Sermon for 12/8/2013 The Second Sunday of Advent: You Better Watch Out!

Sermon for 12/8/2013 from Pr. Mark T. Peterson at Christ the King Lutheran Church, Holliston, MA.

Gospel: Matthew 3:1–12

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming,  ²"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."  ³This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

            "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

            'Prepare the way of the Lord,

            make his paths straight.'"

  ⁴Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.  ⁵Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan,  ⁶and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

             ⁷But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  ⁸Bear fruit worthy of repentance.  ⁹Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.  ¹⁰Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

             ¹¹I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  ¹²His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

           

Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ,

As we celebrate the season of Advent, and wait for Christ’s coming, we’re confronted with readings like today’s from Matthew’s Gospel, and this prophet, John the Baptist, who in talking about repentance, seems to be giving us the following message:

“You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why, Jesus is coming to town.”

Jesus is coming…so you better be good for goodness sake.

When understood like this, this cry for repentance can seem an awful lot like the threatening warning used to invoke better behavior and more cooperation from children each December. But, instead of getting coal in your stocking, one gets thrown into a fire instead.

And, taking this to the next step, the message of a certain Saint that is celebrated this time of year is generally one of grace. In my experience, no matter how one’s behavior has been, whether they’ve been bad or good, they usually get a present. The fact is, I only know one person that has actually gotten a lump of coal in their stocking. In the realm of our faith, life generally revolves around the threat of getting thrown into a fire, except as it turns out, Jesus, like the guy in the red suit, is a pretty good guy, so most people get “saved” in the end. Yet, as a result, the repentance we are called to today, becomes about feeling really sorry for the bad stuff you did, and also a pretty good confidence that in the end, you’re going to get just what you always wanted.

Things get dicey with this whole comparison when we start singing I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus….

But repentance, as it turns out, is not really a call or warning for us to be good, for goodness sake, so that in the end, we can get a present for this behavior. Instead, repentance is a calling for us simply to experience the gift we have been given every moment of our existence, the gift of God’s grace, the gift of God’s life right here and now, a gift which doesn’t even make us wait until Christmas to receive it.

So, something else comes to mind, when I think about John the Baptist’s call to repentance. My mind takes me back to the summers spent delivering pizzas to the hungry people of Rochester, MN, when I was home from school. One summer, as I was making the rounds in our family’s Chevy Celebrity, or Black Beauty as we affectionately called it, the oil light kept coming on, especially when I’d make left turns. Now, I wasn’t a complete car nincompoop, well, maybe I was, but I reasoned the light must have been an electrical malfunction, because I had changed the oil myself, only weeks before. But I also didn’t take into account, that the car had 270,000 miles on it, and perhaps a few leaks…which I’m sure delivered some unwanted oil spots, in addition to the pizzas.

Justify myself as I may, the reality is that I was just too lazy or preoccupied, to check the oil levels and throw another quart or two in, (because that’s what you do when driving a car with that many miles.) That oil light, was telling me to repent, to stop, take some time and put some life into that car.

As you can probably guess, I didn’t repent, until late one night, or early one morning, about 2:00, after a closing shift, the car repented for me, and just stopped, it was dead. And, so instead of oil, I became the thing that gave life to that car, and pushed it the last mile home. The next morning, our local repair guy came with a tow truck, gave the engine a few tugs, and declared, it’s seized up alright. Though, in the end, I think I got to keep the 35 dollars the junk yard gave us for black beauty, which literally covered a 20 percent down payment on the next car I bought. 

Today, like that oil light, John the Baptist is calling us to repent. A call that comes to us in the season of Advent and pleads with us to prepare ourselves, to open ourselves for the life that Jesus is bringing. We as human beings, and as a greater creation are many different parts that are meant to work together. The love of God is the oil, given to all of us, so that instead of seizing against each other, we may work in harmony, and be filled with life.

But there seems to be a great deal of terror and warning remaining, and if we are fearful of the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and the purifying fire he brings, we remember a life that shows us the nature of this purification.

