Re-forming

Reformation Sunday, 10/26/14
John 8:31-36; Romans 3:19-28; Jeremiah 31:31-34

God of new covenants, help us to know you, forgive our iniquity, and remember our sin no more. Amen.

Tradition:  the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice. (www.dictionary.com)

What are some of the traditions that you observe in your life?

Really, go ahead and shout them out.

Holiday meals, praying before meals, going to church, special foods…

In addition to those, there are some more basic traditions that are part of our society, that most of us follow without even thinking about them.

Do you celebrate birthdays with candles and cake?

If you’re married, do you wear a ring on your left hand?

The last time you went dancing, did the man lead?

This is the time of the year when we start to prepare for some of our favorite holiday traditions.

But before the holiday season really begins, we have the chance to celebrate Reformation Sunday. This is an opportunity for us to reflect on all of our traditions, and why it is that we actually do them.

We'll focus for now on traditions that happen at church. 

In the church, we have lots of traditions.

Communion and Baptism.

The words of the liturgy, the order of worship.

Having worship on Sunday to begin with.

The order of the books of the Bible.

There are reasons behind each one of these traditions in the church, and there are reasons to continue observing many of them. But the church does not exist for the sake of tradition – our traditions are simply some of the ways that we’ve used throughout history to share the message of the Gospel with the world.

On Reformation Sunday, we remember what happens when we begin to revere our traditions so much that they become what defines us, rather than the Gospel.

About 500 years ago, the church was so steeped in inflexible traditions that many Christians felt oppressed by the requirements to follow all the rules.

People were taught that they had to observe   every    single    tradition    in order to earn their way into heaven. As you can imagine, people had a hard time keeping up. They did the best that they could, but they always fell short of the expectations. What would happen if a child was sick on a holy day of obligation – or if a person forgot to confess a lustful thought before receiving Communion – or if a family didn’t have enough money to pay for the proper prayers to be said for their loved one who had died?

Would God keep people out of heaven just because someone failed to follow through on their religious obligation one time?

Those questions are what started our Lutheran denomination. Martin Luther knew that he could not possibly fulfill the entire law prescribed by the Church. He tried, but he continually failed.

And finally he realized the truth of the words we heard in the second lesson today: we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. (Romans 3:28)

In other words, according to Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, we can’t earn our way into heaven by completing lots of good works and following all the traditions of the church.

Instead, God chooses to save each one of us.

As a sign of our thanksgiving for God’s grace, we choose to follow the law of God as closely as we are possibly able, asking forgiveness for the times we fail.

When he realized that salvation is completely in God’s hands, all of a sudden Martin Luther felt free from the laws and the centuries worth of traditions that had been bogging him down!

But he didn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Luther had a very strong faith, and he had felt the presence of God in his life many times. He didn’t want to stop being Christian altogether, he just wanted to reform the church of his day – to give Christians a new focus on God’s grace, instead of on the legalism of religious obligations.

So Martin Luther asked a question that continues to form our church today.

Why do we do what we do?

Where did these traditions come from, anyway?

Is it important or not for us to continue observing these practices?

If our traditions have meaning – if they show the love and grace of God to us – if they help us in our mission to share the Gospel of Christ – then by all means, keep doing them!

But if our traditions are no longer life-giving, if they are simply laws that must be followed to the point at which we feel oppressed,   then maybe we need to reassess the tradition. Maybe we need to do away with it altogether, or maybe we need to update it for our current place in life.

As Lutherans, we keep those traditions that have meaning, knowing why we do them. But we are free to leave behind those traditions that no longer have relevance to us, and that no longer remind us of God’s grace.

For example.

We read the Bible in worship, very time we gather.

Why? Does the Bible change? Of course not. That’s one of the great things about the Word of God – it remains the same.

But we change. And when our lives change, the ways that God interacts with us change also. The Bible can speak to us in new ways as we encounter new adventures in life. So each time you come to church, you hear the Word of God for you that day.

The text of the Bible remains the same, but the meaning may be different from week to week or year to year. And so we continue the tradition of reading it in worship, every time we gather. It helps us remained focused on the Gospel.

As Lutherans, we keep those traditions that have meaning, knowing why we do them.

But there are also traditions of the church that Lutherans have set aside. There are some ancient practices of the church that we choose not to observe any more.

For example.

We do not venerate relics. Relics are pieces of hair, wood, bones, fingernails – anything with a connection to a sacred person or place.

For centuries, the veneration of relics was an important piece of Christian worship. Many altars in churches were built around these tiny pieces of the saints – maybe you’ve visited one of those old churches, and seen the dedications to the saints whose remains are contained there.

