Pastor Ron Jansen

A Place of Grace

Third Sunday in Lent, 2011 Immanuel Chapel, Exodus 17-1-7

Exodus 17:7, “Is the Lord among us or not?”  John 4:26, “I who speak to you am he.”

Some here may remember the Sons of the Pioneers singing,

All day I face the barren waste

Without a drink of water, cool water.

Old Dan and I with throats burned dry

And souls that cry for water, cool, clear water.

            Water, we need water, not as a luxury, but as an essential element of our life.  In our gospel lesson Jesus, wearied from his journey, waited at a well for someone to give him a drink.  Every living thing, including our Savior, needs water.    

            Water is what the Israelites lacked as they moved through the desert directed by God’s command.  They had passed through the waters of the Red Sea to freedom from slavery in Egypt.  They were headed to the Promised Land under the care of God and leadership of Moses.  But the Promised Land was still, who knew how far off.  As they traveled between promise and fulfillment, they lived with the cares and responsibilities of keeping their families and their livestock alive in a barren waste.

            We too have passed through the waters in our baptism.  We were freed from bondage and slavery to sin. Through the often barren waste of this world we travel toward the Promised Land of eternal life with God.  God’s promise, which we heard and believed through the gospel of salvation, is guaranteed in the gift of the Holy Spirit.  We too travel through life between promise and fulfillment in Christ’s return.  We too still have essential daily needs, one of which is that we grow thirsty.  And when those essential needs are not met we too grumble and complain.  In fact, we grumble and complain when the weather turns on us or the price of gas goes up or we are forced to do something that we don’t want to do.  Or if we are young people, our parents won’t let us do what we want to do.  None of these are going to kill us, though we sometimes act as if they will.

            So we ought not to come down too hard on the Israelites when they became upset over the lack of water.  The text tells us, “All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on…according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.”   Their need was real.  They asked Moses, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” Their obedience to God had led them to a “barren waste without a drink of water, cool clear water.”  It happens that even under God’s leading we encounter and have to pass through conditions which we never anticipated.

            Their questioning is serious, “Is the Lord, among us or not?”    They wanted God to prove himself by doing something to show that He was still around.   They had seen the work of the Lord at the Red Sea when Moses struck the water and they crossed on dry land to safety and salvation.  God had already provided them with sweet water on another occasion.  When they arose every morning there was an abundant supply of sweet tasting flakes they called manna.  We have experienced the work of the lord both in daily meeting our needs and in bringing us through the waters of baptism to the victory of life in Christ and salvation.  There is no need for us to ask, “Is the Lord, among us or not?”  Still, sometimes we wonder.

            Do you ever get exasperated with your fellow believers in Christ? I know you do because sometimes I hear about it.  Well, Moses was at the end of his rope. He cried to the Lord.  The Lord’s the one to cry out to when you are at the end of your rope.  “What shall I do with this people?”  Notice how he separates himself from “this people”?  We do that by using the word “they” as in “they want to do this or that.”  Moses adds, just in case God hadn’t noticed, “They are almost ready to stone me.”  What does God do to this people who threaten Moses and challenge God to prove himself? We answered that question at the beginning of the service, “But with You there is forgiveness.”  God shows them his grace.  He doesn’t wait for them to put their stones back on the ground.   He doesn’t say, “First confess then sins, then we’ll think about water.”  He tells Moses to bring his staff and go to a certain rock outcropping.  The Lord will stand on the rock while Moses strikes it with his staff.  Moses did so, and water gushed out and the people and their children and their livestock drank and lived.  A barren waste became a place of grace.

             Paul wrote of grace in the epistle lesson.   We have been put right with God by trusting what Jesus Christ did for us; therefore, we have peace with God.  We stand in a relationship of grace with God.  We are able to rejoice in the time of suffering.  “God’s love has been poured into our hearts (like water) through the Holy Spirit... For while we were still weak…Christ died for the ungodly…God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

            The gospel lesson shows us how grace works.  While an exhausted Jesus sat by Jacob’s well in the noonday sun, Samaritan woman arrived.  She is surprised that a Jew would ask her to give him a drink.   Jews held a prejudice against Samaritans that dated back 500 years.  What Jews said about Samaritan women shouldn’t be talked about in polite company.  During a sometimes testy conversation Jesus revealed that he knew the woman’s life was a mess.  She is the example that proves the rule about Samaritan women.  Her life was a barren waste.  What does Jesus do?  He doesn’t tell her to go back home and get her life in order and then come back.  He offers her the gift of the water of life.  “The water I will give will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  Later he will say, “Whoever believes in me… ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”   The Holy Spirit flows out of the believer into the lives of other people as WE speak of God’s love in Jesus Christ.  The Samaritan woman came to draw water in order to quench her thirst and that of her household. She had an even greater thirst quenched, the thirst to be put right with God.  And she went back home an evangelist.  Her words led many in that village to believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

            Our hope in Jesus Christ is summed up by St. Paul (2 Cor. 4:14), “He who raised Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and bring us into his presence.”  For 500 years Samaritans had been barred from the water of life.  Christ bars no one.  In Revelation we read,   “Come!” say the Spirit and the Bride.  “Come!” let each hearer reply.  Let the thirsty come; let whoever wishes accept the water of life as a gift.   “As grace extends to more and more people it (will) increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”(2 Cor. 4:15) Is the Lord among us or not?  Jesus says, “I who speak to you am he.”  Thus every barren waste can be a place of grace.        

