Ordination of Larry Beane at Zion, Fort Wayne, IN

Sermon: Pentecost 6

11 July 2004 at Holy Trinity L.C., Columbia, SC (Vicarage)
Text: Luke 10:25-37 (RCL)

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.

In today’s Gospel text, Jesus gives the world a new expression: the Good Samaritan. This tale told by Jesus is so beloved and so familiar that even the secular world uses the phrase “Good Samaritan” to describe a person who helps another person in need. In fact, one will occasionally see a “Good Samaritan” truck on the highway, carrying jumper wires, spare gasoline, and a cell phone to help stranded motorists at no charge. If you were to perform CPR on a stranger in a restaurant, you would be immune to lawsuits for any damages under a “Good Samaritan” law. The story of the Good Samaritan is a true classic. It is timeless, and never gets old. Its charm transcends Christianity and it has become a universal teaching on ethical behavior.

And the story opens with a discussion of behavior.

A lawyer comes to Jesus with a question: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The Gospels are full of people who ask Jesus all sorts of questions. Some ask out of pure motives – a genuine desire for truth; while others have ulterior motives – seeking to trap Jesus, or trying to outfox him. The other Gospel accounts of this incident tell us more about our questioner. Mark tells us he is a scribe – a professional clerk. Matthew tells us he is also a Pharisee – a member of the religious sect of Jews who sought communion with God through a rigorous life of religious discipline, of laws and rules and regulations.

And so, our questioner’s motives seem dubious – which is why Jesus answers him indirectly. Jesus in effect tells him: “You’re an expert in the law, you tell me!” The lawyer gives the standard legal answer: “love God and love your neighbor.” Jesus himself has taught that the entire Law, the Ten Commandments, can be summarized in these two rules of thumb. In fact, we often speak of the “two tables” of the Law – the first table defining our vertical relationship to God, the second defining our horizontal relationship to our fellow men. If we love God and love our fellow man, we will be keeping the Law without even thinking about individual rules. This is a simple thing to define, but an impossible thing to live out perfectly!

But something is still nagging at the back of the mind of our lawyer. As the text words it, he is “seeking to justify himself.” In other words, he knows that he is not really just, or righteous. He knows full well that he has failed to love God and love his neighbor – and so he needs a loophole. He needs a technicality. He needs the judge to declare him “not guilty” – even though he is guilty. But rather than seek God as the judge, to throw himself on the mercy of the court, instead he seeks to “justify himself.” He seeks to make himself the judge, so he can find himself “not guilty.” In order to do this, our lawyer realizes he needs some wiggle room in defining the meaning of the words. If this word “neighbor” can be restricted somehow, if it can be defined only as people we like, then it would make it easier to keep this law.

The thought process here calls to mind the Promise Keepers’ bumper sticker that says: “I love my wife.” Well, of course you love your wife, is that anything to boast about? In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us to love our enemies, since even the heathen love their friends. It’s not an accomplishment to love your friends. It seems even less a thing to boast about because you love your wife.

But in the mind of our lawyer, a definition of “neighbor” that includes maybe one’s wife and best friend would be a much easier hoop to jump through than, say loving Saddam Hussein, or Timothy McVeigh, or Adolph Hitler. Somehow, I don’t see the Promise Keepers putting out a bumper sticker that says: “I love Osama bin Laden.” And yet, this is what Jesus tells us is what we are to do. We are to do the impossible.

This is the context of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Pharisee sees the law as doable, within reach of himself by his own power. He seeks to “justify himself” using the law as a yardstick of his good conduct, judged by his own standards, and perhaps in comparison with others who seem worse than himself: such as tax collectors and prostitutes. Based on that yardstick, our lawyer is a pretty good guy. Of course, we do the same today. How often do we think: “I’m a pretty good person. I go to church, I more or less obey the laws. I have never killed anyone. I’m not a rapist or homosexual. God has no idea how fortunate he is to have me on his side”?

It’s like the story of the man who buys lumber, only to find it is too short. Taking out his yardstick, the unhappy customer shows the flaw to the carpenter. In response, the carpenter cuts the customer’s yardstick – thus making the yardstick conform to the imperfect lumber.

When we do this, we seek to “justify ourselves.” We turn the Law into a means of salvation, a bar we think we can leap over. In reality, our Lord asks the impossible of us: love your enemies. Be perfect. Don’t even think of doing something sinful. And our Lord tells the lawyer matter-of-factly: “Do this, and you will live.” We can indeed earn our way to heaven by being perfect in thought, word, and deed – all the time, never veering to the left or right, loving all people perfectly.

There really are only three responses we can have to this understanding of God’s Law which demands perfection. First, we can realize it is impossible, become angry at God, and just do whatever we want. Live a completely self-centered life, only to die in despair when it comes to an end. Or, we can follow the pattern of the lawyer in our text: redefine the Law to make it doable, justify ourselves by playing games with what words mean. Put on a pious front, and make a great show of how religious we are. By seeking the praise of men, we can fool ourselves into thinking we can earn our way into God’s graces. But there is a third way: we can understand, like St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians, that the Law condemns us. It is a yardstick that we cannot trim. It is a mirror that shows every blemish. And once we have been exposed, we plead for our lives before the judge. We say “Lord, have mercy” over and over.

The concepts of “mercy” and “neighbor” are difficult to explain and understand, since we are all sinners like our lawyer friend. We naturally want to see the Law as our friend, and not as our prosecutor. So Jesus tells us all a little story.

Like every great author, the Author of Life itself creates meaningful characters. There is the victim, the priest, the Levite, the Samaritan, and the minor characters of the robbers and the innkeeper. The tale opens with a crime scene, a robbery. The victim is “half dead.” He is obviously unable to help himself, nor is he able to do anything at all for anyone who might assist him. He is headed straight for death. The priest and the Levite are both religious professionals. Both of them know the Law, and yet both of them see no connection between what God demands and this bleeding victim. They avoid doing anything to help. Perhaps they cannot see in the Fifth Commandment: “Thou shalt not kill” the reality that life is a gift of God to be nurtured. All they see is a narrow rule not to murder. Perhaps they even “justify themselves” with self-congratulations that they are not robbers, that they did not beat up this man. Good for me! God is so lucky to have me on his side!

The Samaritan is not only a layman, no expert in the law, no “professional church worker,” no pastor, not even a member of the church. Samaritans were treated by the Jews as racially inferior, half-breeds with a confused religious doctrine. Jesus’s character development here is as subtle as a sledge-hammer. The Samaritan “had compassion.” This compassion flows from love – and has nothing to do with self-justification. It has nothing to do with seeing the Law as a series of tests to pass on our way to Heaven. The Samaritan goes to seemingly ridiculous lengths to help this total stranger. He uses his own property for his care, he spends two months of wages to house him, he uses valuable supplies to minister to his health, and even pledges more to the innkeeper should the victim need more time to heal.

Jesus then turns to the lawyer and asks him who is the better neighbor: the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan. The answer is obvious. The key here is “mercy.” In being merciful, in looking out for others with no desire for anything in return, we keep the law. When we treat others with love, we are not breaking the commandments.

