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Sermon: Sts. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus - 2020

29 July 2020

Text: John 11:1-7, 17-44

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The three siblings from Bethany: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, were not only our Lord’s disciples, but also His friends.  He often spent time at their home and dined with them.  He once gave Mary and Martha a lesson once about the “one thing” that is “necessary,” that is the “good portion” amid the business of life and carrying out the tasks that need to be done, and that one needful thing is to “[sit] at the Lord’s feet and [listen] to His teaching.”  In other words, the most important service of all is the Service of the Word of God.  We must not allow the busyness of this life to prevent us from hearing the Word of God.

But the most memorable incident in the life of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus was recounted in our Gospel.

It begins by a cryptic saying and a strange action of our Lord.  For Lazarus had fallen sick.  His sisters sent word to Jesus that His friend Lazarus was ill.  Our Lord’s response was weird: “This illness does not lead to death.  It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”  When Jesus said, “This illness does not lead to death,” Mary and Martha probably thought that our Lord was telling them that Lazarus would simply get better in the usual way.  Imagine their shock when he died.  And how can an illness – even a death from an illness – lead to the glory of God?  

There is a prayer that is said by the pastor when anointing a sick person with oil, that includes this confession: “We firmly believe that this illness is for the glory of God, and that the Lord will both hear our prayer and work according to His good and gracious will.”

But illnesses are not glorious.  They are a manifestation of sin in our world, and they sometimes even lead to death.  Suffering is not glorious.  But the glory is not in the illness itself or in death.  The glory is in the Lord’s good and gracious will that overcomes sickness and death.  The sick person who has attended to the “one thing that is necessary” and knows the account of Lazarus understands this.   

In addition to his odd words, the Lord acts in a way that seems strange and even uncaring.  Lazarus is clearly in dire straits.  His sisters are worried.  But when Jesus “heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was.”

And only then do our Lord and His disciples make their way to Bethany.  And by the time they arrived, Lazarus had died, and in fact, had been in the tomb for “four days.”  Both Mary and Martha said to Jesus that if He had come when they summoned Him, Lazarus would not have died.

St. John doesn’t tell us if Mary and Martha were hurt, angry, or perplexed – but no-one could blame them if it were the case.  They called for their friend to come.  He deliberately lingered, and said that the illness would not lead to death.  He said that it was for God’s glory, and even for the glory of the Son of God.  And yet, their beloved brother is dead.  What more can be done now?

Interestingly, our Lord speaks first with Martha, whom He had earlier scolded for being too busy to pay attention to the Word of God.  But notice her confession: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”  Even in the midst of her confusion, possibly her hurt or even anger, she confessed what she heard from Jesus – the great confession from our creed: “The resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”  She knew that this promise applied to Lazarus.  And on this day, our Lord teaches Martha the “one thing that is necessary,” the promise of the resurrection, saying: “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in Me, though He die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”  Our Lord then asks Martha directly, “Do you believe this?”

The answer to this question, dear friends, contains the power of life over death.  For one can only say “Yes” with faith.  To answer “Yes” to this question is to confess Christ and His mercy, forgiveness, power, and the goodness of His will.  It is to confess that death is temporary, and to go out on a limb to believe that which sounds ridiculous.  And Martha confessed, “Yes, Lord; I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”  She confesses the divinity of Him who just said, “Your brother will rise again.”

What happened next, Mary and Martha could not have foreseen.  They confessed Christ and the resurrection, but how could they have known that the resurrection was here and now! 

In the midst of tears of mourning – His own included, Jesus went to the tomb – not unlike how the other Marys would do on that first Easter morning which was soon to come.  At the tomb, there were scoffers who said, “Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

Our Lord ignored the scoffers, and “deeply moved again, came to the tomb.”  He commanded the stone be removed, in defiance of the threat of the stench of death.  For death has been undone by Him who would die to destroy death.  Jesus offers a prayer in which He says, “I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that You sent Me.”

And so, in front of Mary and Martha, in the face of the scoffers, before angels and archangels, and even in spite of the helpless screams of the demons and of Satan Himself, the Word by which the universe was created, “cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.’”

