St. Luke 8:26-39, the healing of the Gadarene demoniac

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord!

Dear Friends in Christ,

One of the ways to study stories from the Bible, and to develop a deeper sense of how these stories are meaningful to each of us today, is to work your way through the story thinking of yourself as one character, then another. What would the miracle at Cana have meant if I were the groom or the bride's father, for example. Or if I were one of Noah's sons, how would the whole story about the ark and 40 days of rain have affected me? Maybe we could try something like that with this story from Luke's Gospel.

We could, of course, think of ourselves as one of the disciples safely on shore at last after the wild, windy trip across the Sea of Galilee during which we woke up Jesus and He calmed the storm with just His words. Or maybe we could imagine ourselves as the villagers who came out to see what happened, after it all happened, and then asked Jesus to please leave town. (Have we ever politely asked Jesus to leave?) Or what would it have been like to be one of the local pig farmers who saw their entire flock suddenly rush down the steep bank like lemmings and drown? (Jesus can turn our world upside down, but is this the kind of thing that means?) Or what would it have been like to be the pigs in the story?

Or what would it have been like to be the naked crazy man who lived in the cemetery? Has your life ever gotten that far out of control? Have you ever felt like you've been losing touch with reality enough that you might as well be this guy? Have things ever gotten wild enough, overwhelming enough, stressful enough that you have thought “You know, maybe it wouldn't be so bad just to let everything go, cut all my ties with society, check out of normalcy.”?

We can learn some good lessons from this poor man's experiences. Even if we've been in control enough that we've never felt pushed to or over that edge, we can learn some things for our good from his story. Let's see what there is in this story for us.

First of all, the core of this passage from Luke's Gospel is also found in Matthew and Mark. It seems that God wanted to be sure we listened to this story, so he had three of His evangelists record it, not just one. And, as often happens, each of the writers includes details that the others leave out, maybe simply because they got the story from a different witness. Matthew, an eyewitness himself, tells us that there were actually two demon-possessed men there who “were so fierce that no one could pass that way” (Matt. 8:28). Mark tells us that the man “was always howling and bruising himself with stones” (Mark 5:5) and that there were about 2,000 pigs in the flock. Luke tells us that after the healing the man was seen “sitting at the feet of Jesus” (Luke 8:35).

Next, we know, I suppose, that the central point of this story is the same as of every story in the Bible: the story tells us about our need to be close to God, and how that comes about through Jesus our Savior. So why do we need to hear that lesson again? Why is it again the central point of a Scripture lesson and sermon that we are in need to salvation and that Jesus is our one and only Savior? Simply because we keep coming up with new ways of fomenting rebellion against Him and inventive ways to slip away from God. Here's how it is illustrated here in Luke chapter 8:

The naked man is one side of this coin, and the villagers are the other. And I think that they actually can be said to alternate the ways in which they show us separation from God. What they are teaching us in the end is that we – you and I – can live closer to Jesus, both healed of our craziness and un-distracted by non-essentials. We don't know just why this man was tormented with these demons who proudly named themselves “Legion.” We don't know whether maybe he invited them in, believing that he could control them and use their strength to gain money or power. There are certainly lots of examples in history and literature and the daily newspapers for us of people who make bargains with the Devil and end up polluting themselves and those around them with destructive drugs or dissipating habits, with wasteful living, with – in short – sinful intent. Oh, yeah, they may start out saying, I'm going to be different from everyone else; I'm going to control this habit; I'll do good with this stolen money; I'll help people with this excess power. But it's always a bargain that breaks the people who try to keep it. And this man in the tombs was certainly being broken by the demons in his life.

It could be that the demons weren't invited into his life, but invaded one day when his defenses were down. It didn't matter to the Legion, because they were enjoying themselves terrorizing the man and the villagers and people who tried to pass by. Satan's long-term goal is chaos and destruction, and he had the demons taking this man and those around him further down that road day by day. They delight in rebellion against the Creator. They enjoy, in their own twisted ways, taking people away from God.

The villagers were, I said, the other half of the picture. How were they siding against God? Well think about it: here's someone they knew, someone related to a lot of them surely, someone it great need, a man who who could most use a helping hand, and what had they done? They made sure he stayed away. When he came near, they tried to keep him in chains. This is no way to care for the helpless. This is no way to treat the poor and needy. This is not how the least of these is to be treated. It isn't how we say we would treat Jesus.