And of course, this parable is an indictment against the Pharisees, against this lawyer, and against all of us. Do we go out of our way to help those in need – even strangers? Do we “pass by on the other side” and congratulate ourselves on how good and pious we are? Do we treat God’s law not as a prosecutor, but rather as a friendly witness?

What Jesus is getting at in this exchange is that the attitude inside trumps the actions of the outside. Good works flow from pure motives. But from evil motives, even works which seem good are really evil. For such deeds pervert the law and seek only to “justify ourselves.”

And so, the law convicts us, shows us our blemishes, and leaves us with only one alternative: to plead for mercy. Once the Law has done its work, the grace of God can take over. For our Lord has come to save the world, not to condemn it. He has come to take away the evil of our hearts, and give us his love so that we can share that love with others. He has come to justify us so that we don’t have to delude ourselves into believing we can justify ourselves.

Jesus himself is truly the Good Samaritan. When he came into the flesh, he was treated as an illegitimate child. He was taunted that “nothing good comes from Nazareth.” He was chided for sharing a table with “tax collectors and sinners.” The Son of Man had no place to lay his head. He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, and by his stripes we have been healed. Our Lord has had compassion on us, and forgives us all our sins. Our Lord has mercy on us, even as we sing: “Kyrie eleison! Lord, have mercy!” As we have fallen among robbers, into the grips of Satan and our own evil, our Good Lord anoints our broken bodies with the oil of his forgiving love, and cleanses our wounds with the wine of his very own blood. He gives all of his possessions for our care, even his very life. He tells the Innkeeper that no matter the cost for our redemption, he will pay it. His mercy endures forever, as he forgives us even as many as seven-times-seventy times.

And our Lord seeks no payment for what he has done, what he does, and what he will do. But he does tell us: “You go, and do likewise.” When we imitate our Good Samaritan Master, we, the church, as his body, continue his work in the world. We provide the oil and the wine, the mercy and the care, the love and the forgiveness that the entire world hungers and thirsts for. When we love our enemies, it is Christ who loves through us. And when we give up the notion that we can justify ourselves, it is then that we are truly justified. When we stop trimming the yardstick so as to short-change the law, it is then that we are able to appreciate the full measure of God’s love. It is only then that we allow the Lord to apply oil and wine to our wounds, to welcome his payment for our lodging, and accept the eternal hospitality of the Innkeeper.

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

Sermon: Sts. Peter and Paul

30 June 2004 at Holy Trinity L. C., Columbia, SC (Vicarage)
Texts: Ezek 34:11-16, 1 Cor 3:16-23, Mark 8:27-35

First Lesson: Ezek 34:11-16

This wonderful message of Good News was delivered by the prophet Ezekiel at the height of bad news. Jerusalem had just fallen. And even worse, the Lord has spoken to Ezekiel a frightening and explicit prophecy that Israel would be laid waste, utterly destroyed, and that this was due to the Lord’s anger against them. The people are crushed, mourning their fallen city and those who defended her.

But in the midst of this suffering, the Lord also gives Ezekiel good news. Though the people will be scattered like sheep, the Lord himself will gather them, shepherd them, feed them, and rescue them. The destruction of the Lord’s judgment will be undone, and they will once again feed on lush grazing land.

Again and again the Lord declares in this passage that he will do the job himself. He will seek the lost. He will bring back the strayed. He will bind up the injured. He will strengthen the weak.

Of course, our Lord Jesus Christ himself fulfills this promise of the Shepherd-God, the divine do-it-yourselfer who himself takes up the pastor’s crook and chases away the wolves of sin, death, and the devil.

It is no accident that this image of the Good Shepherd is of such comfort to the bereaving. For even in death, the Lord himself, the Author of Life, gathers his own sheep to himself - those branded his own by Holy Baptism, those who hear his voice and know him as their Master. For as the Shepherd-king David, the ancestor of our Lord Jesus proclaims: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” And, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” For the Good Shepherd’s rod and staff comfort us, as he fills our cups to overflowing with blessings and eternal life, so that we may “dwell in the House of the Lord forever.”

Second Lesson: 1 Cor 3:16-23

In this lesson, our Lord uses the apostle and martyr St. Paul to remind us of the holiness of our bodies. While the Greeks taught that the body was evil, Christians hold the radical view that the body is holy. It is part of creation that our Lord declared “good” in the beginning, and though corrupted by sin, the Christian’s body has been reclaimed and sanctified by baptismal water, and nourished with the holy Body and Blood of our Lord. The body of the Christian is a vessel of holy things. Our bodies are indeed temples of the Holy Spirit, and these same bodies will be resurrected, just as our Lord’s body – still bearing the holy scars of his passion – was raised from the dead.

The sainted apostle Paul further warns us not to put too much stock in human reason. “For wisdom of this world is folly with God.” What the world calls clever, God calls foolishness. And the Lord uses what appears to be weakness and foolishness to accomplish his task of saving the world. As Paul tells us elsewhere, to those who are perishing, the cross is folly. But to those who are being saved, it is wisdom.

We do well to be mindful of this distinction between the nearsighted ways of the world versus the glorious ways of God Almighty. For it’s an easy thing to be trapped into pettiness, or to be wrapped up in the things that are esteemed by this world, but Paul points us to the big picture: “whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all are yours. And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”

Gospel: Mark 8:27-35

On this holy feast day of the apostles and martyrs Sts. Peter and Paul, we have this passage that shows Peter in two different contexts. In the first part of the passage, Simon Peter makes his bold confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. The other Gospels tell us that at this point, Jesus gives Simon an “attaboy,” giving him the nickname “Peter” – which means “rock man” – and prophesying that upon the rock of his confession, upon the rock of the ministry entrusted to Peter, our Lord would build the Church. For this reason, Peter is considered the chief apostle, and would later be considered the first Bishop of Rome.

However, only a couple verses later, we have our Lord calling Peter “Satan.” This is not a very flattering passage the lectionary committee has selected to honor St. Peter on this day – he, who according to tradition, would be crucified upside down as the penalty for his faithful service to our Lord.

The Lord’s harshness with Peter came as a result of Peter’s refusal to accept the passion and death of our Lord as a necessary part of the divine plan. Peter was relying on his own sense of logic, the wisdom of the world – and criticizing the seemingly “foolish” divine plan of sending Jesus to his cross. Peter was indeed being manipulated by the devil, and Jesus loves him too much to allow it to go unspoken.

For the lives of both Peter and Paul bear witness to our Lord’s words which conclude this Gospel reading: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

Sermon: Pentecost 3

20 June 2004 at Holy Trinity L.C., Columbia, SC (Vicarage)
Text: Mark 5:21-43 (RCL)

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.

Today’s Gospel text finds our Lord interrupted during the course of one miracle in order to work another miracle. Both of these miracles are so intimately related that the Gospel writers, including the evangelist Mark, felt compelled to retain this odd sequence in their accounts, weaving them together in an interlocking series of events.

Both of these miracles demonstrate Jesus’s divinity, his almighty power over life and death, and his mastery over disease. These miracles give us a clear picture of the central mission of our Lord in his earthly ministry – to free those held captive to the frailties of the flesh, and to reverse the ravages of death itself, a mission only God can accomplish. These miracles also demonstrate Jesus the man, a compassionate human being who speaks kindly and lovingly to people who are grieving, who are harassed by fear and imprisoned by death.