We as Lutherans do not build our churches around the relics of the saints.

500 years after the Protestant Reformation, most of us find this practice to be utterly foreign, even a little strange. This is one tradition that our predecessors in faith determined to be a distraction from the Gospel, so they decided to leave the veneration of relics out as they were developing the Lutheran church of today.

Lutherans keep some traditions and let some fall by the wayside.

Our denomination began during the Reformation.

It is the most    Lutheran    thing    ever     to be constantly re-forming, to be re-evaluating our practices and why we do them.

We should never choose to do something just because that’s the way we’ve always done it. 

Traditions have meaning and they can help us grow in faith – that’s why we follow them. But if a tradition does not serve these purposes any more, it just might be time to update it for a new time and place, or to stop following it altogether.

Many of our traditions have changed over time.

For example.

When you have people over for dinner, do you eat first, or do you serve your guests first? In today’s culture, we usually think that it’s polite for the host to eat last, to make sure that the guests have enough. But in a different time and place, it was considered polite for the host to eat first, as a way to show that the food wasn’t poisoned or otherwise unsafe.

Our practices about Communion have followed the same protocol. Pastors and priests used to always serve themselves before serving the congregation, so that the people would know the food was safe. Now many pastors choose to eat last, to make sure that the congregation has enough before partaking of the meal ourselves.

        

So how do we know what traditions to continue, and which to change, and which to throw by the wayside?

500 years ago, the church frequently got in the way of people having a meaningful relationship with God.

Based on that measure, Luther spoke out against the current practices in the church – he protested, trying to reform the church at the time – so that the church would become a place where people heard about the Gospel rather than a place where people felt constantly inadequate.

When do our churches and our traditions get in the way of people having a meaningful relationship with God?

If our traditions are based on fear of punishment, like they were in the church of Luther’s time – if our traditions do not bring us closer to God, then we need to reconsider why we do them.

Martin Luther would be shocked by what I’m about to say, but hey – things have changed in the past 500 years, and unlike Luther, I don’t happen to believe that the Pope is the antichrist.

The current Pope has some good wisdom for us today. (And Luther rolls over in his grave.)

Pope Francis tell us, God is not afraid of new things.

God can handle change just fine – God has seen a lot of changes over the years, and God has gotten though each one of them unscathed.

         God is not afraid of new things.

So why should we be?

Let me share one more example of how some traditions are helpful and some need to be re-formed.

Some of us have kept a family baptismal gown from a grandmother or great-grandfather. This gown gets passed through the generations as each new baby wears it for their baptism. That is a good tradition. It connects family and church, and reminds us of God in tangible ways.

But most of us don’t keep our grandmother’s or great-grandfather’s diapers for our children to wear. Seriously. Some things are just not worth keeping. They serve their purpose for a time, and do it well – but when their purpose is over, it’s time to move on to a new practice, a new tradition.

That’s the message of Reformation Sunday. Continue in God’s word, follow the truth, and you will be made free – free from the legalistic obligations that can bog us down, free to observe those traditions that are life-giving, and free to follow God wholeheartedly.

Our Christian faith is not about earning salvation – Jesus has already taken care of that. 

Our Christian faith is about thanking God for our salvation by drawing closer in relationship to God.

Our traditions can often help us do that, but sometimes they keep us separate from one another or from God. As Lutherans, we can follow in the tradition of the founder of our faith, keeping those traditions that are life-giving, but discarding the ones that are hurtful.

Our faith, and our church, are continually re-forming.

God is continually speaking to us in ways both new and old.

Thanks be to God. 

Amen.

What Is God's

Pentecost 19A, 10/19/14
Matthew 22:15-22; Psalm 96

Lord, you are great, and greatly to be praised. Help us declare your glory among the nations and your marvelous works among all peoples. Judge us with righteousness and truth. Amen.

Show me the coin used for paying the tax. Whose image is on the money?

In Jesus’ day, the picture was of Caesar, the reigning ruler of nearly all the known world.

Today, our money carries the images of a bunch of dead presidents, unless you’re carrying around a Sacagawea or Susan B. Anthony dollar, or maybe a Benjamin bill – and if you happen to have one of those in your back pocket, you are most welcome to put it in our offering plate!

In any case, the pictures on our money are still representative of our nation, with pictures of historic leaders on them. We can’t literally give our money to those people. 

But the symbolism of our money is the same as it was in Jesus’ day.

If pressed, we would have to give the same answer to Jesus that the Pharisees and Herodians did – the government’s image is on the money.

It’s got someone else’s face on it.

It doesn’t belong to us.

Let’s take the question a little further, though.