And then, later in the story, these villagers come rushing out to the cemetery to see for themselves what the pig farmers had told them. I mean, who could believe that there were actually 2,000 pigs floating upside down in the lake? Disasters always attract nosy people who aren't going to lend a hand. That's what was going on here. These are the people who tie up traffic on the interstate trying to get a look at the accident on the other side of the median. And what happened here? They got out to the spot, saw Jesus teaching the man (this is the significance of Luke's mention that the man was “sitting at the feet of Jesus” ... disciples sat at the feet of their Masters; this man had already become a disciple of Jesus!). So did they naturally join in? Did they sit down, too, to enjoy a “Sermon in the Cemetery”? No. These villagers were so distracted by the non-essentials that they just up and asked Jesus to leave them. They wanted to see dead pigs. They wanted to see the crazy naked man. They wanted some kind of excitement. But all they had was Jesus teaching “the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” (Luke 8:35) The villagers were afraid, Luke tells us. Some of the eyewitnesses tried to tell them how the healing took place, but with one voice “all the people of the surrounding country ... asked Jesus to leave.” So they missed out on their one great chance to be with the Savior. They thought it was better to slip away from Jesus, to get a great distance between Him and themselves. It was really a quiet rebellion against God.

Our own lives sometimes follow these patterns. We, too, rebel. We, too, invite in demons or demon-like things that take us away from God. We, too, get distracted from God by things that simply are not essential. We, too, try to slip away or to send Jesus quietly packing. Do we abuse our bodies with things or practices that hurt them? Do we abuse our relationships with force or control or demands or legalism? Do we abuse our world that God has given us? Then do we go looking for things that appear bright and shiny, but simply serve to distract us from important spiritual matters? Do we seek out people, places and things that just don't make us stronger disciples? Do we collect the earthly things that are temporary and unimportant instead of storing up treasure in Heaven?

These are the ways of the naked crazy man and of the villagers. But, as we've heard, there is a better way.

If our goal is indeed to live closer to Jesus, both healed of our craziness and un-distracted by non-essentials, then the way to get there is to listen to the voice of Jesus, to His words of healing and His teaching. In this Bible text, the demon-possessed man is the only one who did so. So he turns out to be the character in the story that we should be seeing ourselves in. This nameless man is the one who was completely turned around and entranced by the words of Jesus. The 12 disciples just disappear out of the narrative for some reason, probably so that we focus on the one convert. The swineherds witnessed the healing and immediately left the scene. The villagers heard the story from the swineherds, but instead of letting their story be a saving Gospel story, they had it become a sensationalist news story. It is only the healed man who heard the Savior's call and became a disciple.

And like all true disciples this man fervently wanted to be with Jesus. He begged Jesus to let him come back to the western side of the Sea of Galilee. 'Jesus, I need you so much. Stay with me. Let me come with you. Just don't send me away. I've been so lonely without you, Jesus. Life has been so hard. People have been so cruel.' But Jesus had a special plan for this man. His story of healing, a vibrant and exciting story of redemption and grace, a story of Law and Gospel, a story of God's love breaking into a man's sin-darkened world, a story of renewal and of forgiveness and of a new unexpected beginning ... this man's story simply had to be heard. There were people in the village there who needed to hear it again and again. There were people in the other Ten Towns (the Decapolis) who had to hear.

So this brand new disciple is sent out to share the Gospel with the distracted people on the wrong side of the Sea of Galilee. “He went away,” Luke records, “proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.” (Luke 8:39) And then he fades from history. Sort of.

The Bible never tells us his name (it's not important). And it doesn't really tell us anything much about his lay ministry activities. Except this: back in Mark's Gospel this story is recorded in chapter 5 where it ends with the words that the man “went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.”. (Mark 5:20) Then in Mark chapter 7 there's this: after Jesus healed the daughter of the nameless Syro-Phonecian woman, “He returned from the region of Type, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis” (Mark 7:31). There the crowds – crowds, mind you! – brought Him a deaf man to be healed. The parallel in Matthew's Gospel says that “Great crowds came to Him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the mute and many others. They put them at His feet and He cured them.” (Matt. 15:30).