Shortly before this couplet of miracles, our Lord has made other demonstrations of his divine work: calming a storm (causing the disciples to ask “who is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?”), exorcising a legion of demons from a possessed man (causing the observers to react with fear of Jesus’s power). And immediately after our text, in which our Lord cures the hemorrhaging woman and raises Jairus’s daughter from her death bed, Jesus goes back home to preach – where he, and his preaching, are rejected.

Miracles such as these provoke strong reactions – either of belief or unbelief. Either people see the miraculous work of our Lord, and believe in him, repent of their sins, and in some cases, give up everything to follow him, or, they react with fear (asking him to leave) or even hostility (forcing him to leave). When confronted with our Lord’s miraculous works – which are never harmful or arbitrary, but rather are helpful and healing – people will respond in one way or the other. Either they are strengthened in their faith, or they are entrenched in their disbelief. Those who are healed are typically grateful and filled with faith, and those who mistakenly believe that they have nothing from which to be healed, usually react with scoffing or violence.

And nothing has changed today. When confronted with the truths of Holy Scripture, when forced into a consideration of Jesus, when visited with disease, death, or the fallout of sin – people will react strongly – and sometimes with violence. Those who understand their plight, their imprisonment by sin, the devil, their own flesh, disease, and death itself – will be forced to consider the person and work of Jesus Christ. Those who do not understand, or who simply reject, the relationship between our broken universe and sin, will push Jesus away and will not accept the free gift of healing and restoration from death.

The two miracles in our text are similar, and yet distinct. The woman who suffers bleeding seeks out Jesus. She has believed in Jesus because of what she has heard. She has heard testimony of Jesus, and she believes in him. In response, her faith moved her to seek out our Lord to pray for healing. The girl’s situation is quite different. She is dead. She is in no position to have faith. She cannot believe based on accounts of the work of Jesus. She is in no position to do anything at all for herself. And yet, our Lord heals both.

In his ongoing ministry through the Church, our Lord heals the adult convert to the faith, who believes because of what he has heard, because of the testimony of our Lord, because of the preaching of the Gospel. And our Lord also heals the child, the infant, who is clearly dead in sin and unable to seek out Jesus. A child at the baptismal font can do nothing for himself, just as Jairus’s daughter couldn’t. Both the baby at the font and the 12-year old girl in our text were granted second births, both were born again in a way beyond their control or will. Jairus’s daughter was in no position to make a decision for Jesus, or accept him as her personal Lord and Savior. All she could do was passively receive his free gift in spite of her own situation. In every infant baptism, our Lord says: “Little child, I say to you, arise.” In fact, every baptism, infant or adult, is a resurrection from the dead.

Although we usually don’t think of the healing of the woman in our text to be a resurrection from the dead, in reality that’s just what it is. Just as surely as Jairus’s daughter was freed from death’s dark bands, the dear woman in our text was likewise liberated from death. She had been bleeding for twelve years, and her condition was growing progressively worse. She could see where this was going. A person’s blood contains a person’s life. The Old Testament confesses that blood is life, and the spilling of blood is the draining away of life. Sacrifices were the spilling of blood as a way to atone, as a way to satisfy the judgment of the Lord when he told Adam and Eve that they would surely die.

As this woman helplessly watched blood issue forth from herself for twelve years, she understood what this meant. Her life was literally draining from her. This can only go on so long before the body will suffocate cell by cell. She has been dying for the same period of time as Jairus’s daughter has been alive.

From the day we are all conceived, our bodies are on a collision course with death. Over the course of time, our cells will begin to malfunction, our organs and joints wear out, our bodies’ abilities to ward off illness diminishes. It has been said that life is a terminal illness. But this is really not the case. Of course, each one of us is on “death row” so to speak, but the problem, the terminal disease, is not life. Life is a gift from God. Life is good. The problem is sin. The problem is the fall of man back in Eden. The problem is that we have exchanged paradise for a damaged universe, swapped a glorious eternal body for a piece of rotting meat. Sin has corrupted the good gift of life – and so we all die – some suddenly, others gradually, cell by cell, perhaps even over the course of a century.

And so it is with the woman who is bleeding. Her date with death is more obvious than it is for most of us. For the most part, we carry on as though we will never die, will never become sick, will never be ravaged by the devil, will never be tempted to doubt. Sometimes it takes a scrape with death, a serious illness, or some other trauma for the Lord to get our attention. As a result of her affliction, the woman in our text has a clarity, a true understanding of her need to have a relationship with Jesus. She seeks out his healing in faith that this power will restore her. She doesn’t understand how it works, she doesn’t even really know if Jesus would want to heal her – but it doesn’t matter. Her faith compels her to take a chance, to seek life. And once the power has emanated from the God-man, it is received into her own body by faith, and the power of the Lord has done its mighty work. Jesus assures her that her faith has made it possible for the Lord’s power to work on her. “Your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

This restoration is the mission of Jesus in the world. He is the life-giver who re-creates and cleans up the mess we’ve made of the universe.

The example of Jairus’s daughter is even more explicit. She was dead. There was no blood draining out of her – the life was already gone. The funeral procession has already started, with mourners carrying out their grim duties. The girl of twelve, an age at which the flow of blood becomes a natural rhythm in the Lord’s plan of creating new life, lies cold. The remaining blood in her body is motionless and of no use. What a bitter icon to the corrupt, sin-laden universe we inhabit after the fall in Eden – a dead child. As bitter a pill death is when it comes to those who have lived a long, full life, it is unthinkable when death comes to a child. Even the unbelievers who think death is natural, who have been fooled by Satan into believing the lie that death is “just a part of life” or the completion of some pagan “circle of life” – even the most cynical materialist will instinctively gasp when a child dies. The unnaturalness of it slaps us in the face. This is when death is at its most appalling, when Satan is at his most brutal and mocking, laying evil bare before us, tempting us to curse our Lord and to blame God Almighty for the corruption we have brought on ourselves.

And yet, in spite of it all, walking straight through the mocking mourners, in full view of the child’s heartbroken parents, our Lord sets his face like a flint to carry out his Father’s will to give life to this girl. He touches her, and speaks his word to her. The physical Flesh of Jesus and his divine Word do what reason tells us cannot be done: the girl’s dead heart begins to pulse, the blood in her body stirs and begins to course anew, through cells that have been revivified. She awakens from death as though from a nap. Jesus tells her bewildered parents to feed her, to give her the nourishment that every living creature needs to sustain the gift of life.

In these two miracles, the Lord Jesus Christ gives all people – believers and non-believers alike – a glimpse into their own future. We are all, like the woman with the hemorrhage, counting down the days as our corrupted flesh dies, the life ebbing from us day by day, moment by moment. We will all, like Jairus’s daughter, lie lifeless – cold, bloodless, and corrupting. What happens next is in the hands of God – who is not only a Creator, but also a Redeemer. The same God who gave us life and called it good, also gave His life on a Friday we now call “Good.” This sacrifice upon the altar of our world sanctifies all creation. God has reclaimed his own from the Enemy – giving the gift of healing, the gift of faith, the gift of a resurrection, and the gift of life eternal in paradise to every creature. Amazingly, most people are not interested in the gift. They are content to bleed their days away, pushing away the One who can heal and resurrect them with a touch of his Holy Flesh, or a single drop of his Holy Water. Though most people fear death, they are content to call it “natural” and figure there is nothing to be done about it except to try to die with the most toys.

