Recent Sermons

"The Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit." - Ephesians 6:17

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

As many of you know, Judy and I recently celebrated our 40^th wedding anniversary with a trip to Holland and Germany. The goal was to visit some relatives and to do some more family research in the places where our ancestors lived. In almost every respect the trip was a wonderful experience. As it turned out, springtime is beautiful in both of those countries; the relatives, as expected, were very hospitable; and we actually made progress in our family research project. So, all in all, it was truly a copacetic experience, except for one aspect–driving on the autobahn. That’s something that I’ve usually avoided in trips to Germany, but this time it was unavoidable. Let me explain that the Germans have a wonderful and well maintained system of freeways. The problem lies in the fact that there are whole sections on this so-called "autobahn" where there is no speed limit. In other words, you can drive as fast as your vehicle will go. As a result, the Germans have developed a fondness for what might be called a "bat out of Hell" approach to driving. I find this very intimidating, though, at the same time it has its way of sucking you in. At one point I looked at the speedometer and found myself going 160 Kilometers per hour. In other words, a 100 miles an hour! This is not my normal cruising speed, but, let me tell you, there was one car after another zooming past me on my left. They were going faster than a 100 miles an hour. A few of them made noises like they were breaking some kind of sound barrier! That part of the trip was intimidating, at times confusing, and certainly stressful.

From our vantage point of today–with some billion and a half adherents of Christianity all around the world–it’s hard for us to realize how small and how localized the Christian church was at its beginning. It was just a small circle of male and female disciples, plus some of the members of Jesus’ family. It was so small that the entire group could be accommodated in the upstairs room of one Jerusalem house. Now it spans the globe, but the job is never finished. The church’s job of outreach isn’t done yet. We’re still working on it, aware that the church has the job of giving encouragement to people’s lives. There are, after all, so many discouraging things that happen all the time. But we have Good News! It’s centered in what we know about Jesus. Here we experience God in the best possible way. And we’re shown the right way to go in life, and given a basis for faith. Just like the first disciples, we too can be intimidated by surprising developments in our lives, and weighed down with confusion and stress. But also like them, we too can help promote the outreach and the ministry and the message of the faith. Amen.

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

Yogi Berra is a baseball legend in this country–both as a championship player and as a manager and coach. He’s also the grandmaster for statements of misbegotten logic and also of mangled idioms. Yogi Berra is the origin of such famous quotes as "It’s like deja-vu, all over again" and "When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it." As we begin pondering today’s Gospel reading, I’d like us to think of the following Yogi Berra quote: "You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there."

In today’s Gospel Jesus is saying goodbye to his disciples. This conversation takes place at the Last Supper. They don’t understand what he’s talking about, except that he will be leaving them. Jesus only compounds their confusion when he goes on to say, "And you know the way to the place where I am going." The disciple Thomas, who is kind of the Yogi Berra of the Twelve, immediately says to Jesus: "Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?" This, of course, gives Jesus the opportunity to make an extremely important statement of "self-definition." He says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. You come to God through me. If you know me, you will know the Father also." So here we have annunciated the basic Christian doctrine about God. We Christians know God through Jesus the Christ. He’s the way we understand God. That’s the thing that makes us different from Jews and Muslims, both of which share a lot of the same Biblical material as we Christian, but neither of whom look upon Jesus as the way to know God.

This is good to remember at a time when we are receiving new members into the church. The whole belief system of Christianity is centered on Jesus of Nazareth as the way to experience God. And that’s pretty obvious in our particular church building with all of its symbolism pointing to Jesus. We baptize people into an ongoing connection with Jesus and we feed that connection by the food of the Eucharist. We teach it and preach it. It’s the basis by which we’re connected to each other in the church and it’s the reason that we reach out in love and service and help. The way to God, the way to faith, is in and through Jesus–that’s the basic Christian affirmation.

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

Bah, bah a black sheep,

This nursery rhyme originated in England, which was once a powerhouse in the trade of the main product that comes from

sheep–wool. For hundred of years, it was known throughout

Europe that the very best wool came from England. Going back much further to ancient Israel, the raising of sheep would have been of gigantic importance to that society. The people of the Bible used sheep in three ways: some were used in the Temple worship as sacrifices and, of course, on certain holidays lamb would be served in the same way that we serve turkey or ham. But the most important use of sheep in Israel was for the making of clothing. Ninety-nine per cent of the population wore clothing made of wool. So, sheep were everywhere on the hills of Judah and the surrounding territory. Everybody would have been familiar with the care and tending of sheep. The truth being told, however, most of us now are far removed from the images of sheep and shepherd found in the Bible. Hardly any of us have first hand knowledge in this area of animal husbandry.

So, it might seem that this is one of those Biblical images that no longer speak to our generation. But, fortunately, such images can sometimes take on a life of their own, and that’s obviously true with the Biblical symbol of the shepherd. Most of us have probably learned in Sunday School or somewhere that a shepherd was a virtual life-saver for a Biblical herd of sheep. Most of the shepherds actually more or less lived with their sheep, protecting them, guiding and nurturing them. So, here we have a powerful image of care and solicitude. And by this image the Bible is saying that God is like that. More specifically, the New Testament pictures Jesus as the ultimate shepherd of our lives. This is a traditional Easter theme, and that’s why we hear about it every year on the Fourth Sunday of Easter.

Today’s text from John’s Gospel takes that message in a more specific direction. I read about a family that got a baby lamb as a pet. They named this lamb (and this is no joke), "Baa, Baa." In any case they raised the animal from its infancy until it reached adult size. But then it was too big to have around their home, and so they gave the sheep to a farmer. Sometime later the father of this family went to visit the farmer. He saw the herd of sheep out in a pasture and he called out, "Baa, Baa!" And that particular sheep came running toward the sound of a familiar voice.