Now, how do you suppose the people in these Gentile mountain towns on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, away from the places Jesus spent so much of His ministry, how do you suppose these crowds knew about Jesus and the fact that God's healing power flowed through Him? Do you suppose that just maybe the words of one man, formerly known as the naked crazy man who lived in the cemetery, had made a difference in this territory? I have to admit that the Bible doesn't tell us, but it's an awfully attractive explanation for the instant recognition and popularity of Jesus in this foreign land.

Whether or not this man's words were the earthly explanation for the later spread of Jesus's ministry there, for changing the hearts of villagers and swineherds and others into hearts ready to listen to Jesus, we do know this: Jesus changes hearts. The evidence is here in this healing story recorded in three of the four Gospels. And the evidence is here in our world today. People's lives are changed for the better when they listen to the calling voice of Jesus. People escape the clutches of their demons. People are forgiven by God. Our sins are washed away because Jesus took the punishment we deserved when He died in our places on the cross outside Jerusalem. We are clothed in the righteousness of God and we are set right, just as the man in the tombs was clothed and returned to his right mind. This happens today. It has happened to you as followers of Jesus, even if the demons you have been released from were not as dramatic as this man's Legion of demons. Maybe, instead, you were called away from the distractions of this world where you were looking for floating pigs and other disasters rather than a gentle Savior to learn from.

Either way, God has changed lives right here. And He calls us first to discipleship, and then to telling others about this change in our lives. As God's dearest children we are all chosen to live ever closer to Jesus even if, yes, for a time we have to leave His side to carry out His business preparing His way. We have all been healed of our craziness. We have all been pulled away from the meaningless distractions. Recognizing this fact helps us focus on how we are to live as Christians. The Holy Spirit comes to us in the means of grace (God's Word and Sacraments) giving us the power and focus to be God's children in a hostile world. And we are empowered to be His witnesses wherever we are. Let us so live. Amen.

May the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

S.D.G.

Jonah, but Not the Whale

I.N.I.

A sermon to be preached at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Columbia, PA on Ash Wednesday 2010, a.k.a. 17 February 2010, and based on the theme text for the evening, Jonah 1:1-3, as well as taken extensively from the sermon provided with the worship materials, one written by the Rev. Prof. Reed Lessing.

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[text is Jonah 1:1-3]

Dear Friends in Christ,

Jonah had a problem. At root, it was the same basic problem that each of us has: a problem with our relationship with the Lord. Our Lenten Wednesday evening services this year will draw much from the Old Testament book of Jonah, leading us from our problem to the Solution, that is, to our Savior. At least one part of the story of Jonah is probably familiar to us all: the business with him being swallowed by the whale, or 'big fish.' But there is good biblical material for us to work through both before and after the whale events. Tonight we're going to begin at the beginning.

The narrative of Jonah actually begins in 2 Kings 14:23-27. That passage gives us part of the historical setting for the more familiar events from the book with Jonah's name on it. In 2nd Kings we read: “In the fifteenth year of King Amaziah son of Joash of Judah, King Jereboam son of Joash of Israel began to reign in Samaria; he reigned forty-one years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from all the sins of Jereboam son of Nebat, which he caused Israel to sin. He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. For the Lord saw that the distress of Israel was very bitter; there was no one left, bond or free, and no one to help Israel. But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jereboam son of Joash.”

From this passage, we find that even in Israel, a sinful nation in the sight of God – a nation under the reign of an unfaithful king, Jereboam, who (we just read) “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” -- the prophet Jonah was successful. God did not destroy unfaithful Israel while his prophet Jonah was speaking the word of God among them.

In the book bearing his name, Jonah was also a successful prophet. The people of Nineveh (once Jonah finally got there) heard and heeded the word of God. They repented.

Yet Jonah, son of Amittai (and his father's name means 'faithful' or 'true,' so Jonah was 'the son of faithfulness' or 'the child of truth') ...yet Jonah, while successful, proves to be anything but faithful. He turns tail and runs the other direction when God calls him to this particular mission. And then, as we'll hear in the weeks to come, even when Jonah does tell the truth, preaching the word of God in Nineveh, he does so begrudgingly, like a sulking teenager. Deep down Jonah doesn't seem to want those nasty outsiders to know God's truth. And even despite that kind of delivery, God's powerful word, His faithful and true word, succeeds there.