However, those who have been called, redeemed, sanctified, healed, forgiven, and raised from the dead – the members of the holy catholic and apostolic Church, on earth and in heaven – gladly receive the words of our Lord: “Your faith has made you well. Go in peace… I say to you, arise.” And having been revitalized and reborn, our Lord instructs our spiritual fathers to give us something to eat. Our Lord himself feeds us with the eternal Bread of Life, his very Flesh which nourishes us unto eternal life. And just as the life of any living thing is in the blood, our Lord does more than simply wrap a tourniquet around our limbs and stop us from bleeding to death – rather he gives us of his own Blood, giving us his own life as a gift, a gift of life unto eternity.

For we have a far more intimate relationship with Jesus than even the woman and the girl in our text. Whereas they only saw, heard, and touched Jesus, we have the gift of communing with him, of making his Flesh our flesh, and his Blood our blood. Jesus pours the life of the Godhead into us, reversing the unnatural decay of our flesh and the Satanic wasting away of our blood. We too are healed. We too are raised from the dead.

While the world scoffs at us, just as they scoffed at our Lord, we believe. While the world wallows in death and calls it “natural,” we live unto eternity and call death what it really is: “evil.” While our culture can’t make up its mind whether it is anti-life (singing the praises of infanticide and euthanasia) or whether it is terrified of death to the point of ghoulish measures to avoid it (such as cryogenics and ever-increasing and invasive “laws for our own good” to regulate any form of behavior that might be risky) – the Church simply confesses that death has been conquered by God himself, who himself died, and who himself rose again. And this God is also a man, a man who speaks the gentle and yet bombastic words to us as well as to the people in our text: “Your faith has made you well, go in peace… I say to you, arise.” Amen.

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

Sermon: Pentecost 2

13 June 2004 at Holy Trinity L.C., Columbia, SC (Vicarage)
Text: Luke 7:36-8:3 (also 2 Sam 11:26-12:10, 13-15; Gal 2:15-21) (RCL)

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.

In today’s gospel text, Jesus uses a man’s rude behavior as the backdrop to give a lesson on the Christian life. In fact, Jesus sums up all of the doctrines of the Bible by making reference to what we would today call “bankruptcy:” being relieved of one’s debts that one cannot pay.

Jesus’s dinner host is not very gracious. He ignores the basic duties that one should attend to when one has a guest. Today, we might offer a visitor a drink, put out some snacks, and invite them to sit in a comfortable chair. Although the customs of the first century middle east are different than those of twenty-first century America, the idea is still the same. Especially, if one invites a person of honor to one’s home. Jesus is a well-known rabbi, and a polite person would surely see to his comfort – something Simon the Pharisee is lax in doing.

Now, whether Simon is being deliberately rude, or is just a social clod, we don’t know. But Simon’s lack of manners also manifests itself toward the woman in our account. While our text only tells us what he was thinking, one can hardly imagine that his utter distaste for the woman can easily remain hidden. He not only questions Jesus’s standing as a prophet, he also condemns – at least inwardly – the woman’s actions based on her reputation.

So, instead of seeing her devotion to the Lord (a devotion which, by the way, highlights his own failure as a host), Simon sees only her past sins. He judges her worthiness by her former wickedness. Instead of a redeemed and repentant sinner who is filled with love, Simon sees only a sinner, filled with iniquity. He sees her service not as a good and noble work, but rather as hypocrisy. Who does she think she is, and why is this rabbi allowing her to do such things?

Jesus, seeing the irony of the boorish behavior of the “righteous” man versus the loving behavior of the “sinful” woman, takes advantage of this “teachable moment” and tells Simon a story about creditors and debtors. Asked who is most appreciative, a debtor who is forgiven much debt or a debtor who is forgiven little, Simon correctly answers the one forgiven much. Jesus congratulates him: “You have judged rightly.” Simon’s earlier judgmental attitude has given way to sound judgment of a hypothetical accounting matter. Having guided his pupil to the correct conclusion in the abstract, Jesus then applies this logic specifically to matters of sin, redemption, and the Christian life.

Jesus sums up the entire Christian faith – both doctrine and practice – as a matter of debt. This is not the only time our Lord refers to our sins in financial terms. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who tresspass against us.” These days, we usually use the word “trespass” with regard to property lines. However, the older meaning of the word reflects the original meaning: “debts.” This is why our Bibles normally translate this petition as “forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.” Our Lord is not referring to our car payments and Visa bills. He is using the word “debt” as a way to express our sins.

We don’t normally describe sin in financial terms – but it’s a beautiful analogy. Having recently finished seminary, I know a little something about debts. I’m sure I’m not alone here. Debt is a powerful and dangerous thing. If not managed, it quickly balloons into a monster that can take over one’s life. When debts grow large enough, they become such a burden that a person may not even be able to pay the interest – thus theoretically making it impossible to ever get out of debt. In former times, a person in such a situation was sent to prison. The only hope of ever leaving debtor’s prison was either the unexpected grace of the creditor in forgiving the debt, or the appearance of a redeemer who would pay the bill on behalf of the prisoner. Without either forgiveness or a redeemer, one would rot away in prison year after year, until dying only to pass on one’s debts to one’s heirs.

In our text, Jesus tells a story of debt forgiveness, and the gratitude and joy that follows such forgiveness. Jesus tells a slightly different and expanded version of this motif in his Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18. In that parable, our Lord presses the analogy further, equating debtor’s prison to hell itself, whence there is no escape, that is, without forgiveness or redemption.

Like our bills, our sins are debts. They compound on one another like interest. They rack up every moment of the day. They hang around our necks like the proverbial albatross. They weigh upon us, and drag us down. Unless discharged, debts can eventually spiral out of control, and become a burden that threatens to send us to debtor’s prison.

But our Lord doesn’t end his discourse on such a note. For what good is it to instruct the Pharisee Simon (as well as the rest of us Pharisees today) about debts and the forgiveness of those debts unless there is a benevolent creditor willing to cancel our bill, a wealthy benefactor with an open checkbook ready to balance our accounts?

Jesus not only alludes to himself as the kind creditor and great redeemer, he makes it happen right in front of his pupil. Speaking to the woman whose debt is beyond her ability to pay, our Lord pronounces the words of absolution: “Your sins are forgiven.” He has paid her tab – not with cash, but with his blood. He has picked up her check, not with a credit card, but with his flesh. He has brought her balance down to zero, not by a balance transfer, but rather by a blessed exchange which was to take place on the cross.