 

                         

 

 

The Past

Lent 2 II Sam. 16:5-14
 The scene presented in our text begins like an old Monte Python sketch.  However, the scene is not a comedy sketch, but deadly serious.
 David and his companions having passed through the Kidron Valley, the valley of humiliation and shame, now entered into the valley of mockery and cursing.   David arrived at the arid and rock strewn wilderness east of Jerusalem.  Still on the run from Absalom, his rebellious son, they trudge along in the heat of the day. Suddenly, what seemed to be a wild and deranged man appeared on the rocky hillside above them.  He screamed curses upon David, pelting the struggling group with rocks and stones.  He scooped clouds dust into the air.  Shimei, the perpetrator of this rain of rocks and curses was not above kicking a man when he is down.
 You see, Shimei was of the clan of Saul, the king whom David replaced.  Shimei remembered.  He remembered back 40 or 50 years when Saul and Saul’s son Jonathon were killed and David became king.  Now he was bringing the past raining down on David’s head with stones and curses.  He remembered the past.   David was finally getting his comeuppance.
 Are you a present day Shimei carrying around a memory from the past and letting it affect how you act and react now?  Is there something that happened in 1951, or ’61 or ‘91 that you carry around and let it affect your life, your marriage, your family, your faith ever since?  Perhaps the younger generation doesn’t even know what touches off the anger and the tirade, but they know where your goat is tied and how to go and get it.  We seek to deal with the present situation by hurling stones of the past upon one another’s head.  We let the past run amuck in the present.
 Oh, there is something else about Shimei that you should know.  He had the story wrong.  He had heard the stories, rumors, and suspicions that David was responsible for Saul’s death.  After all, at the time, David was supposedly attached to the Philistine army.  The rumor mill worked hard in the clan of Saul.  However, David had not killed Saul.  Saul had fallen on his own sword rather than allow the Philistines to humiliate and kill him.  When we hold a grudge for so long time clouds our memory.  We distort the facts or at least begin to see them from only our own point of view.  Where the facts are lacking we fill in with our own conjecture.
 Like Shimei, we act on the basis of rumor  How many times have we put the worst construction on something?  How many times have we nursed grudges over the years?  Then when the opportunity presents itself we seek to take the matter into our own hands.  We are unable to let it go because we continue to act on the memory and cannot forgive.  Who gets hurt when we allow the past to run amuck in the present?  Who gets Killed? 
 We are new people whom God has recreated and given new life in Christ Jesus.  We are a family of God’s chosen people.  When we remember and act upon the sins of the past and hurl them down upon one another in the present - then we are killing the Body of Christ.  We are killing ourselves.  Because we are all members of the same body, that is Christ’s body.  When we hurt one another, we are hurting ourselves, for like it or not we are one in Christ.  And, we are crucifying Christ anew.
 In our text, Joab volunteers to go up and whack off Shimei’s head.  However, David says, “Perhaps he is cursing me at God’s direction.  It may be that God sent him to curse me.”  David was willing to take the curse, even though he knew he was innocent.
 Now here is where this text touches Jesus life.  Jesus also took the mockery and the cursing even though he knew he was innocent.  Listen to what God did to his own Son as he remembered our past sins and took it out on His own Son.  “Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus…and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him.  They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him and twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head.  They put a staff in his hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him, ’Hail king of the Jews.’  They spit on him and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.  After they mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him.  Then they led him away to be crucified.”  God heaped all of your past and future sins, my past and future sins and all the past and future sins of all humanity upon him as he suffered the derision of the soldiers.
 And then we want to hurl the stones and curses of the past down upon each other when they have already been cast upon the head of Jesus?  When they fell on Jesus they crushed him, but in so doing were smashed into smithereens so that the stones of the past have no more power.  Why then would we want to heap more suffering upon the body of Christ when Jesus has already suffered for all the wrongs which we do to ourselves and to one another?  Christ was mocked in our stead.  He became a curse for us.
 Yet, even with that knowledge, that Christ died and paid the penalty for our sins; yet with the promises in hand that in Jesus God will not remember our sin and therefore, will not punish us; still we, influenced by our old sinful self and by the wiles of Satan, want to punish ourselves and one another.  Such is the weakness of our flesh and the strength of our destructive remembering.
 However, the Lord remembers too.  He remembers he sent His Son, Jesus, to suffer the consequences of our sin.  The Psalmist prays, “Remember, O Lord your great mercy and love, for they are from of old.”  All along the way of time God has been forgiving your sins and my sins and everyone’s sins in Jesus Christ.  Everyday his mercy is new.  That mercy  new to us everyday has operated in our lives ever since we became his in the faith we received in baptism.  Even though our old sinful person would want to hurl the memory of the past at us; the Lord remembers us and blesses us.  He forgives and forgets.  In Christ, he rules and he heals all wounds.  The scar may be there, like the scar from an operation, but the scar reminds us of the healing done by another that gives us life and well being.  With his stripes we are healed.
 The story of David and Shimei concludes, “The king and all the people with him arrived at their destination exhausted.  And there he refreshed himself.”  As we arrive at the destination of our day, having struggled to live according to the life giving love of God - we too find ourselves often exhausted.  Remember then our king, Jesus.  Remember him and what he has done for us.  In carrying that memory we will be able to find refreshment in the wilderness of our life.  We will have no need to let the memory of the past run amuck in the present.  
     