Obedient to the Word, to the “one thing that is necessary,” the brother of Mary and Martha, he whose name means “God is my help,” walked out of his own grave, still wearing his now obsolete grave clothes.  Our Lord also commands, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Indeed, this illness did not lead to death.  It was for the Father’s glory, the Son’s glory, and the sake of the bystanders – and of all of us – that our Lord allowed Lazarus to die.  He let Lazarus die to prove how impotent death is in the face of Him who died so that we might live.  And with Sts. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, we confess the “one thing that is necessary, saying, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world,” and we too will joyfully obey our Lord, our Friend, our Savior when He comes to our tombs, crying out in a loud voice, “Come out,

” commanding that we be unbound and let go, receiving the “good portion” of being reunited with our loved ones, leaving behind empty tombs, even unto eternity.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon: Trinity 7 - 2020

26 July 2020

Text: Mark 8:1-9 (Gen 2:7-17, Rom 6:19-23)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

As soon as God “formed the man of dust from the ground” and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” He “planted a garden in Eden” and placed the first man there.  And right away, we learn that this garden was lush, filled with trees that were “good for food.” 

Food was plentiful in the way that air is superabundant.  There was no struggle to survive the way we see human beings and animals having to invest hours of every day gathering food to stay alive because food is scarce.

God put man in a garden because of the abundance of food.  But He also gave the man and the woman one rule, “Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 

We know what happened.  Lured by the devil to try to “be like God,” Eve was tempted to eat the forbidden fruit.  Adam joined her.  And the abundant live-giving food became the agent of death.  And what’s more, the man would have to work the ground in hard labor, and turn the grain into bread.  Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden.  Each day would become a struggle for survival.  There would be such shortages for food, that animals would even turn to eating one another.  Man no longer lived in harmony with nature and each other.  The struggle for survival became a cut-throat race against death – which would come as sure as the night follows the day.  Food ceased being something solely to be enjoyed, but became a source of struggle and conflict and even warfare.

And yet, even among us today, there is still a small, merciful reminder of the Garden of Eden.  For even in our sinful state, our struggle for survival, our necessary contention with scarcity – we still enjoy eating.  Dining together is a joy.  It binds us together in fellowship.  Making a meal is an act of service and of love.  And as imperfect as our food is, we can still savor it.

We all know the old saying about people from South Louisiana, that we spend lunch discussing our dinner plans.  It’s funny because it’s true.  We have a longing to return to the Garden, the place where food was perfect and superabundant.  And what prevents us from returning is sin, and its consequence, death.

Our Lord had mercy on the massive crowds that came to hear Him preach, but who “had nothing to eat.”  He had compassion on them in their plight, their struggle for survival as “poor, miserable sinners” wrestling with scarcity and the need to survive.  And so in His mercy, and as a demonstration of what the kingdom of God is all about, Jesus defiantly overcame the scarcity that is our lot as sinners.  One this day, scarcity was overcome by abundance, and the “desolate place,” that is, the desert in which He taught them, became like a garden – a place where food is not scarce, where the bread is not made laboriously by the sweat of the brow, but rather where God provides out of His lovingkindness, purely by grace, as a free gift.  

Our Lord, “having given thanks,” blessed the bread and fish.  He distributed the miraculous food by means of His called servants.  And the thousands of people “ate and were satisfied.”  The Greek word translated as “satisfied” means that they were full; they had no lack, no scarcity.  And what’s more, there were leftovers.  Scarcity was taken out of the picture that day.  And this is what the kingdom of God looks like, dear friends.  It looks like the Garden of Eden, an endless supply of what we need: no scarcity, no lack, no shortage, no struggle, no predation, no competition for scraps.  God provides, rolling back the wages of sin.  And there is even more where that came from.

“For the wages of sin is death,” as St. Paul teaches us, “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  We die because of sin – the sin of our ancestors, and our own sin.  We die because we live in a world of scarcity, and our bodies are damaged, and they will eventually wear out.  This is the wage, the just desserts, of our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds; our own rebellion against God and His commandments for us.  Death is what satisfies the justice we deserve.  But listen to the glorious promise, dear friends, in spite of it all, “the free gift of God,” given by undeserved grace and mercy, is the very opposite of death: life.  And not just life, but “eternal life” that is “in Christ.”  You can’t buy it, you can’t earn it.  It is a gift.  A free gift.  A gracious gift.

The wages of sin have been paid by our Lord’s death on the cross, His flesh and blood were offered as the one overarching atonement, for He indeed is “the Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world.”

And what’s more, dear friends, our Lord explains the “free gift” as His very flesh, offered on the cross, and given to us to eat and to drink in the Holy Supper.  Jesus offers His flesh “for the life of the world.”  When we eat ordinary bread, we will always need more.  Our hunger is only satisfied temporarily.  But when we eat the miraculous bread of Holy Communion, this food delivers eternal life, sustaining us spiritually and physically unto eternity.