While the other guests at the table ponder Jesus’s authority to give such absolution, while they wonder among themselves who is this man with the power and right to cancel the debts of people who otherwise would be trapped and left without hope, Jesus teaches them something else, something equally important: the woman’s acts of devotion, her kindnesses to Jesus, are not what saves her. Her debts are no more wiped out by her loyalty and kindness any more than our Mastercards are paid by being nice to the collection agent on the phone or promising never to use American Express. The women’s love for Jesus is not what cancels her debt. Rather, our Lord proclaims: “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Her works – though beautiful and clearly a demonstration of her faith – did not achieve her salvation. They did not forgive her debt. Her love – though genuine and heartfelt – did nothing to wipe out her liability. Her love and her good works were results of her forgiveness. They did not initiate her forgiveness. They did not earn her forgiveness. They did not pay her check. Rather, they grow out of her gratitude, they explode from her as a result of having her debts paid. Her love and her deeds flow from the Gospel, the good news that she will not have to spend a miserable lifetime in a debtor’s prison, she will not have to waste away eternally in hell. Jesus, by his blood and with his word, has stamped her bill “paid in full” and she is filled with joy.

Dear friends, there is no greater expression of the Gospel than today’s text. Every one of us baptized Christians are exactly the same as the sinful woman in our reading. Each one of us has racked up a debt so large that we can’t even begin to pay the interest on the debt. And as St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans: “the wages of sin is death.” But as Paul continues, “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We hear our Lord say those precious words to us every Sunday: “your sins are forgiven.” And of course, we are also just like Simon. In spite of our Lord’s cancellation of our debt, we continue to judge others by their past, even as we ignore our Lord. Instead of anointing our Lord with our tears, how often we treat him as if he isn’t even there. This too is part of that debt that we can never repay, that we can only ask our Lord to forgive.

Christians often struggle with how to approach the Christian life without lapsing into “works righteousness.” In other words, how should we live a life of good works without falling into the trap of taking credit for them? Paul, in our second lesson, reiterates our Lord’s words about faith and salvation: “a person is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” Emphasizing salvation by grace through faith, and not by works of the law, is a teaching that has always been central for Lutherans. But this is not Luther’s teaching, nor even Paul’s teaching, but rather our Lord’s teaching: “your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

On the other end of the spectrum is the trap of presuming that since we are sinners and debtors, and since we can’t defeat sin, we may as well give in to sin and treat it as a trifle. Since Jesus died for our sins, sin is really no big deal, nothing to get worked up about. This is a particular danger for Lutherans. If someone calls us to repentance, we may be tempted to ignore our sins and simply take our baptisms for granted. Since we are baptized, since good works don’t save us, we can sin all we want, knowing that all we need to do is receive absolution every Sunday.

Such a diluted and matter-of-fact view of sin is a satanic delusion. In our first lesson, we heard the familiar account of David’s murder and adultery – repugnant and shocking acts which he somehow didn’t even recognize as sinful – until Nathan the prophet told him a parable about a pet lamb. When presented as a hypothetical situation – apart from his own life – David judged wisely, rightly concluding that such sinful behavior deserves nothing less than death. Sin is no trifle, it is deadly serious, and the Lord cannot and will not abide it. It is so serious, in fact, that God took flesh, and gave himself on the cross in order to redeem our debts. As the Lutheran pastor and martyr, the blessed Dietrich Bonhöffer reminded us: grace is free, but it’s not cheap – it cost the life and death of our Lord on the cross. We receive it as a gift – but it’s the most expensive gift in the universe.

In our text, our dear Lord condemns both errors – the error that we are saved by good works and by the law, as well as the error that sin is just no big deal, that our good works aren’t necessary. Just as Jesus makes it clear that salvation that is by faith, he also points out that actions flow from forgiveness. We don’t need bestselling books and slickly-marketed programs to direct us how to live the Christian life. What we need to do is surround ourselves with reminders of the tremendous evil of our sins, the terrifying wrath of God, our helplessness to get out of debt, as well as the indescribable act of love that paid our debts in blood and sealed that forgiveness in baptismal water. We would do well to surround ourselves with crucifixes, in our homes, in our churches, on our persons. Plain crosses are simply not as vivid a reminder. They’re too sterile. We need reminding. We need to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood often. We should regularly confess our sins to our pastors, confronting our own debts, so we can hear them wiped out with our Lord’s words: “your sins are forgiven.” And we do well to make the sign of the cross on ourselves often, as a constant reminder of how our debts were, and are, paid in full. Recalling the Lord’s cross and our baptism is a greater encouragement than all the TV evangelists and “motivational speakers” put together.

The so-called sinful woman in our text provides a model of the Christian life. She is not driven by a purpose, not motivated according to a programmed list of hoops to jump through. Nor is she deterred by what others may think. And although she is overwhelmed by emotion, her feelings are not motivating her deeds. She responds in love with good works out of her overwhelming gratitude for having her huge debt cancelled. It’s that simple.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us revel in our bankruptcy. Let us thank the triune God for the payment of all of our debts, and for springing us from the debtor’s prison of hell that we all deserve. Let us keep the image of our crucified Lord ever before our eyes, that we may be grateful in thought, word, and deed for what our Lord has done for us. And with the cancellation of our debt comes the freedom which enables us to anoint our Lord with the oil of our love and the ointment of our good works, freeing us to join him at table in celebration for all eternity. “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Amen.”

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

Sermon: Easter 7

23 May 2004 at Holy Trinity L.C., Columbia, SC (Vicarage)
Text: John 17:20-26 (RCL)

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia.

The Gospel for today, the seventh Sunday of Easter, is a portion of a prayer of our Lord. This “Lord’s prayer” is much longer than the “Our Father.” We don’t recite the 17^th chapter of John in our liturgy, nor do we make our confirmands memorize it. It is a long prayer. It concerns the ministry of the Father through his Son Jesus. It concerns the ministry of the Son on behalf of the Father. It concerns the ministry of the Church on behalf of the Son, as carried out by the apostles, and which is carried out into the world for all time.

Although today’s Gospel is only seven verses of this prayer, there is much upon which to ponder and to meditate. There is both cause for shame among Christians, as well as cause for comfort and rejoicing. In this prayer, Jesus provides for us a model of prayer as glorification of the Father, obedience, intercession for the church and the world, all centered on the work of Jesus.

Jesus prays: “I do not ask for these only” – meaning his immediate disciples – “but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” Jesus confesses with us that the church is “apostolic.” We don’t believe in Jesus because we saw something on TV or read something about him in Newsweek. Rather, we believe in him because we believe the word of the apostles – the disciples Jesus hand-picked and ordained to preach his Gospel. We have the apostolic witness of our Lord from the writings of the apostles. In fact, the word “scripture” means literally “writings.” Through human language, pen and ink, through the work of copyists, translators, and publishers, we can hear the actual words of the apostles themselves ring out in our churches. Through the Bible, the apostles continue to preach to us, and the Word of God continues to bring about miraculous faith.

Jesus prays that such belief in the apostolic witness would lead to unity among Christians, the kind of communion that exists between Jesus and the Father, a bond of unspeakable love. And this kind of love allows the Church to carry the Father and the Son within her, allowing Christians to bring that love to the entire world. Of course, this is a great mystery, but God dwelling in us, the Church, is what converts nonbelievers to the truth.

But, of course, today the Church is divided. As our Lord testifies, our unity in the faith spreads the Gospel. What conclusion can we draw but that the disunity of the Church impedes the Gospel?

The motto of the United States is “e pluribus unum” – “out of many, one.” To look at all the various divisions and denominations in the Christian Church today, we might reverse the motto as “ex uno pluralis” – “out of one, many.” There are literally thousands of church bodies within Christendom. Non-believers see this and scoff. If the Christians can’t agree what is true among themselves, why should anyone believe them about anything.