  

Blessed to be a Blessing

Second Sunday in Lent, 2011 Genesis 12:1-9

“Oh, the Places You’ll Go,” wrote Dr. Seuss.

Today is your day,

You’re off to Great Places!

You’re off and away!

Later he writes of the journey,

All Alone! Whether you like it or not,

Alone will be something

You’ll be quite a lot

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance

You’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.

There are some, down the road between hither and yon,

That can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

            Dr. Seuss is onto something isn’t he?  Who knows where life will go, when we’re off and away?  When we’re  young we start a family.  Suddenly we’re absorbed into a life of putting one foot in front of another and one dollar in front of another.  One spouse works nights and the other days.  We pass one another in a foggy daze.  My wife and I, with four kids, did just that for more than a few days.   At a wedding and we come to those vows where each person says to the other, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish,” I want to say, “Before you answer, ask my wife how many hours she has spent in the surgical waiting area, waiting for me to come out of surgery.  Then come back up here and say your vows.”

            When we grow older, health issues arise.  Doctors’ appointments dominate the calendar.  A pastor friend of mine, who has since passed on to the church triumphant, liked to say, “Whenever a bunch of older people together you have an organ recital.”  At some point we may have to leave our home and downsize.  We face giving up a Drivers License. As Dr. Seuss writes, “Sadly, it’s true that Bang ups and Hang ups can happen to you.” We hope that when we come to the end life’s journey, it won’t be a dead end.       

            At a dead end is what the world had come to in the book of Genesis.    God judged the history of humanity to be a disaster after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and discovered good and evil. Things degenerated to the point that he terminated the earth’s history in a great flood, save for a bobbing ark containing Noah and his family and their collection of animals.  However that proved to be no remedy.  In the plains of Shinar people sought to make a name for themselves.  Uniting in a grand technological effort they stormed heaven by building a tower to reach the skies.  They feared being dispersed.  What they feared God caused to happen confusing their language and scattering them across the earth.  The future of the world was hopeless and barren.

Elizabeth Achtemeier writes, “God created the universe ‘very good.’  But still today our human attempts to…be our own gods and goddesses, determine our own right and wrong and our own destinies, have corrupted every area of God’s creation… the way to paradise has been lost.  And over all hangs the curse of futility, of pain of loneliness, and finally of death.”  Into this situation, God speaks his word into human life and begins that history of salvation which will finally reverse the effects of human sin and bring his blessing to all humankind.”  

We read in the gospel lesson, “God so loved the world.”  Because of his love he spoke to a man in Paddam Arram  who lived in the city of Harran, “Go from your country, your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”  The man’s name was Abram and his wife was Sarai and they were barren.   God’s selection of a barren husband and wife to be a blessing to others emphasizes that it is first and foremost God’s power and initiative that will accomplish God’s purposes.  “Go,” says God, and “Abram went,” literally to God only knows.  God will  show them where they must go.  God will be Immanuel, God, who goes with them.  When we belong to a congregation of people whose name is Immanuel, then every time we speak our name we are reminding ourselves that God is with us.

But there is more.   Of this elderly couple without children, “as good as dead” God promises, “I will make you a great nation.”  That’s a preposterous promise to make to this elderly barren couple.   But this is God who said in the beginning, “Let there be…” and the creation took shape.  Who said, “Let us make man in our own image and likeness” and formed humanity.  This is God whose a messenger would tell Mary, with God nothing is impossible. And in her womb Jesus Christ the Savior took shape.   This is God who allowed himself to be put on the cross, to die and then do the impossible, come back to life again.  The result is that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.  This is God whose Spirit cannot be controlled by our meager minds; no matter how smart we think we might be.

   But God isn’t through with making promises to Abram.  Abram will be the antidote to the tower of Babel who sought fame for their own names.  To this day we know not their names.  But Abram we do.  And in Christ we are children of Abraham.  As children of Abraham we bear the name which is exalted above all names, the name of Jesus Christ.  There is no name given under heaven by which we might be saved from our own undoing.

Abram will not be a great nation in order that he might dominate other peoples.  God will not make his name great that he might hoard fame for himself.  He has received all these blessings so that he would be a blessing to all the families of the earth.  Now through Abram and Sarai, a childless couple beyond the years of being fruitful and multiplying, God would bring the blessing of salvation and eternal life to all the families of the earth.  This would not happen overnight or even in nine months. It would be 25 years before Abram and Sarai had a child. It would be several centuries before their descendants received the land promised after serving as slaves in Egypt. It would be 17 centuries before God would send his son into the world to save the world from its own condemnation and destruction.  Jesus would be one of whom it is proclaimed on Palm Sunday, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Now in faith we are part of that great nation, bearing the great name of Christ.  We go not alone, but always in the company of our Lord, for we are Immanuel, God with us.  Our purpose is the same as that given to Abram, blessed to be a blessing. Be a blessing exalting the great name of the Lord wherever you journey, for then anyplace is a great place and any day is a great day.