As you most likely know, Nelson Mandela died this week, but the witness he has given to the grace of our living God is eternal. In his life, Nelson Mandela joined with many others, and actively called his country, South Africa, to repent from the devilish system of Apartheid, or apartness that it practiced. For this, he was imprisoned, for 27 years, in harsh, harsh conditions. Yet his call to repent lived on, as his captivity became a focal point which rallied the world to the cause of the captivity which held black South Africans in suffering, and caged their oppressors in hateful isolation. And finally, there was repentance, as Nelson Mandela was freed, and the system of apartheid ended. Mandela, was even elected President of South Africa, a position of real power, a position he could use to punish those who had punished him, and countless others.

But now not only free, but also powerful, Nelson Mandela took a proverbial axe, not to the people, but to the hatred and violence of the old South Africa. He burned that old, dead, system down with words of forgiveness, acts of reconciliation, and compassionate love for all people. Now, a little over twenty years later, this purification of South Africa, and our entire world is not complete, but it is bearing fruit, as more and more children everyday are learning ways of love and togetherness, not apartness.

In just a few moments, we will not only hear this call to repent, but actively participate in it. We will be called to stand, and share Peace with each other, as Christians have been doing for thousands of years. We will repent and be brought together in one commonality, the unending love that God has for each and every one of us. And through our repentance, we will be prepared by the Holy Spirit, to receive the life giving body and blood of Jesus Christ which feeds us, or perhaps lubricate us, with the gift of his life once again. For a Savior such as this we hopefully wait. Come Lord Jesus!

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Amen

Sermon for 12/1/2013:Cutting the nets down.

Sermon for 12/1/2013 from Pr. Mark T. Peterson at Christ the King Lutheran Church, Holliston, MA.

First Reading: Isaiah 2:1–5

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

             ²In days to come

            the mountain of the LORD's house

            shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

            and shall be raised above the hills;

            all the nations shall stream to it.

  ³Many peoples shall come and say,

            "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,

            to the house of the God of Jacob;

            that he may teach us his ways

            and that we may walk in his paths."

            For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

            and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

  ⁴He shall judge between the nations,

            and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

            they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

            and their spears into pruning hooks;

            nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

            neither shall they learn war any more.

  ⁵O house of Jacob,

            come, let us walk

            in the light of the LORD!\

Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ,

In the early 80’s, the North Carolina State men’s basketball team got a new coach, the young, brash, Jim Valvano. When Coach V got to the team, he had them do a funny thing at the start of the very first practice.

Instead of shooting free throws or doing defensive drills, the players practiced cutting down the nets on the basketball hoops. This seems like a strange way to begin a basketball season, but Coach V wanted his players to know what to do, when they would win the NCAA national basketball tournament and take part in the post-game ceremony of cutting down the nets so that they could bring them home as trophies. Now, Coach V wasn’t going through this exercise just for fun, or to try and be smug. Coach did this, to help instill in his players and coaches the vision he had of where their journey together would naturally lead.

In our reading from Isaiah today, we are also given a vision of the future, a good and glorious future. This is the vision of the days to come, and it is a vision of peace, a time when nation will not rise up against nation, but instead, all nations will live in harmony, according to the will of God.

This, being the First Sunday of Advent, the first Sunday of our Church year, we remember that we are waiting for this vision to come to fruition. And, as we get older, we may be wondering what’s taking God so long to accomplish it. Even a quick glance at the world around us tells us pretty quickly that we aren’t exactly living in this time of peace. When we read of this vision today, we may not even be that concerned with the macro level of nation rising up against nation, instead, it may be that we just have to think about all the things disturbing the peace in our own, individual lives that seem to make these visionary, “days to come” very unrealistic.

So, as we start this Church year, even as we try to wait with hope and joy, we can, at the same time feel hopeless, depressed, or even apathetic. For example, thinking about the days to come, as one struggles with serious illness may not lead us to happy visions of those days. Or as someone ages, and things get taken from them, visions of the future starts turning from dreams of what you’d one day hope to do, to realizing how much you no longer can do. Perhaps, with these grandiose, prophetic visions or in the midst of our own unmet expectations, there’s just generalized disbelief, or loss of faith, in this God who proclaims such peaceful visions, but hasn’t really delivered on it so far.