Indeed, the disunity that has plagued the Church for nearly a thousand years when the Eastern and Western Churches excommunicated one another doesn’t serve the proclamation of the Gospel. We Lutherans love to celebrate Reformation Day – as well we should, but for all the good of the Reformation, it comes bundled with the burden that it became the first of many divisions in the Western Church.

We cannot overstate the damage caused by our divisions. Satan uses our disunity as a wedge to wrest the Gospel from the world that so desperately needs it, dividing God from his beloved creation.

However, we must also clearly understand that unity in the church is much more than simply everybody being part of one big denomination, or merely going to each other’s churches, or by swapping preachers and communing outside of our own church body. For we can’t sweep our theological differences under the rug – not if we are going to be honest with ourselves. We shouldn’t fall prey to the temptation to join the wishy-washy world’s view that “it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you’re sincere.” Jesus never, ever says such a thing. It does indeed matter what we believe. We need to teach our children the small catechism, and explain to them why it is important. We need to boldly confess with St. Peter that baptism saves us, and with the Church of all time that baptism is for children, and that the amount of the water doesn’t matter. We need to confess with our Lord that his ministers do indeed have the authority to forgive sins. We must never weaken our confession that Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist – even if downplaying it makes us seem more “unified” with our Protestant friends and relatives.

In withholding communion from those who don’t share our confession, and when we refrain from communing when we visit different churches with our families and friends, we are painfully reminded of this disunity, of these unhealthy divisions. And yet, it is also a confession of the truth to which we cling. It demonstrates integrity, even when social pressure tempts us to cave in for the sake of a false unity. St. Paul even tells us such divisions among Christians have a purpose – to give us an opportunity to confess the truth. The reality of this division is painful, awkward, and often hampers the Gospel. The root of the problem is sin – and we can’t undo a thousand years of disunity by putting our heads in the sand and pretending we all confess the same thing. When Christians lack integrity, it does even more damage to the Gospel than does disunity. Sin – our own sins as well as the sins of our fathers – has placed us into unenviable circumstances.

But we can take comfort in the fact that not even our current multiplicity of denominations can truly destroy the church’s unity. Though she is racked with error, with bad doctrine, with scandal, with division, in short, though she is awash in sin, she still confesses one Lord, one Baptism, one holy catholic and apostolic Church. As our Lutheran confessions put it, the churchly unity that Jesus refers to doesn’t mean having the same name, the same bureaucratic structure, the same pope, the same synodical president, or the same patriarch – rather the oneness of the church refers to the proclamation of the Gospel and the right administration of the sacraments.

This is not to say that we should give up on all theological discussions to bring about unity - not at all. We should enter fellowship where we have agreement, and we should keep talking where we don’t. Where we confess the same thing, we should rejoice, and where we differ, we must have the integrity to acknowledge it. Some accuse our synod of being isolationist – and there is probably some truth to the charge (this too is a result of our sinful nature). However, many people don’t realize that the Missouri Synod is in fellowship with more than forty different church bodies. We are constantly dialoguing with churches all over the world. This summer, pending a vote in convention, we will unite in fellowship with our Lutheran brethren in Kenya. Such worldwide unity is essential to carry out the Great Commission. We must work hard to forge agreements with those who confess as we do. We must realize that division in our churches is a scandal. It does interfere with the Gospel. It’s part of our mission as a church body to strive for unity with more and more church bodies for the sake of the Gospel.

On the other hand, we must avoid the temptation to seek unity above the truth. When church bodies prioritize themselves to serve unity before truth, they quickly surrender the Way, the Truth, and the Life for a false sense of unity. Unity like this is a self-serving fraud that does not confess, does not stand for the truth – the Truth which ultimately, is Jesus himself. For we confess with Jesus that our faith is apostolic – it is a confession. It cannot be changed at will to make it more friendly for unity.

In the last generation we’ve seen what a watered-down confession has done to the faithful. When for the sake of unity and popularity churches began to downplay the Scriptures, to ordain women, to waffle on the issues of sex and marriage, to trade in the biblical liturgy for entertainment, to replace confessional hymns with toe-tapping ditties – we’ve seen a degeneration of the faith. Within a generation of these experiments, formerly faithful denominations have seminaries teaching that the resurrection is a myth, we’ve seen male and female bishops arguing that Jesus and the apostles may well have been homosexuals. We have churches which call themselves Lutheran paying for the abortions of their own priestesses – while congratulating themselves on the unity they have achieved with other denominations. Unity is too expensive if the price tag is the very faith itself. As important as unity is, it is less important than obedience to our Lord and integrity of confession – even if it divides us.

And so our Lord’s prayer is both troublesome and comforting. It is disturbing insofar as it shows our shortcomings as his people. When we meditate on our Lord’s fervent prayer for unity in the Church for the sake of the Gospel, we can only hang our heads in shame. Our own sin has resulted in this mess. When we have deviated from the apostolic witness, we have created division. We Lutherans, who rally around Scripture and the Book of Concord (a word which means “agreement”), are today shattered into dozens of church bodies. In our own church body, we have all sorts of factions, each with its own newsletter, newspaper, website, and free conferences. We have political conventions complete with campaigning and arm-twisting. Dear friends, does this advance the Gospel? When we consider our own church body’s disunity, we should hopefully see Law in our Lord’s call for unity. We should see our own sins, be driven to the cross, plead for forgiveness from God, and seek reconciliation with our brothers in our synod.

But at the same time, such reconciliation must be a true reconciliation, a true unity of confession and expression of the faith, not merely a bureaucratic procedure that gags discussion and leaves crucial questions of doctrine unanswered.

But our Lord’s prayer is not predominantly Law. Not by a long shot. For the Lord’s prayer for unity among Christians is not simply something our Lord orders us to do, and then berates us for our failure to do it. Instead, we see that the unity of the Church is being driven by God the Father, who dwells in the Son, who in turn dwells in the Church. Our Lord tells us we have been gifted with his glory – the same glory of God which led the people of Israel out of bondage, the same glory of God which radiated from the resurrected body of our Lord Jesus Christ, blazing into the universe and conquering death. In spite of our sin, the Lord’s glory is given to the Church through his Son. We are to strive to be faithful and obedient, trusting in his Word, confessing doctrine correctly, and living a life motivated by Christian love.

Living a life motivated by Christian love is a hot topic today – with books and Bible studies about living a “purpose driven life.” People are hungry for the sense of community and service that is missing from our current “me first” culture. But the kind of love Jesus speaks of – the familiar Greek word “agape” – isn’t something that can be achieved by pop-psychology and law-driven programs. Life cannot be driven by a purpose, rather it is driven by the Gospel, fueled by the forgiving blood of our Lord, given physically to us in the Lord’s Supper, with our eyes focused on the cross. Living a life of love is about the forgiveness that wells up in us and, like the cup of the twenty-third psalm, running over, spilling out into the lives of those around us.