Dr. Seuss concludes with words we can apply to ourselves.

Be your name Busbaum or Bixby or Bray

Or Mordicai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,

You’re off to Great Places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting.

So…get on your way!

 

Valley of Humiliation and Shame

Midweek Lent 1, John 18:1 & II Sam. 15:23 & 30

Tonight we go with King David as he escaped the rebellion led by his son Absalom. With weeping and lamentation, David and his supporters descended into the Kidron Valley and crossed Brook Kidron, just to the east of Jerusalem. Left behind were the palace and the Ark of the Covenant. Abandoned were all the perks, power and privilege that were his as king. David was once more a fugitive as he was during Saul’s reign. As far as his son Absalom was concerned, his father was ready for the garbage heap of history. The text reports David went into the wilderness walking barefoot, his head covered. David was also descending into spiritual depths. Psalm three David’s feeling, “O Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! How many are saying of me, ’God will not deliver him.’”

The Brook Kidron, which at times ran with water, David and his supporters now filled with tears as they descended in mourning, humiliation and shame. Have you ever been in the valley of humiliation and shame?

The valley of humiliation and shame is the valley of nakedness in which we look at ourselves and see no good thing. We see ourselves as the mistake, not just making mistakes. We have no worth in the valley. Remember that statement from a few years ago, “God doesn’t make junk?” In the valley of shame and humiliation, I believe God does make junk and I am the junk. It is the valley strewn with the boulders of “oughts” and “shoulds.” The person with a drinking problem knows this valley and so does the family. The person who has been physically, sexually, verbally abused walks in this valley. The person who experiences failure in his or her life is familiar with this valley. In this valley, the walker sees himself as the fault, not just at fault. We may not have put ourselves there, but we believe we belong there, and there is no way out.

God may not even exist in this valley. If God does exist, God only condemns. Even the wonderful verse, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” does not apply. The person in the valley of humiliation and shame says, “God may love the world, but that doesn’t include me. Whoever believes in this Son may be saved, but I am not one of those “whoevers.”

By any other name, this is the valley of sin. God created us with eyes directed at Him and hands outstretched to His creation. When we turn our eyes from God to ourselves, we become self-conscious rather than God conscious. We withdraw our hands from the neighbor to protect and warm ourselves. Adam and Eve discovered they were naked when they looked from God to themselves. They discovered they were in the valley of humiliation and shame. They needed something to cover their shame. They began to blame each other because they were conscious of themselves and needed to protect themselves from the other one.

In the valley of humiliation and shame, we see only ourselves. Our failures keep mounting higher and higher. Yet, we do not want to ask for help. We fool ourselves, lie to ourselves, and deny to ourselves the possibility that there is any help. Sin has such a strong hold on us that though we know we cannot help ourselves, we still insist on clinging to ourselves. In fact we may not want to leave that valley because it’s the only life we know. Think of hugging yourself and never letting go. Walking would be impaired, as would eating. No one could hug you nor would you be able hug anyone in return. To maintain that kind of grip on yourself would use up enormous energy and concentration.

However, though David descended into the Kidron Valley in humiliation and shame, he did not remain there. With repentance, he and his people made their way out and up to the Mt. of Olives. On the Mount of Olives, even when David heard that his trusted advisor had gone over to Absalom’s side, he turned to God. He continued on his way toward the wilderness and came to a place where God was worshipped. You see there is no place, where God is not. There is no despair where God has not been. There is no shame that God does not understand. Where has God experienced such things?

Nearly a thousand years after David made this journey, another of God’s anointed ones, Jesus, followed literally in his footsteps. We read in John 18:1, “When Jesus had spoken these words; he went forth with his disciples across the Kidron Valley, where there was a garden.” Here the very Holy One entered into the valley of humiliation and shame. In the intervening years between David and Jesus, the Kidron Valley had become a site for dumping garbage. There the prophets and reforming kings had dumped and burned the idols that Israel was forever bringing into the temple. The priests flushed the blood of the animals sacrificed in the temple into the Kidron brook. When Jesus walked in that valley his eyes saw and his nostrils smelled the garbage. It was a reminder of all the sins and all the humiliation and shame that you and I and all humanity have experienced. It was a painful reminder of the humiliation and shame he would suffer at his trial and crucifixion. John the Baptist had said of him, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Soon his blood would run. Soon it would be his body humiliated as he hung naked on the cross.

The prophet Jeremiah, who lived during one of Israel’s darkest hours, 600 years before Christ spoke of a day that would come when God would make a new covenant with his people. God would forgive his people and not remember their sin anymore.

Through Jesus suffering, he took upon himself our shame. In its place he gives us life and removes from us all that we might use to condemn ourselves let alone that which God would use to condemn us. As Paul writes to the Romans, “The one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” God replaces humiliation with exaltation with Christ. Christ gives us his worthiness in place of our shame. We are not junk, but God’s treasured possession.