So in the midst of this tensions, of seeing this vision and also feeling so far away from it, we go back to North Carolina State for a moment, when Coach V had his players cut down the nets at that first practice, the exercise didn’t count on every player’s belief, nor did it magically cause every player to believe that someday they would be national champions. What the exercise did do, was unite the team in a vision of what they would be working to become. And, for the team, this vision became a reality in 1983, as the Wolfpack became one of the most unlikely champions in all of sports history, and cut down the nets for real.

This championship was so unlikely, that some even called it miraculous, but it didn’t just happen by chance. It took years of hard work, it took staying focused on the vision when things went wrong, and it took a coach who showed the players what he thought of them through this visionary exercise, , that they were champions, and why they were brought to play basketball at North Carolina State in the first place.

Through no work of our own, in the waters of baptism, we have been made in essence, God’s players, God’s team. God has chosen us to make Isaiah’s vision of peace, that we hear this morning, a reality, God has chosen us to start the work that it foretells, the peacemaking process, the work of making swords into plowshares, the work of teaching forgiveness instead of vengeance, the work of becoming a community that exists and is sustained only for the sake of love, the work of sharing the God who has given us this love so that all people may live into this vision.

And, even though we’ve been made a part of God’s proverbial team, there are many things that make this vision from Isaiah seem completely absurd, and the God who gives them to us simply a wish or a dream. The Good News in all of this, is that this vision is God’s vision, and it doesn’t depend upon our feelings or belief to make it happen, it is God’s work. The Good News, is that we are given a real, living taste of this vision, when God comes to us in Holy Communion, and not only declares peace with each of us as individuals, but brings us together in the peaceful unity of this meal we share. The Good News, is that in this meal of Holy Communion, the peace of this vision from Isaiah, the peace we are waiting for, God’s peace, which transforms our violence into love, and our individuality into community, is given to us.

On this, the first Sunday of Advent, we start out this year with a vision of peace, a vision of life with God. This is a vision that is given to us, and made real in us not by how we feel, or our belief, but by the work of Christ transforming us. We come to our meal of Communion this morning to be fed with this vision, and we pray that just as Jesus has come to us, this same Jesus Christ will continue to come and grow through us to become a vision for all the world.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Amen

Sermon for 11/24/2013: Sympathy for the Devil...

Sermon for 11/24/2013 from Pr. Mark T. Peterson at Christ the King Lutheran Church, Holliston, MA.

Gospel: Luke 23:33–43

³³When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [[  ³⁴Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."]] And they cast lots to divide his clothing.  ³⁵And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!"  ³⁶The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine,  ³⁷and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!"  ³⁸There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."

             ³⁹One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!"  ⁴⁰But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  ⁴¹And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong."  ⁴²Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."  ⁴³He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ,

Today, is Christ the King Sunday, not only the last Sunday in our Church year, but also our namesake Sunday, …and so naturally, it’s as good as time as any to talk about Bob Dylan.

Actually, I want to talk about a Bob Dylan song, called “Gotta Serve Somebody.” The song describes many various people, or identities one could be, but regardless of any of these identities, like an ambassador, doctor, or even someone named Zimmy, Mr. Dylan goes on to sing, “It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” 

For us, gathered on this Sunday, in this place, we certainly know who we serve, the Lord,  the King, Jesus Christ. This seems really easy and obvious, not just for us at CtK, but really, for anyone, in the large scale perspective of things, we as humans would tend to choose the Lord, over the devil. For example, when one goes down an aisle of holiday decorations at a store, it’s not like there’s one side devoted to a guy with horns on his head and the other one to Jesus. Intrinsically, Jesus seems to have won the battle with the devil over who is King, even in pop culture.

But while I enjoy Mr. Dylan’s song, and hold its premise to be true, there’s another song out there that does a masterful job in fleshing this concept out, and showing just how much the world does indeed serve somebody, which contrary to our conventional wisdom, is really not Christ the King.