Jonah must have been successful as a prophet in his native Israel. That is, successful in more than the theological terms we heard from 2nd Kings. He had to have been earning a living at his work, because when the book of Jonah opens he was able to hire sailors and pay for the use of a ship to take him away from Nineveh. The opening sentences of Jonah have him not only paying his own fare, but in fact hiring the entire ship and crew, which meant he was spending a lot of money trying to get away from God.

Other Israelites had been called to go beyond their homeland. Abram was sent away from home. Jacob and his sons left their home to go to Egypt. Moses led God's people away from their home in Egypt to wander in the desert. Others were also called by God to go to and speak his Word to people outside the ranks of the chosen Israelites. But while Jonah surely knew his people's history, he didn't want to follow in their footsteps. Nineveh was known as a sinful place. Other prophets wrote about it. Pick the worst parts of the cities with the worst reputation you can think of, mix them together, and that would have been Nineveh.

And this was the place God was calling Jonah to go to. This was one call Jonah would rather have not gotten. Someone has likened it to asking a Jew in 1942 to move from New York to Berlin. Not the place he or she would want to go! It would be understandable for that person to head the other direction. And that's just what Jonah tried to do. He hung up on God, grabbed his hat, and darted out the back door, hoping he wasn't being watched.

So what kind of prophet would hang up on God? One like Jonah. While his father's name meant 'faithful' or 'true,' Jonah's own name meant 'dove.' To the ancient Hebrews, a 'dove' didn't mean 'peace' or 'Holy Spirit' like it does to us; to them it meant 'flighty, brainless, unreliable.' And that's just what our Jonah was when God called.

He chartered this ship and headed for Tarshish, a city that would years later be known as Tarsus and be the birthplace of St. Paul, but at that time was known for being a rich, pleasant place to be. Situated on important trade routes, Tarshish would have been able to hide Jonah in comfort had he gotten there. God had other plans.

Almost as soon as the ship set sail, it ran into problems. The weather turned against them. Winds and waves conspired to halt their progress and to bring the ship to the brink of sinking. Our text says that Jonah “went down to Joppa” to get his ship ... and down he continued to go. He continued to go down, down, down toward his death. Away from God, away from God's blessings.

That's a great picture of what happens when we run from God's call in our own lives. Our gracious God calls each of us to do particular things and be particular kinds of people. Using biblical language, the person who “runs away from the Lord” or “flees from the presence of the Lord” is the one who is refusing to serve God, even though he or she knows what God's Word says. As a prophet, Jonah should have longed to stand in the Lord's presence, but Jonah tried to hide from God's presence, going down into the bottom of the ship during the storm. Where we go and how we act both reveal something about our reaction to God's call on our lives.

God's Word eventually won the day in Jonah's life. Jonah was finally convinced to carry through with his missionary work in Nineveh. God's Word works toward that same end in our lives, no matter how long we try to head the other direction, heading down and away from God in our own ways.

God's Word is alive for us in Jesus, our Savior. He crossed ever so many boundaries to come down to us. Before His death He constantly went beyond the traditional and expected boundaries in meaningful ways. He met with a Samaritan woman at a well. He healed the son of a Roman soldier. He touched lepers. It shouldn't be any surprise that He did those things, considering that Jesus traveled past His boundaries in Heaven to be born, to live and die among us, a sinful and rebellious people. Jesus is not a Jonah, flighty and unreliable. Jesus is squarely focused on spreading His message of love, forgiveness, and salvation. He answered God's call because he IS the living Word of God.

And God is still calling. He is calling us to confess our sin. He is calling us to confess the name of Jesus. He is “calling young and old to rest, calling the souls of those distressed, longing for life everlasting.” (Built on the Rock, LW 291)

God is calling us to do the work He has appointed for us to do while it is day, before the night comes when no one can work. And God is calling us home to His side. We can take a lesson from the story of Jonah and invest in the journey there, rather than in a doomed voyage away from God. Jesus is our hope for survival during and at the end of that voyage.

S.D.G.