In our walk of faith, God assures us that when we enter into our spiritual valley of Kidron, God goes with us. Like David and because of Jesus God has anointed us too, in the word and water of baptism. Christ gives us the power to walk, through the valley of such spiritual death and to emerge on the other side with life, hope and salvation.

 

 

Duped

Ash Wednesday II Sam. 15:1-6

Albert Strenke farmed across the road from the one room red brick school in our rural community. He wasn’t much of a farmer. However, he and his wife Margaret produced a large crop of children. After Margaret died he stayed on the farm.

One day a car pulled into the yard. Two men who got out and said they were from the Rural Electric Coop checking for electrical leaks. Electrical leaks are a real problem for farmers. A short causes a current to run down water pipes and stanchions shocking the cows, throwing them off their feed and reducing milk production.

However, these men wanted to check the house. They wrapped what looked like TV antenna wire around the house, stuck a metal stake in the ground and announced that “Yes, indeed” they had detected a voltage leak. The cost to correct the problem was $700.00, payable in advance. Being an official agency they could only take cash. Now they understood that Albert might not have that much cash around the house. As a courtesy, they would give him a ride into town so he could withdraw the money.

Albert Strenke had been duped. Horace, a first century BC Latin poet wrote, “Why do you laugh? Change the name, and the story is told of you.”

Change the name and the story is told of the people of Israel. King David’s son, Absalom, was a man highly praised for his handsome appearance. “From the top of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him.”

An uneasy truce existed between the king and his son. You see, Absalom had killed his brother Amnon for raping his sister Tamar. After a lengthy exile, Absalom had come back to Jerusalem. However, it wasn’t until two years later that he actually saw his father. In that meeting he bowed in obeisance to the king and David kissed him on the cheeks. These polite social pleasantries disguised the underlying animosity that still smoldered.

Absalom bought a chariot pulled by a team of horses. An entourage of 50 men ran before him. He rose early in the morning to greet everyone who came to the palace gate seeking a settlement of some legal complaint. “What city are you from?” he inquired. “To which tribe do you belong?” he queried. He played upon their dissatisfaction with the leadership of his father, David. “Oh, that I were a judge. Everyman who had a suit or cause could come before me and I would give him justice. But alas, the king has not appointed anyone to expedite these matters.” Thus, he stole the hearts of the people of Israel. Israel had been duped.

The original story of stealing the hearts of people through deception took place in a garden. There the crafty creation of God slithered his way into the hearts of Adam and Eve, God’s children. He stole their hearts with promises that if they would but follow his advice they would attain to something better -they would be like God. Of course, they already were like God having been created in his own image. God had already given them the best - a loving and caring relationship with himself and with one another. However, they fell for the empty promise. Humanity was duped into sin and death.

Change the name and the story is told of Judas. Judas was hoodwinked into betraying God’s Son. He felt he could improve the disciples’ treasury thus advancing the cause of the poor. The name in the story might well be Peter. He would have prevented our salvation for a better cause - that of saving the life of his master, his teacher, his Lord - the Christ.

Adam and Eve, Israel in the time of David, Judas, Peter all were duped by promises of something better. St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.” We might paraphrase Paul, “Therefore as the one man was duped by that clever serpent swindler and death came through that swindle - so death spread to all people because all people were easily duped.”

How many of us would admit that we have been swindled? I am sure Albert Strenke knew all the folks in the farming community were shaking their heads. Yet, Paul says we have all been duped. Robert Fulhum the author of “It was on fire when I lay down on it” writes, “A life story in a sentence.” “The devil made me do it the first time, and after that I did it on my own…God warned his first children, Adam and Eve. He made it clear. Don’t eat that piece of fruit - it will lead to trouble.”

We do well to take note that we are the descendants of Adam and Eve. We belong to the family of the duped. Along with Albert Strenke, Israel in the time of David, Judas and Peter we have all been duped. “Change the name and the story is told of you.”

Take that good old American virtue, “Self-reliance.” Gather up your inner strength and you can do anything. On one occasion, I was talking to a woman whose grandson sang in a touring choir that was to be at our church for a Saturday evening service. Her daughter offered to get her a wheel chair and bring her. They could use the church’s elevator to reach the sanctuary. However, the woman refused her daughter’s offer. She did not want to be an invalid. She missed hearing her grandson’s choir because of the swindle of self-reliance.

We are all spiritual invalids. We heard Joel’s call to return to the Lord in our Old testament lesson. What will we find in returning to the Lord, “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Therefore, the author of Hebrews points us to Jesus, the Son of God, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.” In him, we find the one human being who is able to sympathize with our weakness of falling for the empty promises of something better. Jesus underwent every deception, every ploy that the clever swindler could ply, yet without falling for the con. Therefore, we can readily confess that we have been duped and God will not laugh. We are able to come to God in confidence that we will receive mercy. God knows our name. He knows our story. He also knows the name and the story of His son Jesus, who lived, died and rose again. Therefore, when we come to God with our embarrassing tales that once more this day, this hour, and this minute we have been conned into sin again, we will receive mercy and find grace to help in every need.