This song that comes to mind, which tells us about who we really do serve, starts with the line “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste…” and is the Rolling Stones song, “Sympathy for the Devil”. Now, if you’re not familiar with this song, after the devil introduces himself as a man of wealth and taste, he then goes on throughout the song to tell how he was around some of the most notorious events in human history, like the one we hear about in today’s Gospel reading from Luke; the moment when Jesus was going through his suffering, and death on a cross. In the song, as the devil takes us through the times in history, where he made sure to be present, and drive the action, the last moments in history referenced are, like our Gospel reading, fitting for this week, as the devil sings about the tragic death of the Kennedys. But in doing so, the devil, as portrayed by Mick Jagger, also reveals who his partners in crime are when he sings, “I shouted out, who killed the Kennedys, when after all, it was you and me.”

Us and him, us and the devil, the idea that together we are responsible for the tragic deaths of the Kennedys, or played a part in so many other horrible events in the world seems a bit far-fetched, especially if we weren’t even born then. Yet, we are participants in this world, whether we like it or not, where death and tragedy are an everyday occurrence, and the devil uses us and the systems we create to further his rule. As we marked with honor and grief the killing of a president 50 years ago this week, we continued to participate in a world where we are more concerned about how cheap we can get a new shirt, then for the hands who made that shirt. We as human beings, continue to participate in a world where the question that is asked during election cycles focuses on national security, not world peace. And perhaps the new Pope, Pope Francis, described the state of the devil’s rule in our world, when he said, “If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy and people say 'what are we going to do?' but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that's nothing”. No matter who we are, trust me, even pastors, we serve somebody, and unfortunately, because of the devil’s trickery, because of sins grip on us through every moment of our lives, we do indeed serve this King, this King of wealth, and taste, this king of death and suffering. 

But there’s hope, because if we only had those sinful eyes to view the world with, the only somewhat positive way that we could perceive Jesus’ crucifixion would be to have sympathy for this innocent life taken. But as we hear this Gospel, we hear that Jesus doesn’t see with those eyes, we hear that he isn’t so blind to the devil’s tricks. When the criminal on the cross, mocking though he may be, confronts Jesus with one final temptation, that seems obvious to all of us, Jesus doesn’t bite. When the criminal says, if you’re the Messiah, a word for King, prove it by saving yourself, and this person, Jesus Christ, who had stilled a storm and walked on water certainly could have. But Jesus, through his eyes of faith in the goodness of God knew that it wasn’t those miracles, or his preaching ability, or the followers he had once gained that were what made the true King, it was love. And, through the faith of Jesus in the power of God’s love, this cross that Jesus was dying on, was also where he was being enthroned for all of creation, and all of us, as the King.

The devil, the would-be king, and all his empty promises, tried to get Jesus with the empty promise that gets all of us humans. The promise that through our survival, through what ultimately is our own selfishness, salvation can come to the world. But Jesus, isn’t just our King, he is the King of both heaven and earth, the king of eternity, who came not to be served, but to serve, and give his life over to us, so that we may know, taste, and see, what real life is. Indeed, this is the King whose Kingdom doesn’t just try to help those who suffer from poverty, and die of hunger, but raises them up as more valuable than anything you could put a price tag on. This is the King who is not identified by royal rings, but by nail-pierced wounds, the king who isn’t adorned with a crown of gold, but a crown of thorns.

This king, Jesus Christ, doesn’t need our sympathy, in fact, he doesn’t need anything from this world, and came only to give us life, even as it meant his death. But even death could not conatin this King as still he lives, still today, this King makes our world his Kingdom, still, today, this King comes to us giving us his own body and blood and establishing his eternal Kingdom even as we serve someone else.

And still this King establishes that Kingdom, through his merciful grace, right here, among us, and in, with, and through each of us. Today, as we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, and as we bear that name, may we remember that this isn’t just a name to put on a sign, but to mark our existence. Indeed, may we remember that we have been made this King’s body, the church, following and serving Jesus, sharing his life with all the world, not through our wealth and taste, or even our well-learned politesse, but through our brokenness, our vulnerability, and our compassionate love, we share our King, who has marked us and all of creation with his Kingdom’s sign, the sign of the cross, forever. Hail, to the King.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Amen

Sermon for 11/17/2013: Bridge Builders and Bridge Building Factories

Sermon for 11/17/2013 from Pr. Mark T. Peterson at Christ the King Lutheran Church, Holliston, MA.