This, dear brothers and sisters, can’t be achieved by reading a self-help book or by whipping ourselves up into an emotional frenzy with trendy slogans and fads. Rather, we live out a life of love – the kind of love that Jesus tells us in our text is a testimony of both himself and his Father – by ordinary means. You don’t have to join the green berets to be a hero – you are a hero when you spend time with your children. You don’t have to start a religious order in India and devote your life to the poor, by simply committing to give a certain amount of your resources to the Lord’s work, no matter how humble, no matter how unnoticed by anyone else, you are allowing the Lord to dwell in you, just as Jesus prays. When you conduct your work and business with honor and integrity, when you go the extra mile to help a client or customer, when you smile at a stranger on the street, or offer consolation to someone who is grieving, you are testifying before all the world, the hope that is in you. The Lord daily provides us opportunities to demonstrate this “agape” love as a testimony to our Lord, as a way of overriding the disunion of the Church with the unity that comes from serving our one Lord by virtue of our one baptism in the one faith – as Jesus prays to his Father, “so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

If the Church is ever to be reunited on this side of the grave, the Lord will bring it about in his way and in his time. This is of great comfort to us, the imperfect, the divided, and yet forgiven and still “one holy catholic and apostolic Church. For the unity of the Church isn’t about us, but rather about our victorious, resurrected Lord, who forgives us all our sins. And so, it is the Church’s prayer and song:

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ, her Lord;
She is his new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia.

Sermon: Easter 5

9 May 2004 at Holy Trinity L.C., Columbia, SC (Vicarage)
Text: John 13:31-35 (RCL)

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.

In today’s very short Gospel text, Jesus speaks volumes. But he uses two words that are terribly misunderstood by the world, especially by our culture. Jesus speaks of “glory” and “love.”

By the world’s standards, “glory” is about winners and losers. “Glory” is scoring the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, and is punctuated by a dance in the end zone in the faces of your defeated opponents. “Glory” is hearing Donald Trump say “you’re hired!” after hearing your foes condemned with “you’re fired!” week after week. “Glory” is winning the American Idol singing contest, while all of the other contestants have been sent packing by the wisecracking judge in the black t-shirt. “Glory” is winning a war and expressing the glory of victory by torturing and humiliating the captured enemy prisoners. “Glory” is about winning, and is also about lording over the loser.

But is this the kind of “glory” Jesus speaks of? Jesus speaks these words only moments after his last supper, moments after Judas has departed to betray him. The passion has just officially begun, and this is what Jesus means by “glory.” In a few days, Jesus will be arrested, made sport of, stripped, beaten, and executed to the jeers of the crowd. When Jesus speaks here of glory, he is not speaking of being worshiped by the magi, nor by having the voice of God sound forth at his baptism, nor of his transfiguration, nor even of his resurrection. Jesus is calling his passion, crucifixion, and death: “glorification.”

This is why St. Paul tells us the preaching of Christ crucified is “foolishness” to the rational and worldly Greeks. In the eyes of the world, this is insanity.

One of my classmates at the seminary, a Russian pastor, was a Christian during Soviet times. He had to carry around humiliating papers identifying him as mentally ill. He was sent to “treatment” and was discriminated against in housing and employment. Christianity was seen as foolishness since the glorious triumph of Marxism. Thankfully, the foolishness of the cross has triumphed over the “glory” of Communism in Russia.

But even here in America, the glorious land of capitalism and prosperity, Christianity is seen as foolishness. A psychiatrist named George Dvorsky is pushing the mental health profession to define “religious fundamentalism” as a “psychological disorder.” He defines “fundamentalism” as the kind of Christianity that believes in Creationism and confesses Scripture as truly the Word of God, that Jesus was actually and physically resurrected from the dead, and that there is truly an afterlife of heaven and hell. Such people are dangerous, the kind of people who fly planes into skyscrapers, and should be given treatment for their disorder for the good of society.

This illustrates the incompatibility of Christianity with our culture, the kingdom of heaven vs. the kingdom of the world. The great writer C.S. Lewis argued that Jesus is either “Lord, liar, or lunatic.” We Christians see him as Lord; the world sees him as a liar or lunatic. It makes no rational sense that a painful, humiliating death should be “glory.” When the secular world’s eyes gaze upon a crucifix, they see a “loser,” not “glory.”

But when Jesus speaks of “glory,” he speaks of his Father. “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” God the Father is glorified by the obedience of the Son. The cross is glorious because, in spite of its appearance, it is a glorious victory. By death, death is defeated. By becoming sin for us, sin is defeated. By carrying out the cleansing will of the Father, the filthy work of the devil himself is overcome.

Thus the humiliated prisoner is glorified, and the gloating soldiers are defeated. The meek victim on the cross is glorified, and the mighty kings and governors are defeated. The Son of God is glorified as the father’s will is carried out, and the prince of this world is defeated, as his work has been swept away. Glory is not one man’s victory over another man, but rather God’s victory – which becomes a victory for all of us.

Jesus knows this coming glorification of himself will change the way he relates to his people in the world. “Little children, yet a little while I am with you… Where I am going you cannot come.” And yet, he still promises to be with his church until he comes again, as the creed confesses, “in glory.” When Jesus returns, his glory will by no means continue to be misunderstood by the world. Meanwhile, while we await his coming, Jesus remains with us in his seemingly inglorious Word and Sacraments. His glory is veiled from the world, but made manifest to those who confess him as Lord.

And the glory of Jesus is to be displayed to the world by his church. “People will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Here is where Jesus reveals the true nature of glory: it is rooted in love. The world’s view of glory is self-centered. It is an exultation of oneself, usually accompanied by the degradation of others. One can’t be on a pedestal unless others are on a lower level. There can be no winners without losers. But Jesus points us to the glory of love, a glory that manifests itself not in winning, but in serving. As he told his disciples only moments before: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant.”

And like the world’s notion of “glory,” the world’s understanding of “love” is also rooted in self-worship. This is especially apparent with the debates over marriage. It is no longer viewed by the world as an institution we have received from our ancestors and from God, rooted in nature, and focused on raising children, rather it is seen as a “lifestyle choice.” It is treated as our own personal property to be redefined as we wish. No longer is sexual love restricted to married men and women, it is now a form of casual recreation, not only extended to non-married men and women, but also to people of the same sex. The primary goal of marriage is no longer love, commitment, and procreation, but rather a selfish union of incomes and a mutual pursuit of personal fulfillment. It’s no wonder half of today’s marriages fail.

But Jesus speaks of a different kind of love here – not the kind of love between husband and wife, between friends, for country, or even for ideals of goodness and truth. Rather Jesus speaks of the kind of love he demonstrates in his glorification: a divine love that drives a man to lay down his life for his friends. It is the kind of love that impels a parent to enter a burning building to save a child. It is the kind of love that throws all caution to the wind, and doesn’t count the cost. It’s the kind of love that is not understood by a world wrapped up in itself, in its “right to choose,” in its “lifestyle choices,” in its winner-take-all mentality. In fact, such love as Christ preaches and lives out is seen as insane, as a mental disorder, as foolishness.

And yet, Jesus uses strong language – “a new commandment” – to describe the Christian approach to glory and love. We are to glory only in our Lord’s cross, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to follow in the steps of our savior, and yet we know that ultimately, where he goes “we cannot come.” We cannot love perfectly, nor can we cut ourselves off from the world’s sense of glory. And yet in spite of our shortcomings, we take up our crosses and we follow. We know that any love we display is actually not our own, but rather the love of God that dwells in us by virtue of our baptism. We know that any glory we display is only reflected light from the glorious face of our Lord.