In today’s Gospel Jesus says, The (shepherd) calls his own sheep by name and lead them out...and the sheep follow him because they know his voice." The implication here is that we should make sure that we listen to the voice of Jesus. There are, after all lots of competing voices competing calls for our attention. There are all the concerns of everyday life–things we have to focus on to get our work done, things we worry about and are a continuing concern. And with these competing voices some of it’s needful but some of it’s frivolous. The German philosopher Heidigger labeled this situation as "everydayness." And by that he means the everyday concerns that can and do divert our focus from the bigger picture. Jesus is the bigger picture for us as Christians. Listening to his voice leads us through life, and gives our lives a driving purpose. Having that purpose we’re certainly better equipped to deal with our everyday concerns. The bigger picture is faith. And faith is fed and nurtured by being part of a church. And, as you may know, a common synonym for "church" is the word "parish." That word comes from New Testament Greek and it means "those who travel together." A parish is those who travel together through life, listening to and being guided by the voice of the Good Shepherd. That’s a kind of shepherding that we can all understand and benefit from. Amen.

[Text: John 20:19-31]

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

Today–two weeks away from Easter itself–we’re still dealing with events from that very first day. Today’s event also happened on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. We hear of two disciples who have left the city of Jerusalem. These guys are evidently from the wider circle of Jesus’ followers and aren’t part of that inner circle known as the Twelve. We’re told the name of one of them–Cleopas–a name that doesn’t show up in the New Testament on any official lists of the Twelve. The fact that these two are followers of Jesus but not part of the inner circle is an important facet of the story. In any case, it’s Easter Day and these two guys have left the city and are walking on the road toward a village called "Emmaus." In the Aramaic language that town’s name means "warm springs." Evidently it was one of those places where thermal water bubbles up from the earth. So, maybe these two guys were headed to Emmaus to sit for a while in the First Century equivalent to the hot tub! After all, the friends of Jesus had been through a week of excruciating experiences–what with the arrest of their leader, his torture at the hands of soldiers, the grisly crucifixion, and now on this very morning there were female disciples going around saying that an angel at Jesus’ tomb told them that he was risen. These two guys had probably had all that they could take! They needed to be rejuvenated by the warm springs out at Emmaus.

And, of course, on the way there they were talking to one another about all this horrific things. As they walked along, the Resurrected Christ joined them, but they didn’t recognize him–an important point in the story. The stranger joins in their conversation and ends up holding what surely was the very first Sunday school lesson. Remember it was Sunday and the very day of Jesus’ Resurrection, when he began to explain to them various passages from what we call the Old Testament. Sounds like Sunday school to me! Later the disciples remember that they had a kind of spiritual heartburn as the stranger talked to them about these things.

Eventually the three travelers reach the destination, though Jesus seems as if he wants to keep on traveling, but the other two insist that he join them for supper. At table, inside an inn, Jesus takes the initiative in terms of the traditional Jewish table prayer. That involved taking into the hands a loaf of bread, saying the words of blessing over it, breaking the loaf, and then sharing it with everybody present. It’s at that point that the light bulb goes on in the minds of these two disciples. Kazam! It’s Jesus!

[Text: John 20:19-31]

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

The traditional Scripture for today--this Second Sunday of Easter--is the reading you just heard from the Gospel of John. It describes something that happened on the very first Easter day and then one week later. In other words, we’re dealing with a the period of time involving last Sunday and including today–two Sundays with the intervening week. That’s the time line here. We’re told that Jesus appears to the disciples on the day of his Resurrection. All of the surviving disciples are present except one–Thomas. When the others tell Thomas that they have actually seen the Risen Christ, he adamantly refuses to believe that! He won’t believe, until he’s seen with his own eyes. Thomas is a doubter.

Recently there have been a couple of popular authors who seem to delight in sowing the seeds of doubt. In fact, they quite openly proselytize for atheism. The two authors–Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins–condemn all religion, including Christianity–as the cause for much of the trouble in human history. They indict faith as being "intellectually ignorant." They argue that we’d all be a lot better off without God, but, instead, looking continually toward an ever increasing progress brought about by science. By their own admission, these two writers announce that the goal of their books is to sow doubt in the minds of believers.

So, if the truth isn’t tied to faith in God, then what is it tied to? And can truth be based on anything, if everything is relative? The two authors believe in the ongoing perfectibility of human reason, but isn’t that in itself a kind of faith statement? Who knows whether the processes of evolution will actually carry us upward and onward forever? Maybe it will go the other way! Actually, the Bible is pretty realistic in terms of the ongoing human tendency for us to get ourselves into trouble. I had a professor in seminary who said that of all the traditional doctrines, now being questioned, the one that really shouldn’t be questioned is the doctrine of sin! Actually, the whole human situation begs the question of God.

In today’s Gospel the disciple Thomas has serious doubts about the resurrection of Jesus. He says he just can’t believe it! But, a week later, Thomas is given the unique experience of seeing the resurrected Christ. So he goes from being "doubting Thomas" to "believing Thomas." He says to Jesus, "My Lord and my God!" For us Christians Jesus is the way to understand God. And that’s the truth of the matter! Having said that, are we now able to eliminate all of our problems reconciling science with faith? No, but for our kind of church it isn’t a big problem. We Lutherans understand science is to be the study of how things happen in the natural world–what they’re made of and what you can do with them. Faith, on the other hand, deals with the meaning of things. What does life mean? What does your individual life mean? Our deep-seated belief is that life’s meaning is connected to God, and we know God best in Jesus the Christ–that’s our faith. And it certainly doesn’t exclude science. Actually, in our time we need them both--faith and science. Amen.