It sounds like the Pharisees and Herodians were trying to get Jesus to say something about giving the money to God instead of to the corrupt government. But Jesus doesn’t take the bait.

Why not?

Consistently, throughout Jesus’ ministry, he raises up the importance of worshipping God and caring for others, even when that means breaking the rules.

So why get all legalistic about paying taxes to the government now?

Perhaps another way to ask the question is this: if Jesus doesn’t tell us to give the money with the image on the emperor on it to God, what does Jesus tell us to give to God?

The second half of his command to the Pharisees and Herodians today is give to God what is God’s.

What is it that bears the image of God? What truly belongs to God in the first place? What needs to be returned to the one who made it?

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

(Genesis 1:26-27)

God’s image is on you.

And Jesus’ command is to give to God what is God’s.

If we’re supposed to give things with the ruler’s image on it back to the ruler, the logical next step is that we are also supposed to give what has God’s image on it back to God.

Today’s conversation between Jesus and the secular leaders is a call to discipleship; it’s a directive to give everything that you have and everything that you are over to God.

Look at yourself the mirror.

I brought a mirror today – so really – look into the mirror.

Whose image do you see?

Do you look like the president or the governor or Bill Gates or Donald Trump? No. 

And whoever has to look at you most often probably thinks that’s a good thing.

You don’t look like a world leader.

You look like God. And so does the person next to you.

Actually, take a look at the person next to you. As you look at them, carry this thought with you – that is what God looks like. OK, now turn to someone else and look at them. That is what God looks like, too.

The Bible tells us that every time you look in the mirror, or every time you look at another person, you are seeing the image of God.

Today Jesus asks the people to give to Caesar the things that bear Caesar’s image – and to give to God the things that bear God’s image. So each one of you is being asked today to give to God what carries God's image - YOU.     

Whose image is on you?

God’s image is on you.

So give to God what is God’s.

The call to action for us today is to give our lives back to the one who gave them to us in the first place.

In order to be faithful, to live the Christian life, to be a good disciple, there are a few things that we need to do. Following Jesus is an active thing – it’s not something we can do by just staying in these familiar pews at church.

Discipleship isn’t about believing the right things – it’s not about knowing the Bible or reciting the creed or having faith that Jesus died for our sins.

Discipleship is active. It permeates every area of our life. It directs how we behave when someone cuts us off in traffic or is rude to us in the grocery store. It informs our relationships with our family and friends. It guides us in the best ways to spend our money.

Discipleship can be practiced inside the church, but it fails if it stays there. Discipleship means following Jesus, for the sake of the world.

Let me say that again, because that is important.

Discipleship means following Jesus, for the sake of the world.

This congregation should care deeply about what discipleship means – not just because it’s another name for Christian living, but because we refer to it in our mission statement:

We are a caring community empowered by God to be disciples of Christ.

Discipleship is more than coming to worship and signing your kids up for Confirmation and volunteering with Altar Guild and singing with the choir.

         Discipleship is about giving to God what is God’s.

Jesus wants us to give him our best when we are going about our daily life.

So what can you do to give your best to Jesus?

How can you be the best husband possible, to honor God? How can you be the best nurse, or caregiver, or student, or gardener, or grandmother? How do your daily actions tell the world that you are a follower of Jesus?

I’m not talking about converting people here.

Sure, we want more people to become Christians – part of the instruction that Jesus gives us is to spread the Gospel to all nations.

But the best way to do this is to lead by example.

No one is interested in joining a religion that doesn’t really seem to matter to its own adherents.

How can you best give yourself to God?

Reflect on that for a bit.

pause

Think about the ways that you can give back to God the things that are God’s, in your relationships with other people. Think about how you can do that at your job or in your household or as a member of your community.

Now I’d invite you to take one of the offering envelopes and a pencil from the pew in front of you, and actually write on it what you think you can give back to God in your daily life.

We just ordered new offering envelopes – they’re more up-to-date and less expensive than the ones in the pews right now – so don’t worry about using up the old ones. It’s probably a good thing, actually.

If you’re worried about someone else seeing what you write, just put something on the inside flap of the envelope. You can seal it if you want.

In a few minutes when the ushers come by to collect the monetary offerings that folks have brought today, please also put these envelopes with your personal offering into the plate.

You can keep thinking about it, and write something down later if you want to. While you’re thinking, I’ve got just a few more things to say this morning.

One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 24:

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it.

The Bible constantly tells us that everything that exists belongs to God in the first place, including our selves.

Jesus is reminding us today to return to God those things that already rightly belong to God.

Jesus is calling us to be disciples, that is, to be those people who give back to God even when it isn’t easy to do so.