And even as we rejoice in our ordinary feasting with friends and loved ones, sharing table fellowship, eating bread and drinking wine, better yet, in this miraculous, sacramental meal, not unlike the meal served by Jesus “in those days when again a great crowd had gathered,” we are blessed by God’s providence, by His mercy, giving us His life, even as He takes upon himself our sins and the wages of sin.  

And we celebrate this Good News with the feast itself, here in this holy place, a foretaste of the never-ending banquet in eternity, as we who are baptized and who believe will be raised in the flesh, when we join our beloved ones around the table to celebrate the Lamb’s feast forever.  That is our Lord’s promise. 

There will be no scarcity, no “desolate place,” no separation from our loved ones, no death, no sorrow, no pain, no hunger, no lack, no struggle for survival.  And even as our Lord created man and placed him in a garden, and even as He Himself rose from the tomb set in a garden, we will live in the eternal garden fed with an overabundance of perfect and glorious food, of sweet wine as our cup overflows.

Let us ponder this mystery, dear friends, when we come to the communion rail to eat and to drink, where the Lord blesses our meal, where His called servants distribute to you the “free gift” of the forgiveness of sins, where the veil is lifted, and where we are transported for a brief moment into this eternal garden with our Lord, “with angels, archangels and all the company of heaven,” where we sit at table with our Lord in His glory, and where we feast with one another as brothers and sisters.  

In the words of the sacred hymn; “Let all mortal flesh keep silence,” knowing that our mortality will be no more, for we are consuming the eternal flesh of the Lamb.  We eat.  We drink.  We are satisfied by the “free gift of God” even unto eternal life.

Welcome to the Garden.  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon: St. Mary Magdalene - 2020

22 July 2020

Text: John 20:1-2, 10-18 (Prov 31:10-31, Acts 13:26-31)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Few people have been as misunderstood as St. Mary Magdalene. 

She is revered by feminists as one of their own.  She is believed by feminist theologians to have been an ordained woman, one of the apostles, whose ministry was covered up by the sexists and misogynists who wrote the Bible.  These feminist theologians also believe that calling God “Father” is part of a patriarchal conspiracy.  One so-called church in San Francisco even worships a goddess and prays a prayer called the “Our Mother.” Poor Mary Magdalene.

She is also revered by skeptics of Christianity, including the wacky Dan Brown, who has achieved a cult following for his silly Da Vinci Code books.  In his version of Clown World, Mary was Jesus’s secret wife, and their children became the founding dynasties of the crowned heads of Europe.  Poor Mary Magdalene.

She has gotten a raw deal from the Church as well, beginning with Pope Gregory the Great, who erroneously confused her with another biblical character who was a prostitute.  And so for centuries, St. Mary has been portrayed in Christian art an in sermons as a harlot.   Poor Mary Magdalene.

But the real Mary is anything but a character to be pitied.  She is a true saint, a person for us Christians to emulate, a heroine of the Church.  

She was brought to our Lord when she was tormented by seven demons.  Jesus cast them out and freed her from her bondage.  From that day forward, she followed Jesus and studied under Him.  She became a disciple.  Contrary to the wacky theories of feminism and feminist theologians, our Lord Jesus Christ indeed allowed women to be disciples, to study with Him.  He did not, however, ordain them into the office of preaching and administering sacraments.  The holy work of holy women was often a ministry of hospitality, of nurture, and of “providing for [the church] out of their means.”  This loving work of service to those who proclaim the good news and raise the dead by their preaching is seen as beneath the dignity of modern women.  They say that women should be pastors and bishops and generals and CEOs – not making sandwiches and wiping runny noses of children.  

The real Mary was honored to serve where the Lord placed her, to hear the Word and carry out a holy vocation of diakonia, that is, service.  And as His servant, the Lord placed her in the greatest position of honor, for she was among the very first to learn about the resurrection of Jesus, and she was charged to tell Peter and the others about it.  She is sometimes called “the apostle to the Apostles.”  And given that in those days the testimony of women was useless in a court of law, God used Mary to shatter that myth and to prove that the writers of the Gospels were being honest in reporting even something that would be an embarrassment at the time.  

And far from being our Lord’s wife and the mother of worldly kings and queens, St. Mary Magdalene is an example for the Church.  For the Church is our Lord’s Bride.  We are the Bride of Christ, we who serve Him, obey Him, and submit to Him, even as He, our Bridegroom, lays down His life for us, sparing nothing for the sake of His beloved Bride.  

Instead of insisting on being “equal” to the apostles, instead of agitating to be ordained, instead of beating the drum to be considered important in the eyes of the world, St. Mary kept her eyes on our Lord.  She was present at the cross.  She was present when they “took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb.”  She was present at the tomb with the intent of anointing His body on the first day of the week. 