As we journey in our Lenten self-examination may God lead us to own up to our weaknesses. May God also lead us to rely upon the spiritual means that God gives us to open ourselves to him and receive the gifts he has for us in Jesus Christ. Come to Lent to once more. Hear how God in Jesus forgives our weaknesses in regard to sin and strengthens our life to live and serve him through his word and through his body and blood.

 

Yahweh Saves

 

The following sermon was preached at Immanuel, Marshfield, Wisconsin on the First Sunday in Lent, 1987.  The sermon is based on Genesis 2 & 3 and Matthew 4, but also brings in Romans 5.

Romans 5:12, “Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all men sinned.”

Yahweh Elohim is a creative being.  Yahweh had already made a host of invisible creatures like himself.  They served as messengers to the far flung reaches of space.  With the council of invisible creatures gathered around, Yahweh Elohim decided to fill the emptiness with things visible.  Into the vastness, Yahweh placed billions and billions of groups of fireballs.  Each group was made up of billions and billions of individual lights. They provided some long term fireworks.  One or another would explode every thousand years of so.  Yahweh Elohim regarded time differently than we do.  To Yahweh a thousand years is like a day to us.  Even though the vastness was filled, it still took trillions of light years for light to travel from one place to another.  To fill in the void still more, Mr. Elohim placed several balls of dirt to circle many of the fireballs.  He made smaller dirtballs to orbit the larger balls, which in turn circled the balls of fire.  The balls of fire traveled in orbits themselves.  Into all this, Mr. Elohim put large chunks of orbiting ice which came around only once every 70 or 100 or ten thousand years.

It was all great fun watching the invisible creatures darting between the balls flying around in space.  Then another idea came into Yahweh’s vast mind.  He would put life into the matter which made up the balls of dirt.  The life form would be intelligent, movable, and creative, like himself.  But it would live on the balls of dirt.  So he picked out a medium sized dirtball in the midst of several others spinning around a not-too-large fireball.  It took the light of the fireball about 8 minutes to reach and warm the ball Yahweh now called earth.

Yahweh Elohim knelt beside a spring of water, took a lump of moist dirt and molded a sculpture rectangular in shape with two long appendages extending from the bottom and two shorter ones from on each side near the top.  God wanted the creature he was molding to be movable and able to move other objects.  Recalling that the new addition to creation should also be intelligent and creative he placed a small ball of dirt squarely at the top of the rectangle.  To make the creature even more movable he attached feet from the long appendages with toes at the end.  Longer digits extended from the upper shorter appendages.  He also poked holes into the ball of dirt

Then with loving care Yahweh Elohim knelt over his work of art and blew his own breath into the new creation.  Lids over two holes in the ball fluttered open.  His toes wiggled.  He lifted a side appendage and examined it.  He bent himself at the middle and touched his fingers to the tips of his toes.  Wide eyed with wonder he examined himself like a baby discovered itself for the first time.

Yahweh Elohim called his creature Loved, for he was lovingly made.  Loved became a living being like Yahweh, yet different.

While Loved explored his surrounding, the hills, water, the night lights and the slowly creeping shadows with the hills and the day light created, Yahweh Elohim went off at a distance and once more knelt in the soil.  This time Yahweh began to plant a garden.  He planted tall plants some 100 feet in height with green tops.  Under the canopy of green he placed smaller plants; some bursting with bright colors.  Some plants produced an array of edible objects.  Others produced food underground.  It was like a royal park, fit for a king.

The name of the royal garden park was Delight for everything in it was a delight to the eye or good for food and sometimes both.  Yahweh placed Loved in the garden park named Delight. Loved was.  He thought his creator was a delight himself.  He trusted Yahweh like a small child trusts a loving parent.  Loved enjoyed caring for the park.  He lacked for nothing of what he could want.

Yahweh gave one command:  You are free to eat of anything in the garden with the exception of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  The fruit of that tree is deadly poison.  That was no problem for Loved.  He trusted Yahweh to know best.

Beyond being creative Yahweh was also sensitive.  He saw that Loved was lonely.  Out of the dirt He molded all manner of creatures which Loved had great fun naming.  Still, Loved was lonely.  Next, Yahweh put Loved into a deep sleep.  He took a rib, and fashioned a person like Loved, only different.  Loved like Yahweh’s newest creation.  They enjoyed each other’s company Loved named the newest creation, Lovely, for that she was.  Loved and Lovely were filled with trust and openness with one another and with Yahweh.

 Nacash was one of creatures Yahweh had made for Loved to name.  Nacash liked to sneak about and surprise the other creatures when they least expected it.  Nacash was a great tease.  Furthermore, everyone recognized that Nacash was smarter than any other wild creature.           

 One day Nacash said to Lovely: “Is my understanding correct?  Did Elohim really say that you couldn’t eat of any of the trees in the park?”  Lovely replied, “We can eat of any of the trees we want, with one exception.  The tree in the midst of the garden Elohim forbids eating its fruit or touching it, lest we die, whatever it means to die.”  The sneaky one said, “You won’t die. Elohim is deliberately holding something back from you.  Perhaps he knows that if you do eat this fruit you will be like Elohim, knowing good and evil.  He doesn’t want you to have that advantage.”