A few weeks ago many of us filled out Spiritual Gifts Inventories as part of worship. We answered 60 questions that could help indicate what our gifts are, and how we can best serve God with our lives.

I’d like to use those forms to get some ideas on where our congregation’s ministry can grow. If half of us have a gift for writing, for example, but we don’t offer you any opportunities to put that gift to use, we’re selling short both you and God.

But we haven’t had enough responses to make those kinds of discoveries yet.

So please, if you haven’t filled out a Spiritual Gifts Assessment, grab one on your way out of church, fill it out, and bring it back next time you’re here. There are stacks available at the doors at the back of the church, and in the room where we’ll be meeting for coffee hour after worship, if you can stay.

Our secretary, Jaye, is compiling the results of the inventories, and once we have a few more responses, we can discover some ways that God is actually empowering us, as a community, to live as disciples of Christ.

Discipleship means following Jesus, for the sake of the world.

Discipleship isn’t about your own salvation, or about keeping the church doors open, or even about growing your personal relationship with God.

It’s about giving to God what is God’s

Discipleship makes a difference in the world.

So let’s work together, as individuals and as a congregation, to follow Jesus’ lead and make a difference in the world.

And may God bless our efforts.

Amen.

High Stakes

Pentecost 18A, 10/12/14
Matthew 22:1-14 (and Philippians 4:1-9)

God of truth, honor, and justice; God of purity, commendation, and excellence; help us to stand firm in you. Give us your peace. In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Have you ever told a story in order to prove a point, and stretched the truth just a little to make your point more firmly?

That ref must have never watched a football game before, every single play he called was wrong!

Well, really, he probably only messed up once or twice, but if it was on an important play, it would seem like he was wrong more often than that.

We went to the amusement park and the line for every ride was at least two hours long!

Well, no, the unpopular rides probably still had short lines or no lines at all, but you’re making the point that the park was unusually crowded.

She hasn’t slept more than an hour at a time since the baby was born.

OK, maybe that one’s not an exaggeration, depending on how demanding the newborn baby is.

The Horse and His Boy is  one of the Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis, which are some of my favorite books. One of the characters in that book is telling her servants about the importance of keeping a particular secret, and this is how she threatens them:

“No one is to be let out of the house today. And anyone I catch talking about this young lady will be first beaten to death and then burned alive and after that be kept on bread and water for six weeks. There.”

– Lasaraleen in The Horse and His Boy, by CS Lewis, p.106

Today’s parable from Jesus is just as absurd as these exaggerations.

The king invites a bunch of guests to a banquet in celebration of his son’s wedding, but no one comes.

Really? Who ignores a royal summons?

And then the king sends out slaves to encourage the guests to come with delightful descriptions of the feast that is ready and waiting, but the guests aren’t impressed.

         Hey – free food! Do you really think no one would be tempted by that?

         At least a teenager or two would find their way in, wouldn’t they?

But they didn’t, apparently. And then the people who were invited decide to kill the messengers.

Whoa. That’s a pretty severe reaction. I mean, I’m no expert – well, I do watch a lot of CSI, but I don’t have a lot of personal experience with this… I’d imagine that it’s more work to kill someone and clean yourself up afterwards than just to go to the banquet and eat the free food. Why go to the extra trouble of killing the king’s slaves?

In response to the murder of a few of his slaves, the king goes to war against the people – his people – and burns their city – his city. This doesn’t sound like a good policy for a king to follow if he wants to keep his throne.

Well, apparently after his subjects killed some of the slaves, and the king killed many of his subjects and burned their city, there were still folks left roaming the smoke-filled streets. The king still had a full staff of other slaves he could send out to invite people in from the main streets to join in the feast – the feast that apparently had been sitting in Nescos to stay warm while the war was raging and the city was burning.  

If it was so important to have people at this feast, why didn’t the king just feed it to his soldiers? It would have saved him a whole bunch of trouble.

But the point isn’t what would make sense for a rational person to do. The point is that this parable is absurd and unbelievable.

I don’t know whether Jesus was trying to exaggerate the violence of the people, or the power of the king, or the importance of the feast, or what. This is a confusing parable on many levels.

But what I do know is that Jesus was not trying to tell a believable tale here. His listeners are supposed to understand that this situation is ridiculous.

And just like when we tell ridiculous stories, and exaggerate the details in order to make a point, Jesus is trying to make a point in the parable today.

Or, since it’s a parable, there might be several layers of meaning and many different points that Jesus is making by telling this story.

But for today, let’s just focus on one of those points.

What is your commitment to God, really?

Jesus is at the end of his ministry.