It was Mary who wept at the absence of the Lord’s body.  It was with Mary that the angels conversed.  It was to Mary that the risen Lord first spoke, saying her name.  It was Mary who received the first instructions following our Lord’s resurrection: “Go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’”

Far from being a prostitute, St. Mary was faithful.  Whether she married or not, we do not know.  But we do know that she served and was blessed with a love of service.

Instead of being our Lord’s wife as her slanderers assert, St. Mary typifies feminine excellence as a member of the Bride of Christ.  St. Mary is an inspiration to women who are disciples of our Blessed Lord, but also to men, who are likewise members of the Bride of Christ.

The Church is called to be the Proverbs 31 woman, “an excellent wife” who is “more precious than jewels.”  She is trusted by her Husband, and He gains on account of her.  The excellent wife does her Husband “good, and not harm.” 

And far from the stereotype that Christianity reduces women to chattel – like Jesus, the Church elevates womanhood, as Proverbs 31 speaks of the ideal woman as a home-based entrepreneur and manager.  She “provides food for her household” and “considers a field and buys it.”  She is a planter of vineyards who works to earn a profit.  

She is also kind to the poor and needy, she can make her own things, and her husband is honored for her sake.  “Strength and dignity are her clothing.”  She expresses her opinion with humor, wisdom, and the “teaching of kindness.”  She is always at work, never eating “the bread of idleness.” 

And as the author of this tribute to both the excellent wife and the Bride of Christ, King Lemuel concludes: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

The feminist theologians are wrong.  The skeptics are wrong.  And even many preachers of the Church are wrong.  St. Mary Magdalene became a heroine to women and to all Christians by faithful service in her vocation, as a woman and as a Christian.  We all do well to learn from her, to emulate her virtues, and to revel in the service that the Lord asks of us in our own callings and vocations – remembering that our Lord has also delivered us from bondage to the demons, and has also freed us to be slaves of Christ.

All praise for Mary Magdalene,

Whose wholeness was restored

By You, her faithful Master,

Her Savior and her Lord.

On Easter morning early

A word from You sufficed;

For she was first to see You,

Her Lord, the risen Christ.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon: Trinity 6 - 2020

19 July 2020

Text: Matt 5:17-26 (Ex 20:1-17, Rom 6:1-11)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

God created us in His image: perfect.  And so it is completely reasonable for God to expect us to be just as He created us: perfect.  In fact, perfect people don’t need laws or rules or commandments.  But by the time Moses came down Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Law written by the finger of God, we had not been perfect for thousands of years.

In fact, the very moment that Moses returned, he found the people disobeying the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me.”  The people of God had made themselves a false god, a “carved image” the likeness of a cow, and they were bowing down and serving their ridiculous bovine idol.  They couldn’t even keep the First Commandment long enough to hear it read for the first time.

And it is here, just after the First Commandment, that God says: “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.”  Indeed, this act committed by the Israelites is described as “hate” – which in the modern mind, is the worst sin of all.

Later generations of the Israelites decided that the law must be kept, but they realized that they could not do it.  But instead of turning to the Lord to seek His mercy for becoming sinners who hate the Lord and break the commandments at every turn, rather than to cry out for the promised Messiah to deliver them from themselves, the experts said, “Let us make the law in our own image, after our likeness.”  They recited the same Ten Commandments, but when the rabbis and the priests and the scribes and the teachers of the law asked “What does this mean?” they watered down the Law.  

They made it doable by lowering the bar.  They also made up other “laws” that were easier to keep – 611 to be exact.  And they were so proud of themselves.  They were still rotten sinners on the inside, but they could pat themselves on the backs for taking advantage of the loopholes that they themselves created.

And then the Messiah came.  He came to save sinners.  But the teachers of the Law, known by this time as the Pharisees, had become so good at playing the angles and cutting the corners that they believed they didn’t need the Messiah after all. 

But they were not actually keeping the Law any more than their grandfathers who danced around the golden calf in the wilderness.  And so our Lord Jesus Christ exposed their hypocrisy, called them to repent, and clarified for us what the commandments mean in His “sermon on the mount.”

He tells them and us: “I have not come to abolish [the Law or the Prophets] but to fulfill them.”  For though we don’t fulfill the Law any more than the calf-worshipers or the Pharisees, our Lord Jesus does.  He is the perfect image of the Father, for He is the Son.  He is “very God of very God,” and He is perfect even when we are not.  He comes to save us from the Law, from our hypocrisies and delusions, and from death itself.