Nacash crept off to see how the seed he had planted in her mind would grow.  As the idea germinated in Lovely’s head the fruit began to look so appetizing.  The fruit shined liked the most delightful thing she had ever seen in the Delight garden.  She thought, “Maybe the wise thing to do is just see whether Elohim can really be trusted.  What if he really is holding out?  Lovely picked a piece of the fruit and ate.   And when her husband came along trimming the hedges she gave some to him and he also ate.

Indeed, just as Nacash promised, their eyes were opened.  But something was terribly wrong.  Something was out of kilter.  They looked at each other and were filled shame.  Loved and Lovely no longer regarded each other with openness and trust   Now they now they knew mistrust. They held back from each other.  They sensed a need to rip some leaves off a fig tree and cover themselves from each other, but they didn’t know why.  Yahweh Elohim changed their names.  No longer were they Loved and Lovely, now they were known as Self Love and Love of Self.  They had experienced good and evil.  And they could feel themselves returning to dirt, They were dying.

When children were born they had the image of Self Love and Love of Self.  Though some descendants denied it, others recognized the sludge in their veins slowing down all of life until all died.  Many regretted the lack of trust.  They were not happy with thinking of themselves first.  Nevertheless, all were helpless to change their behavior.  They attempted numerous means to clean out the dirt, but in the end all died and returned to the dust from which they came.

Romans 5:19, “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Ages passed.  All creatures continued to die.  Yahweh turned many toward himself to look with inner sight at him.  many through his power overcame their mistrust of him and believed that he knew bet.  Those who trusted him had a sense of life within and about them.

In the course of the ages Yahweh Elohim sent one of his messengers to the medium size ball of dirt rotating 8 minutes from it warming and light giving fireball.  Yahweh permitted the messenger to take on an appearance of one of those known as Self Love.  The messenger’s name was Yahweh Shows Strength   He appeared to a young descendant of the long dead Loved and Lovely.  She believed that Yahweh would one day remove their present names of Self Love and Love of Self.  Yahweh Shows strength announced that would give birth to a son.  And surprise of surprises, Yahweh Elohim was going to be the Father.  The name of the boy would be Yahweh Saves

Yahweh Saves was born to the great jubilation of all the invisible of the invisible creatures.  They came zipping in from all over the universe gathering around the place of birth to sing praises to the Father.  For this child was the first since the very beginning of ages to be able to carry clearly and cleanly the named Loved, once again.

Yahweh Saves grew to adulthood.  One day he walked down to on the rivers which watered the earth.  There he was washed by another of Mr. Elohim’s creatures whom he had to himself.  His name was John the Washer man.  John the Washer was one of those who believed and had a strong portion of his ancestor Loved in him.

Upon coming out of the water Yahweh Saves was led by the Spirit was barren and dry   Nothing grew there that would produce fruit to eat.  No rivers ran there.  Nothing was a delight to the eye; except the one named Yahweh Saves.  The place was quite the opposite of Delight Park.  After forty days of living only on his trust that Yahweh Elohim was the best that there is, Tempter appeared on the scene.

Tempter raised a question, “Am I to understand that you are Son of Elohim and that Elohim has brought you out into this barren place and left you with nothing to eat? If you are really the Son of Yahweh Elohim, then why not make some out of these rocks.  What kind of father holds out on his own son?”  Yahweh saves answered: “My ancestors, Loved and Lovely fell for that one.  Don’t you know that true life comes from trusting Yahweh Elohim?”

Tempter led him to a porch around the around the place where Yahweh Elohim was worshipped, “if you are Elohim’s child Elohim couldn’t very well let any harm come to you since you are the chosen hope of Loved and Lovely.  Prove your trust in him.  Jump down and make him prove that he can be trusted.”  Yahweh Saves refused the bait, quoting from the ancient word.     

 Tempter doesn’t give up easily. He took Yahweh Saves to a mountain peak and offered him all the power in the world, if he would only fall down and acknowledge him as Yahweh Who Rules.  Yahweh Saves was getting a bit tired of Tempter posing as one who could and would give anything away, as if he had anything to give.  “Get out of here.  The only one who is to be acknowledged as ruler is Yahweh Elohim and he is the only one to serve.”

For the first time since Loved and Lovely had fallen for the Tempter’s scam one of the new creations had survived the Tempter’s attack.  Yahweh saves had trusted his Father entirely.

In the end Yahweh Elohim’s son lived up to his name.  He saved the creatures on the dirtball only 8 minutes from its fireball.  He removed their names Self Love and Love of Self.  He restored them to be Loved and Lovely once again.  He washed the sludge and death out of their veins restored them to life again.  He sent the Spirit of Yahweh Elohim into each person restored to be Loved and Lovely to keep them in trust in himself.  Yahweh Saves promised that Delight Park or something even better would be given where life would be lived with no dying.  Finally he promised to be with his new creation, Loved and Lovely, to help them overcome the assaults of Tempter for Yahweh Elohim knows that talking through Nacash the snake was only beginning of his sneaky ways.

PS.  After church on that Sunday in 1987 Rose Rchynovsky said as she shook my hand, “That was great.  I don’t think I understood it, but it was great.”   