In Matthew, chapter 21, shortly before today’s reading, Jesus entered Jerusalem to the shouts of Hosanna, while people laid down coats and tree branches to prepare a way for his triumphal entry into the city.

Through this chapter of Matthew, and on into chapters 23, 24, and 25, Jesus continues some pretty serious teaching. He’s not particularly nice here – his teaching gets more pointed at the end of his life, it includes more imperatives to renew your relationship with God. Jesus emphasizes the life-or-death importance of faith.

In Matthew chapter 26, Jesus shares his last meal with his disciples, then is arrested.

So today’s parable comes just a few days before Jesus will be arrested and put to death. He knows that the powers that be are drawing closer and preparing to punish him. He has predicted his own death and told his disciples about it.

Which means that the disciples have heard about what’s at stake, and they should have some idea of what’s about to happen – even if they don’t like it, they’ve heard Jesus talking about his own death a few times now. They know that the stakes in his ministry are high.

And today Jesus tells this confusing, exaggerated parable about a king giving a wedding feast for his son.

Given the context of where Jesus is at in his ministry, considering that he knows he’s at the end of his life, I think he’s returning to the beginning. He’s ready to play his hand and call the bluff of everyone else at the table.

What is your commitment to God, really?  

This is what Jesus is asking by telling today’s parable.

Jesus expects high levels of accountability from his followers.

So today’s parable asks the listener, are you ready to put your money where your mouth is?

To quote an old Elvis song, what Jesus wants is a little less conversation, a little more action, please!

If you’re really my disciple, Jesus asks, are you actually following me?

Did you drop your daily tasks to come when I invited you?

Did you listen to and respect my messengers?

Did you respond appropriately to the call to be a disciple?

Are you actually present here, at the table where God’s servants throughout time will be feasting together for eternity?

If you’re too distracted by your daily tasks, Jesus suggests – if you’re too busy to listen to the voice of God – you’d better watch out. Your priorities are confused. And there may be a price to pay if you don’t fix those priorities quickly.

In Matthew 21 and 22, Jesus teaches a lot about total commitment to God.

The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and the second is like it – to love your neighbor as yourself.

In the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus turns over the tables of the moneychangers and argues that the Temple should be re-focused on being a house of prayer.

There have been a few other confusing parables in the recent Gospel readings we’ve had the past few Sundays, and while they may be difficult to follow and even sometimes absurd like today’s story – the parables that Jesus uses here help us remember that a commitment to following Christ is what makes us a Christian.

It’s like I said in last week’s sermon – Jesus is life! The rest is just details.

So today Jesus is saying – enough with the discussion and debate! I’m calling the question. It’s time to make a decision, time to fish or cut bait.

Are you committing your entire lives to God? Will you put God’s needs before your own? Will you answer when God asks you to do something?

Or will you be like the guests in today’s parable, who ignore the invitation, make excuses, and even react violently when there’s an attempt to force them into doing something they won’t like?

That brings up a good point, really.

It may not be pleasant to follow Jesus.

There are times when it will be hard, stressful, maybe even countercultural.

But following Jesus is still the most important thing that you will ever do.

Jesus has already made all the Passion predictions in the Gospel of Matthew – before he tells this parable, he has told his disciples several times that he must suffer and die in order to fulfill his purpose on this earth.

The disciples don’t like that.

Whenever Jesus talks about his own death, sometime tries to talk him out of it.

So today Jesus changes the stakes.

You don’t really get a choice, is what the parable implies.

When God asks you to jump, you ask how high.

When there’s an opportunity to follow God – when you are invited to a free five-star meal – you go! That’s really what the appropriate response must be, both for the disciples and for us.

Today’s parable uses exaggeration and ridiculousness to make the very simple point that following God is the most important thing that we will ever do.

In just a moment we will sing about having a commitment to follow Jesus. I recommend that you think about the words, and actually pray that God would help you follow through on them.

Jesus is asking – will you come and follow me? Will you let your life be changed? Will you leave yourself behind and move ahead in faith, following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, even when it’s a little scary? Are you willing to take risks and step out of your comfort zone because of your faith?

That is what Jesus is asking us to do. Here, at the end of his life, he knows that discipleship isn’t about comfort and feeling good. It’s about sacrifice and selflessness. That is what he expects from his followers.

Let’s sing together, and pray that we will have the courage to follow where Jesus leads.

Amen.

The song we sang next was The Summons (or Will You Come and Follow Me), #798 in the hymnal Evangelical Lutheran Worship. The tune is traditional Scottish, and words are by John Bell of the Iona Community in Scotland (copyright 1987).

Thank you to Lance Pape's commentary on Working Preacher this week for much of the inspiration for this sermon! http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2204