Before one can be healed, one must know that one is sick.  And so our Lord preaches the Law, removing the loopholes, and explaining to us exactly what it means to obey the Ten Commandments. 

We are not to relax even the least of these commandments, and we are not to teach a watered-down version of them.  He says, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

And so, to be innocent of the Fifth Commandment, “You shall not murder,” it is not enough to never take a life.  You are expected to control even your thoughts about other people.  You are to be reconciled with “your brother who has something against you.”  Our Lord interprets the commandment not merely as a prohibition of an act of violence, but rather as a moral imperative to do good by your neighbor.  It is in this light that we recite in our catechism, “We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.”

Or as our Lord says elsewhere, the commandments are summed up in the word “love.”  You keep the commandment by not killing your neighbor, and also by loving your neighbor – even if your neighbor is your enemy.

And while this sounds impossible, our Lord Jesus Christ indeed fulfills this commandment as part of the Law.  While our Lord called sinners to repent, and while He was blunt and even offensive at times, He is the very definition of love.  He loves us enough to preach the Law to us, to call us to repent, and He loves us enough to preach the Gospel to us, even dying on the cross as our atoning sacrifice to save us and redeem us from our sins.  And in so doing, He makes us perfect.  He declares that our sins are forgiven, and He, the Word made flesh, speaks forgiveness and perfection into us just as surely as He  spoke the universe into being out of nothing, and just as certainly as He spoke Lazarus back to life.  He speaks His body and blood into bread and wine, shared with us as a miracle of faith, making us holy, restoring our lost image of God, and giving us a taste of the banquet to come: eternal life in the flesh, perfect creatures in a perfect world worshiping our perfect God, in perfect love, for eternity.

And yes, dear friends, we still need the Law.  We still sin and need to repent.  We still need our Savior’s mercy.  We need to hear the Word of God proclaimed and preached.  We need to be reminded of our baptismal grace. We need to partake of the body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.  We still need the ongoing sanctification of the Holy Spirit.  We still need to fight against the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh.

We must not water down the commandments, deluding ourselves into Pharisaical hypocrisy.  We do need to love, even as we need God’s love.  We need to forgive even as we are forgiven.  We need to show mercy, even as we are shown mercy.

St. Paul teaches us how this deficit between the perfection that God requires, and our failure to live up to it, is overcome.  “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

The apostle continues in words that are so important that we read them at every funeral, so please hear this Word of God, dear friends: “For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”

Our Lord came to our broken world to save us by perfecting us.  And He perfects us not by nagging and threatening, but by recreating who we are, as we grow in love.  And by His obedience, through His blood, by means of our baptism into His perfection, we are renewed and made perfect, by His declaration, and by our growth in the Christian faith and life.  You cannot do it by will power or by finding a loophole.  Rather He does it for you by His blood, by His mercy, through your baptism, and by means of your faith by which you receive Him.

So be perfect, dear brothers and sisters.  Strive to be perfect.  And when you come up short, do not despair.  Pray for forgiveness.  Hear His absolution.  Plead the blood of Christ.  Remember your baptism.  He has come to fulfill the Law for us.  And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon: Wednesday of Trinity 5 - 2020

15 July 2020

Text: 1 Kings 19:11-21

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The prophet’s task is often gloomy.  Elijah preaches to the people of Israel as their civilization is collapsing.  He calls them to repent.  They continue in their sin.  He proclaims the Word of God.  They don’t listen.  And the faithful remnant gets smaller and smaller.  The people of Israel have become enamored by the false god Baal – a popular “deity” among other peoples in the region.  The king of Israel is corrupt and wicked and doesn’t fear God.

Elijah is about to quit.  He lays out his complaint before the Lord: “The people of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Indeed, in just a few years, God will visit judgment upon the northern ten tribes of the people of Israel.  They will be taken captive by the bloodthirsty Assyrians and never heard from again.  

But in the meantime, Elijah is ready to pack it in.  He believes that he is literally the last believer on earth.

God had previously shown him a vision which he doesn’t seem to understand.  The Lord Himself passed by Elijah as he stood on the mountain.  A blast of wind “tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.”  The Lord then demonstrated the might of an earthquake, but again, this was not God’s Word.  Then there was a fire – that was also bereft of the Word of God.  Then the Lord God revealed His Word to Elijah in the form of a “low whisper.”  Maybe Elijah interpreted this to mean that the Word of God was weak.  Whatever he thought, he went out of the cave and was ready to quit.