  

 

 

A Lamp Shining in a Dark Place

Transfiguration, 2011, Immanuel Lutheran Chapel, 2 Peter 1:16-21

            V. 19, We have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

            Today concludes the season of Epiphany the season of light.  In Christ, “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”  Now, we living in Christ’s salvation are a light to all nations.  As we share the good news of Jesus with the world we answer the call to share our bread with the hungry and cover those without clothing; we will be a light that lights the whole house, leading many to give glory to the Father in heaven. In such ways we are providing God’s house as a home, a home enlightened by Christ, here at Immanuel Chapel.

            Today is Transfiguration Sunday.  The gospel of Matthew reports, “And his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.”  Faced with such an intense light the three disciples hid their eyes from the sight.  Here Jesus was revealed in His heavenly glory as the true Messiah.  The disciples were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

            In our text Peter reminds us of God’s approving words, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him.”  Peter and the other two heard these words with their own ears.  Moses was there who at another mountain had taken blood and thrown it on the people saying, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord had made with you.”  This blood of the covenant would be fulfilled on Mt. Calvary where Jesus died on the cross.  This blood of the covenant comes to us in Holy Communion, as we receive Jesus blood shed for us, in the wine and his body given for us, in the bread.

            Moved by the Holy Spirit the apostles spoke and wrote their witness.  Our faith today considers this process and names it inspiration.  We cannot explain it, we believe it.  Every scriptural Word is word of God from God about God.  His word causes His day to dawn in our hearts and His morning star to rise, shining into a dark place.  His Word is a light for us in the darkness of this world.  His word is the “lamp for our feet and the light for our path.”

Our touchstone is always the forgiving power of the cross and open tomb of Jesus Christ.  If any interpretation of Scripture obscures or darkens this central message of Scripture, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,” then that interpretation is set aside.

            On the other hand, just honoring a book as given by God would not be in order either.  We do not admire and worship the product, but God the Producer.

We do not honor the creation but the Creator.  The danger would be akin to setting up the pages of scripture as a golden calf rather than praising God for giving His Word in words that fit human situations, problems, and opportunities within the history of humankind.  The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ was to this world.  God transformed himself in the person of Jesus in this world.  He was born in poverty, raised in obscurity, and died a condemned criminal in this world.  The power of God was veiled in the coming of Jesus.  The barn of Bethlehem led to the cross of Calvary.

            God’s plan was to make the word of his forgiving love more sure in the suffering and death of His beloved Son.  God was well pleased with Jesus, for he patiently and purposefully set His face toward Jerusalem.  He came into this world that we might be his own, know Him as the Light of the world, listen to Him as sheep listen to the voice of their shepherd, and follow Him as true disciples of the Master.

            God chose not to show himself to us in all His naked power, nor to deal with our sins accordingly.  As the psalmist says, “If you lord should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?  But there is forgiveness with You.” God chose to make himself known in Christ not as the God of power, but as the God of forgiving love.

The veil covering Christ’s majesty and power was torn aside in the Transfiguration.  God allowed Jesus to be seen in a heavenly way in the brilliance that is rightfully His.  Where does that leave us on this transfiguration Day?  Merely standing in wonder and awe at another miracle?  We are not just waiting for our turn on the mountain or for the time when we will get to heaven or for the moment when we will see Jesus and hear the voice of the Father.  The same Spirit who gave the words to the disciples, the same Spirit who inspired them to spend their lives in the service of the early church, the same Spirit who moved them to change the world in which they lived is the Spirit who now gives us this same word of God to apply to our humans woes and troubles.  The Word that shines in our hearts is to shine through our lives into the world and light it up.

We have ample models and examples for applying God’s word to our human situations and this age.  Consider Moses facing Pharaoh and demanding release for enslaved Israel.  Think of Amos, thundering against unscrupulous business practices, faithless employees.  Demanding restitution for those who had been exploited.  Prophet after prophet ranted against greedy men who thought of their own fortunes and bank accounts rather than the needs of their neighbors.  Consider Jeremiah who warned governments against trust in political alliances or standing armies or arsenals of weapons as means to security.  Jesus himself cleaned up the temple area of the robbers, short-change artists and herders who thought money raising was more important than worship and prayer.  Paul faced a mob after ruining a fortune tellers business.  Peter warned about extreme clothing fashions.  James warned about kowtowing to the rich, for true religion shows in caring for the orphans and widows in their needs.

  In the Creed we confess, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.”  That should lead us to be in the forefront of cleaning up the environment.  Clean air, antilitter, pure water-these are issues that are of interest to us for the sake of our heavenly Father who created this world that mankind is  wrecking.  Care for the homeless, the aged, the emotionally disturbed, in fact wherever people are feeling discarded and uncared for, there we Christians are called to show God’s love in our commitment to the sustaining power of the Spirit of God.  It’s God’s Spirit, who brought us to faith, keeps us in the faith and impels us to go into the world with God’s love.  Above all, our commitment to the transfigured Lord means learning to better speak for him to this world of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter where in the name of freedom, the best and the worst of human imagination is available to all.

Can we come down from the mountain to speak God’s prophetic word?  Can we speak as the people in whom His Light shines?  Can we be the lights of the world since He is the Light of the world?

  Let God’s Son shine in your heart through faith. Let His word shine forth in your lives.  Let your lives shine with His light into this age of darkness.