Gospel: Luke 21:5–19

⁵When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said,  ⁶"As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."

             ⁷They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?"  ⁸And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is near!' Do not go after them.

             ⁹"When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately."  ¹⁰Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;  ¹¹there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

             ¹²"But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.  ¹³This will give you an opportunity to testify.  ¹⁴So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance;  ¹⁵for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.  ¹⁶You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.  ¹⁷You will be hated by all because of my name.  ¹⁸But not a hair of your head will perish.  ¹⁹By your endurance you will gain your souls."

Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ,

Last week, Tom Cleverdon, gave a wonderful temple talk about stewardship and giving. In his talk, he spoke of being on the building committee that led the construction of this beautiful sanctuary. As he spoke, I could hear the enthusiasm and passion that had been stirred-up in him by his involvement at Christ the King, and the joy he felt in having a hand in bringing to fruition, this house of worship. In his talk, Tom described the work that he did, the stewardship of the gifts that he had been given, as being those of a bridge builder, who builds bridges not for himself, but for those coming behind him. A great analogy.

Yet, Tom’s talk, on giving, about being on the building committee, about being a bridge builder, was not a brick and mortar speech. I didn’t hear an emphasis on creating the greatest sanctuary in the world and having people come from miles and miles just to see it. I didn’t hear about the architectural details or what kind of wood was used for the altar and pews. Really, the only thing I heard about what went into this building project, was the cross which hangs above us. I heard Tom talk about looking at this cross that hang, not in star struck wonder over how shiny it is, but in remembrance and thanksgiving, of the people who hung it, and the others who shared in the building committee work with him.  

The truth is, one day, these walls, the roof, (obviously), and the other things that so many people had a hand in getting put-up, will be brought down. Even if it is centuries from now, the most persistent of all forces, the hands of time, will do so. Yet the work of Tom, so many of you, and of so many others will not be in vain, because no one was building a monument that would forever display God’s permanence. In fact, you weren’t even building a bridge, you were simply building a shelter where the work of bridge building could take place. And this is a good shelter, a wonderful shelter for that work to be done.

But this building, is not a bridge. The bridges that Tom talked about were the bridges that connected him to the people he remembers today and the ones that he encouraged us to build are the connections and relationships that we forge with other people here, in this bridge building factory. These bridges we are called to build aren’t made of stones that can be cracked or wood that can rot, these bridges are made of the eternal materials of love, compassion, kindness, justice, and peace. These bridges that we are called to build aren’t suspension or arch shaped, these bridges come in one shape, the shape of the Cross, the place where God’s eternal love mercifully connects us together again.

This building, while not a bridge, is a temporary tool, a temporary gift that God has given us, not as an edifice to be worshiped, but to use in order to grasp, share, and grow in the things that are eternal. Yet, being a tool is not a bad thing, because a good steward takes care of her tools. She makes sure they are well respected, and maintained, not wasted or thrown away. So, part of our call to be stewards, is to help take care of this tool, this shelter where bridges are built. And we know, of course, that this takes money.

Yet, as we think about this building as merely a shelter, as a tool, for the work of bridge building, we also are able to think of our money in the same manner. Our money, like this building, is simply a tool, and not an idol to be worshipped, a bulwark to be trusted, or a master to serve. It is a tool to be used for the purposes of sharing with each other, and reaching out to all people, with the bridge that is our eternal God, Jesus Christ.

Often times, all the time, because of sin, we fall victim to the allure of money, and the things it can seemingly do, just like we in religious circles suffer from an edifice complex and relate the idea of being the Church as being all about the building one gathers in. This sin causes us to worry, grasp, and strive for the things that are temporary, and it causes us to waste our years building walls instead of bridges. Indeed, this sin caused us to build a cross, when God came to this earth to build bridges with all of us in the love and mercy of Jesus Christ.

But like the stones of the ancient temple, even our terrible wall of death wasn’t permanent, indeed it has been destroyed through the life-giving, resurrecting power of God in Jesus Christ. This God, Jesus Christ, the ultimate Steward, the master bridge-builder, continues to this day to knock down sin’s deadly walls and come to us again and again with the gracious, priceless, and eternal gift of his life, given and shed for us. It is this life that lovingly transforms us into stewards, into life-giving bridge-builders, into bearers of eternal love that is abundant and priceless all at the same time.