But what Elijah did not understand was that the Lord was still at work among the people.  Yes, it was a remnant, but it was not a remnant of one as Elijah thought.  There was still work for the prophet and the remnant to do. 

And the Lord said, “Go.”

“Go… you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel.”  In addition, the Lord instructed Elijah to anoint Elisha “to be prophet in [Elijah’s] place.” 

For even among the remnant, there is still work to be done.  The “low whisper” of the Word of God is indeed mighty – mightier than the works one sees with the eyes in winds and earthquakes and fires.  We are called not to see the destruction of civilization and the faithlessness of our nation as a reason for despair, but rather, with the eyes of faith, we are to “fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” 

There will be new kings.  The proclamation of God’s Word will continue by means of other men who are called and ordained into this preaching office.  And indeed, the faithful “seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him” who are left in the nation still need to hear the Word of God preached, still need to hear the Law calling them to repent, and continue to hunger for the Gospel: the good news of the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and the coming of the Messiah, the Savior, to save the remnant and redeem them.  No matter how small the remnant becomes, no matter how hopeless the political and cultural landscape looks, no matter how weak the “low whisper” of preaching appears – we live prophetically by faith, and not by sight, dear friends.  

The Word is needed now more than ever: Law and Gospel, the cross, the proclamation of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Satan – or Baal if you prefer – wants us to despair, to quit, to convince ourselves that we need blasts of wind and earthquakes and fire instead of God’s Word.  The devil would have you believe that the Word is weak and ineffectual.  The devil would have you listen to politicians and bureaucrats and doctors and experts and professors and activists and talking heads on the screen – those who worship Baal and not Jesus – and to put your trust in them.

They want to close our churches.  They want to make sure that you cannot gather with the remnant.  They want you to be gagged from singing praise to the One True God.  They want you to fear taking the Holy Eucharist.  They want you confused and befuddled, in terror and in despair.

Dear friends, God is in control.  We are indeed a remnant, but we are a remnant under divine protection, kept secure in the Ark of the Holy Church, bearing the armor of the Word of God, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

There will be an Elisha to our Elijah.  There are others who will not take a knee for Satan.  Wicked kings will be deposed and will receive their due: but in God’s time and according to His plan.

This is why we pray: “Thy will be done” in the Lord’s Prayer.  His ways are not our ways.  We are not called to fix the world, but to confess the faith before the world.  We are not called to drag people into the Ark, but rather to let the “low whisper” of the Word of God have its way among those who worship the Lord and those who worship Baal – leaving their calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying to the Holy Spirit according to the will of God.  We are called to preach or to confess, according to our callings, whether we are prophets, priests, or kings; whether we are preachers or hearers, whether we live in times of prosperity, or in times of uncertainty.

Our task is the same.  And our task is often gloomy as well.  We do see our civilization collapsing.  It does seem to us that our calls to repentance go unheard, unheeded, and even mocked by those for whom Christ died.  It seems as if the “low whisper” of God’s Word is becoming a silent scream, overpowered by the world’s bluster, by the din of wind and earthquake and fire.  And yes, we see more and more empty pews in the church, more gray heads, and fewer young people among the faithful.  All the while, the worship of Lucifer becomes bolder in our rotting culture, seemingly by the minute.

But we do not despair, dear brothers and sisters!  We have the promise of God.  We are baptized into Christ.  We are children of paradise.  We have the mighty Word that is there for anyone with ears to hear.  We have received the free gift of everlasting life – no matter what happens in this fallen world.  And thanks to the Word of God, thanks to the prophets, thanks to the Holy Scriptures, we know how this all turns out.  We know that Christ is victorious, that the Church is triumphant, and no matter what will happen to us in this fallen world, what awaits us is ultimately not our destruction by the Assyrians, but rather the creation of the new heaven and the new earth, “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting,” eating and drinking with God Himself in a banquet that has no end, the joy of living in paradise, undisturbed by sin, death, and the devil – without pain, without tears, and without being separated from our loved ones.  We await with expectant joy the return of our Lord, the one whom Elijah met when he rose into the whirlwind, even as many believe Elijah will return before the end of the world to complete his work of preaching to the faithful remnant.