So, dear Christian friends, let us live and die with Christ, and let us rise again with Christ. Let us glorify our crucified Lord, and let us allow his love to continue to do the Father’s will in re-creating a new heaven and a new earth – using us, his humble and inglorious creatures, to bring that truly glorious love, to a misunderstanding and broken world.

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

Sermon: Easter 3

25 April 2004 at Holy Trinity L.C., Columbia, SC (Vicarage)
Text: John 21:1-19 (RCL)

Christ is risen, he is risen indeed! Alleluia!

At the risk of making every belly in the sanctuary grumble, today’s Gospel text makes it necessary to talk about food. The disciples are fishing – not for a day of relaxation and recreation, but rather they are working the night shift in their small business: fishing in order to supply the market with food.

The risen Jesus appears to them from the shore, and gives them a suggestion as to how to increase their yield. Jesus is repeating the first miracle that Peter was ever to see Jesus perform, telling Peter to cast his nets on the other side. This divine déjà-vu reveals to the disciples that this mysterious figure on the shore is the risen Jesus. Out of respect for the Lord, Peter dresses himself modestly and dives into the water to meet Jesus. By the time Peter and his associates have brought their bulging net with 153 fish back to the beach, Jesus has already fired up the grill and invites the disciples to have breakfast with him.

And notice that Jesus not only issues the invitation to eat with him, Jesus himself serves the bread and the flesh of the fish with his own hands: “Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them.” John calls this sharing of this Lord’s meal a “revelation” – as this was the third time that the resurrected Jesus “was revealed” to the disciples. The grammar in this sentence is not an accident – it makes it very clear that this revealing, this revelation, was carried out by God himself. Notice that the sentence has no subject. Biblical writers do what our composition teachers tell us not to do – write sentences without subjects – as a way of telling us the subject is God. God does the revealing. The disciples only receive what God has revealed in Jesus’s sharing of the meal with them. Just as when we discern the Lord’s Body and Blood, we do so because God himself reveals this reality to us in the meal we share with Jesus. Every Lord’s Supper is a revelation of God, a revealing to us something that remains hidden to those outside the church.

Now, if all this food-talk were not enough, the Evangelist next tells us about a conversation Jesus has with Peter right after breakfast. This conversation has to do with food. Jesus tells him to feed his sheep. Jesus uses food as a metaphor for Peter’s work as a pastor. With all of this talk of food, do you suppose St. John is up to something – something other than making us all think about what we’re going to eat after church today?

John is the same evangelist who spends a good bit of time quoting Jesus when he calls himself the Bread of Life. In his Gospel and his other New Testament books, John attacks those who claim Jesus is only a spirit, as opposed to being a true, flesh and blood man. John is the evangelist who quotes Jesus’s shocking and scandalous quote that whoever would be a follower of our Lord must eat his flesh and drink his blood – a sermon that would cost Jesus a 30% decrease in his congregation. (Fortunately, Jesus didn’t have district and synodical officials to call his attention to more successful church growth strategies.)

St. John overwhelms us with presenting Jesus as more than a spirit, more than a rabbi, more than a philosopher. John presents Jesus to us in no uncertain terms as God who is in the flesh. And the greatest way to prove your solidarity, your “realness” with the people around you is to join them in a meal. Jesus routinely eats with human beings. He does what no spirit does – he puts food in his mouth, chews, swallows, and digests. He does what no ancient pagan god does – he walks up to a table and sits down to a meal – not only with pious religious folks, but also with thieves and prostitutes. Jesus eats, he weeps, he gets angry, he speaks, he listens, he bleeds, he dies. He does what every mortal does. He also goes beyond mortality by rising from the dead. And yet, even the risen Christ is still human, still one of us. He proves this by continuing to sit at table with mortals and puts cooked meat, the flesh of a fish, into his mouth, chews, and digests – thus continuing to bring creation itself into the Godhead.

And we Christians continue to bring the Godhead into ourselves, as we eat the flesh of our Lord, who continues to come to table with us mortals, with us sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, and thieves. Jesus eats with us, and also “feeds his sheep” through the ministrations of the men who are called and ordained, like Peter, to render this service. Jesus is the Lamb of God, who feeds his sheep. He is the Good Shepherd who takes care of his flock with “under-shepherds” like Peter, like all pastors, who feed and care for Jesus’s precious lambs. The word “pastor” means literally a shepherd. This is why bishops of the church are often seen with a curved pole called a crosier. Although they tend to be fancy, they are a ceremonial reminder of the common shepherd’s crook, a hooked stick used by shepherds to herd the sheep. Every bishop, every pastor, is given the same charge as St. Peter, to tend Jesus’s lambs and to feed Jesus’s sheep.

Pastors feed the sheep with the Word of God – just as St. John was instructed to eat the scroll in the Book of Revelation. As God himself revealed to Moses, we are fed “not by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” Our pastors also feed us the Lord’s Body and Blood, inviting us on our Lord’s behalf to: “take eat, take drink.”

Just as the fall of man came about by eating, so also our redemption comes to us by eating. Just as the Book of Genesis opens with a food-laden Paradise, so the Book of Revelation closes with a New Jerusalem, a new promised land rich in luscious fruit, centered on the Tree of Life – from which we will eat with God and the Lamb for all eternity.

In this private encounter with Peter, Jesus has forgiven Peter’s sin of denying his Lord. The threefold nature of Jesus’s question: “Do you love me” reminds Peter of his painful threefold betrayal. Like Judas, Peter’s faith was shaken. Using the weapon of fear, Satan had gotten his way with Peter. But unlike that of Judas, Peter’s faith is restored to him. Although Peter sinned, he never stopped believing. Although his faith was a dimly burning wick, our Lord did not blow it out, but rather fanned the flame, reigniting Peter’s faith, allowing him to confess and to receive the Gospel anew. Peter is renewed, and Jesus restores his ministry. Once again, Jesus invites Peter to service as a disciple and as an apostle: “Follow me.”

And with this invitation, with this fanning of the flame, comes a cross. For while Peter saved his own hide during our Lord’s passion, there would come a passion of his own, and a cross awaiting Peter later on. This doesn’t only apply to St. Peter. For in our first lesson, the Lord says regarding St. Paul: “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

The life of the Christian – and especially the life of a Christian shepherd – is a life lived out under the burden of the cross. To take up Jesus’s invitation “follow me” is to end up like Jesus at Golgotha, and from there, into a tomb.

But let us never forget that the pain and shame of the cross do not have the final say. Death doesn’t get the last word. For this very lesson was taught to Peter, to all pastors, and to all Christians, from the mouth of the resurrected Christ. Just as a cross awaits all of us in life, and death itself waits for us at the end of our own walk through our own versions of the passion, our own stations of the cross – let us keep in mind that a resurrection lies on the other side. And as St. John testifies in our second lesson, part and parcel of this resurrection is a feast, a feast of victory, in which we join (today, and forever) the thousands of thousands, the myriads of myriads, the church militant on earth, the church triumphant in heaven, angels, archangels, and all the hosts of heaven singing: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”

This is the feast of victory for our God, alleluia, now, and in the age to come, world without end. Amen.

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