This morning, as we discern our financial commitments for 2014, may Christ continue to make us loving builders of cross bridges, and Stewards of the Life poured out for us on that cross.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Amen

Stewardship by Harrison Ford

The Prayer of the Day at many ELCA congregations on Sunday is below:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without you nothing is strong, nothing is holy. Embrace us with your mercy, that with you as our ruler and guide, we may live through what is temporary, without losing what is eternal, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen. (From sundaysandseasons.com)

In addition to saying this prayer at Christ the King, we will also celebrate Consecration Sunday, a time where we will consecrate, make sacred, our financial commitments for 2014. Over the last weeks, we've learned and talked about the concept of Stewardship a great deal, and we hope that this will lead us all to be more abundant givers in the coming year. During this discussion, we've emphasized that Stewardship, is something different than fundraising, but really articulating why Stewardship goes beyond just supporting your local congregation, or synod, or denomination, can be tough.

But, thankfully, someone smarter than me is always out there, to write something that articulates it so well: "Embrace us with your mercy, that with you as our ruler and guide, we may live through what is temporary, without losing what is eternal." Our call to be Stewards isn't simply a call to some sort of duty that keeps the church going. It is a call that helps us to stop struggling for the temporary things, money, possessions, etc. so that we may more fully grasp the abundant life which we are already given.

To better describe what I'm talking about, Stewardship is the gift which helps us to not be, Dr. Elsa Schroeder, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in the clip below. Instead of reaching for the cup of worldly glory, Stewardship gently calls us away, to grasp more firmly the hand not of Indiana Jones, but of Christ, which is holding us in this life already.

Thank Goodness, that Christ's grasp is even better than Harrison Ford's and will never let us go. And may this Savior continue to call us as Stewards, away from the things that are temporary, to that which gives us life. 

Sermon for 11/10/2013: Let Me Tell You About the God I Know.

Sermon for 11/10/2013 from Pr. Mark T. Peterson at Christ the king Lutheran Church, Holliston, MA. I'm thankful for the teachings of Dr. Mary Havens at LTSS, who taught and challenged us to CONFESS not a theory or idea, but the God who has been made known to us. 

Gospel: Luke 20:27–38

 ²⁷Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him  ²⁸and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.  ²⁹Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless;  ³⁰then the second  ³¹and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.  ³²Finally the woman also died.  ³³In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."

             ³⁴Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage;  ³⁵but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.  ³⁶Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.  ³⁷And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  ³⁸Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."

Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ

I would like to ask you to try and do something right now, something I did with some Confirmation students recently.

Try to imagine, or think about, nothing. As you do this, I don’t mean try to clear your mind. I mean try to think of what “nothing” is. Can you imagine what “nothing” is?

I can imagine emptiness, I can imagine a void, but I can’t imagine, I can’t think about, I can’t possibly wrap my head around what nothing is; because in my life, I’ve always been surrounded by something. Many things for that matter.

Now, let me tell you about the God I know. This God, is eternal, meaning before there was nothing, which I can’t imagine, there was God. And, furthermore, this God created something, from nothing, namely, you and I. So, this God I know, is well beyond anything we can imagine. Not as a matter of hyperbole, but as a matter of fact.

You see, we, as human beings live in a world of starts and stops, and beginnings and endings, and though we can fantasize, editorialize, and theorize about what eternity is, we really can’t understand it; except maybe while listening to a sermon that seems like it will never end.

Knowing then, that I have plenty of time, we hear this morning about this group of people called the Sadducees, who were a sect within the Jewish people at the time, we hear them asking Jesus to theorize on what happens in the resurrection, the time when the dead are raised to new life. And, it’s a pretty good question, a question that could undermine Jesus’ authority and teaching.