Let us remain in that “low whisper” dear friends, not swayed by bluster, not despairing, and not resigned to worship Baal.  Let us look to Christ, to the cross, to your baptism, and to eternal joy that has no end!  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon: Trinity 5 and Baptism of Sadie Ricks - 2020

12 July 2020

Text: Luke 5:1-11 (1 Kings 19:11-21, 1 Pet 3:8-15)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

For nearly five hundred years, and in a multiplicity of languages, we Lutherans have asked young and old to answer the question “What is the First Commandment?”  The answer is, of course, “You shall have no other gods.”  The next question is, “What does this mean?”  And the answer is: “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”

By the Lake of Gennesaret, we see Simon Peter fear God, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For Simon’s life was turned on its head the morning after he “toiled all night and took nothing,” but at the Word of Jesus, of the preacher who was using Simon’s boat as a podium, something supernatural happened.  By His command, bending to the will of God, so many fish were caught in Simon’s nets that two of his boats nearly sank.

His reaction was indeed fear: “Simon Peter… fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’”  Everyone saw this supernatural event and were “astonished.”  Simon and his two partners were called to a career change, to go from catching fish to catching men.  They had no idea what this would mean, but they “feared, loved, and trusted in God above all things,” and “they left everything and followed Him.”

We have seen something supernatural today as well, dear friends, though this miracle must be seen with the eyes of faith.  The same Jesus who called Peter and the apostles to preach the Gospel around the world, has called us to be the Church in this place, to make disciples by baptizing and teaching, to forgive sinners, to share the miraculous body and blood of Christ, and to raise the dead to eternal life.  And on this day, we witnessed eternal life given to little Sadie.  Like the miracle Simon Peter witnessed, this supernatural event involved water.  It also involved Jesus and the Word.  But instead of catching a large number of fish, we caught a single, small human being today, entrapping her in the lifesaving net of the Gospel.  Her old nature was drowned, and a new self emerged.  The Holy Spirit descended upon her, and she was truly born again, born from above, born of water and the Spirit.  We watched this happen right here in real time, in physical space, surrounded by unseen but present “angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven,” as she was washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.

And like Peter, James, and John, like her parents Aimee and Erik, like her sponsors Emery and Erin, like each one of us here in this holy house, this place of miracles where the Spirit descends and where Jesus is present – Sadie has become a disciple, called to “fear, love, and trust in God above all things” – God in the person of Jesus Christ, whom she follows.

Simon Peter’s prayer “Depart from me” was refused.  Our Lord will not depart from His beloved.  He assures us: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”  And when Sadie grows old enough to sing, she will repeat the words of the hymn: “God’s own child I gladly say it, I am baptized into Christ.”

We Christians don’t merely say, “I was baptized,” as if it were a past event that isn’t relevant to us today.  No, we say, “I am baptized,” for it is in the ever-present.  It is ongoing.  Once you are baptized, you are always baptized.  It is a reality that can never be undone, any more than the miraculous catch of fish that Simon and the others saw can somehow unhappen.  

Sadie is baptized into Christ, and so are you, dear friends.  You are a forgiven child of God, and you are a child of paradise.  And it is because you have been chosen and brought into the Lord’s family that you can call God, “Our Father,” that you can plead the blood of Christ as your atonement for being a “sinful man,” and you can indeed heed the call of the Holy Spirit to lead you to the cross, to guide you to the Word of God, to draw you to the Sacraments, and in death, to carry you to Abraham’s bosom.  And until Sadie is old enough on her own to “leave everything and follow Him,” Erik and Aimee, Emery and Erin, her grandparents and extended family, and each one of us in her church family will have the responsibility to pray for her, to teach her, to provide an example of faithfulness for her, to show her what really matters in this life: to be a disciple of Jesus.

The same Simon Peter who asked in vain for Jesus to depart from him, teaches us, by the Spirit’s inspiration, how to live out the Christian faith and life.  He teaches all Christians young and old to “have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”  St. Peter instructs us to remain in the faith by turning from evil, doing good, and by seeking peace.  

But even then, we are warned of persecution, of suffering “for righteousness’ sake.”  The apostle tells us that in such suffering, “you will be blessed.”  If Sadie lives a long life and if the Lord has not yet returned, she may well see the twenty-second century on this side of the grave.  Her world will be filled with inventions and wonders we cannot even imagine, but also terrible things that we can’t even conceive.  Through it all, she, like all of us, will depend on Christ’s beloved bride, the Holy Church, for sustenance and strength to walk the walk as a disciple of Jesus.  She may see persecution for the sake of her confession, as might any of us here.  But St. Peter, who left his boats and nets behind to follow Jesus says, “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”

We must prepare Sadie to make that good confession, that she may be a beacon of the love of Christ to lead others to salvation, that she too will read the Holy Scriptures to her own children and ask them the questions: “What is the First Commandment?” and “What does this mean?”

For like Elijah, dear friends, we understand that the Lord works through soft words, even a “low whisper” uttered by God almighty, whose still, small voice is more powerful than strong winds, earthquakes, and fire, stronger than the brag and bluster of this world, mightier than money and worldly fame.  

For that “low whisper” of God’s Word, spoken over little Sadie as water was poured upon her head, said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  We all saw the miracle.  We all bore witness to the supernatural.  And though we are all sinful men, we do not pray for the Lord to depart from us, but rather to abide with us, to abide with Sadie, to be her God whom she will “fear, love, and trust in above all things” both in this life, and in the world to come – even unto eternity.  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Might Makes Right or Bigger is Better

We are conditioned to believe that might makes right, that the bigger entity has power over the smaller.  Perhaps this is rooted in family life, where the smaller and weaker children are subject to the rule and power of the bigger and stronger parents.

As we approach 250 years from the establishment of the United States, and as we are more than 150 years after the clash of visions of the American Union that led to the War Between the States, most of us simply assume that in the United States, the federal government is where sovereignty resides.  And as the world becomes smaller, the Might Makes Right (or the Bigger is Better) dictum leads to the idea that the United States should yield its sovereignty to a larger entity, be it a regional trans-national government (like the European Union) or the United Nations.

The idea that sovereignty resides at a smaller level strikes us as incongruous.  To defy a UN decree or a federal law sounds rebellious and treasonous. 

But this is only because we have been conditioned to believe so.  We have been dumbed-down by our schools.  We have been brainwashed by television.  We have been manipulated by global elites to place our trust in government - and the bigger the better.

But in the United States - as borne out by history and the U.S. Constitution, sovereignty does indeed reside with the states.  This is what "federalism" actually means, and this is why the United States used to be treated as a plural noun (even in the Constitution itself!), and why the United States was often referred to as a "confederation" by the founders - including the so-called Federalists who truly did desire a national government.

In spite of more than a century and a half of court precedents and federal laws that have encroached upon state sovereignty, and in spite of the aforementioned stultification of our public and private school systems, a remnant of this sovereignty still remains.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon issued an executive order mandating a "national" speed limit of 55 mph.  This was done under the color of an emergency order to conserve gasoline .  After the order expired in 1974, Congress passed the National Maximum Speed Law (NMSA), which most people simply think was a "national" 55 mph speed limit.

But that's not what it was.

Congress had no authority to mandate a "national" speed limit (by the way, the word "national" never appears in the Constitution, and the word "national" was deliberately replaced by "federal" by the Constitutional Convention).  So in order to impose a "national" speed limit over the sovereignty of the states, the law doesn't actually set a speed limit.  Rather it penalized states that had speed limits in excess of 55 mph by threatening to take away federal highway funds.

And this is how the federal government bullies the sovereign states. 

Since the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913, the federal government taxes individuals.  Some of this money is held in abeyance and redistributed back to the states based on some federally desired behavior.  It is really more of a bribery - or perhaps more accurately, blackmail - scheme.

If the federal government truly had sovereignty, they would simply pass a law and enforce it.  They didn't, and they don't.  They had, and have, to make the states "an offer that they can't refuse."

This is how "national" laws and policies - like the No Child Left Behind and Common Core disasters were imposed upon the American people (under Bush and Obama respectively), by reducing the sovereign states to groveling provinces, slavishly licking the hand of their federal master for money taken from the people in the first place.  This modern view of America is at odds with the words and writings of the founders themselves.

We should be studying our American history - for example reading the Federalist and Antifederalist papers - as well as researching the "compact theory" of the Constitution.  The vilification of the Confederate States has also led to a lack of understanding of the nature of our Constitutional Union, the re-writing of our history, and the sending of important parts of that history down the proverbial Orwellian Memory Hole.  The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis includes a recapitulation of the nature of the Union, as does Alexander Stephens's A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States.  There are several works of U.S. Secretary of State Abel Upshur (1790-1844) that inform the reader of the compact theory that is today largely ignored by jurists and suppressed by universities. 

The military defeat of the compact theory by the national theory in 1865 - in which the question was "resolved" by force of arms instead of reasoned debate - has only reinforced the Might Makes Right and Bigger is Better theses.  And even then, many of our "national" laws depend on bribery and blackmail of the states to achieve these "national" laws - and hardly anybody asks "Why?"

The American people, wrongly believing, teaching, and confessing that America is a "nation" - a unitary state - instead of a voluntary union of sovereign states, that the states must obey the federal government, and that sovereignty resides in Washington instead of with the people of their own states - are ripe for a global takeover.

After all, Bigger is Better and Might Makes Right.