And, it’s a question that I hear still today. Maybe not which brother is going to get this poor widow, but more along the lines of people wondering, or proclaiming “What is heaven like?” What I mean, is that when we humans think about life after death, we think of the people we’ll see and envision ourselves going to this great, eternal fantasy land in the sky, and we begin asking questions. Questions like, How old will I be? How old will others be, will my parents be older or younger than me? And, as we think about it, maybe we get a little worried about running into our ex, or someone else from our past. And then there’s the ultimate question, while I’m golfing at this awesome, heavenly golf course, will I ever hit a bad shot, and if I don’t will it still be fun?

Now, as a Pastor, maybe I’m supposed to have some answers for this stuff, but I don’t; at least none that don’t lead to us taking God’s word and parlaying it into museums that have statues showing the times when people were riding on dinosaurs. The truth is, I don’t have a clue about what happens when we’re dead, just as I have no idea what I was doing before I was born.

Since I’m not much help in these manners, maybe we can see what Jesus says to the Sadducees, how he sorts this whole mess of what happens in the resurrection out. He starts out by describing something really different, but, apart from these generalization, Jesus doesn’t really get into it life in the time of resurrection.

Rather than get into useless speculation, Jesus says to the Sadducees, “let me tell you about the God I know.” He points out that this is the God, who everyone knows can speak from a bush, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he says that this God he knows is a God of the living. And though they disagreed about the resurrection, the Sadducees knew this God who Jesus was talking about, for it was their God as well.

So, let me tell you some more about the God I know. This God who created us out of nothing, sent Jesus into this world not to give us all the answers, but to show us how to trust in that which we cannot understand. This God I know, sent Jesus into this world not to make us safe and secure, but to empower us to be bold and courageous in our compassion, our generosity, and our love. This God I know sent Jesus into this world so that in the midst of a world bound to such things as time and space, we may taste, see, and share the life of our Risen Lord and Savior who not even death could contain. This God I know, this Jesus that I know, has given this life to us so that we may bear the promise of God’s love, of God’s eternity, for all people and all of creation, in all times and places even as we face the certainty of our own death. And in the aftermath of this horrible tragedy in the Philippines, this God I know takes away the sting of death, with the promise that we will never be abandoned, and in this promise gives us space to grieve and mourn over those who have died and the loss of so many lives, without speculation about what has happened to them in death.

This God I know, doesn’t give us the answers, only the promise of new life. And just as we can’t wrap our heads around how big our God is, and around things like eternity, or creation out of nothing, we also have great difficulty understanding God’s abundance. As we talk about Stewardship and money, our minds immediately jump to budgets and planning, and what we can do if we can just all give enough money…and God can do some great things out of us with what we give. But just as God gives us the eternal food of Christ’s body and blood, despite our incomprehension, so that we can share that life with all the world. God gives us the practice of Stewardship, not so we can have an end result, but so that we can know, learn, and share in the never ending abundance of God. God gives us this practice of stewardship, so that with our lives of generosity, we can witness to all of creation, telling tales of this God we know, who is generous beyond our imagination.

May this God continue to be revealed to us through Christ, so that we may share in the unending mercy, the graceful abundance, the eternal love, life, and hope, of the God we know, with all of creation.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Amen

Evangelism by Tom Hanks

The embedded clip is from the movie Philadelphia. I've actually never seen the movie, but I've seen this clip a lot. It keeps drawing me back to watch it again. And I keep thinking that Tom Hank's character, Andrew Beckett, is our model of evangelism. Watch and listen first:

With music playing, Andrew asks, "Do you mind this music? Do you like opera?" 

Joe responds:"I'm not that familiar with opera"

Andrew doesn't turn it off, or ask what he likes, nor do they just move on. Instead, Andrew becomes a tour guide, telling Joe what's going on in the song; preparing him for the key movements, and expressing the song through his very being. In the end, Joe is fully engaged with what's going on, and has been brought into a deeper relationship with Andrew, and the beauty of the aria, and it's truly worshipful and divine message.

When we talk about Evangelism, it's usually centered around conversions, getting people in the church door, or reaching out to young people. If we follow Andrew's lead, Evangelism isn't about any of these things. It's about sharing this beautiful gift that he has been given, with no strings attached. That gift is this song of love, which has become his song, and as he dies, it speaks more and more clearly to him. 

We have been given the gift of this life out of a creative love we cannot fathom, share that gift, so that the world may hear God singing through you.