240922 Sermon on being the greatest (Pentecost 18) September 22, 2024

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Jesus said, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”

Being recognized is a deep human need. Being recognized is when a person is accepted and appreciated for who they are. People can be recognized for all kinds of different things: “You are talented.” “You are hard working.” “You are funny.” It feels good to be recognized. Usually people cultivate their lives in such a way that they can continue to be recognized. Funny people enjoy being recognized as funny, and so they are always coming up with new bits. What do you want to be known as? Smart, successful, caring, hard-nosed, charming? You’ll do what’s necessary to continue to be known and recognized as such.

This is simply how we are. There would be no sense in trying to get rid of this impulse. We need to be accepted and appreciated. To try to do away with this would be as silly as trying to do away with sleeping, eating, or drinking. That said, the desire to be recognized can go awry.

For example, what often happens is that a person not only wants to be recognized, he or she doesn’t want others to be recognized. Let’s say a woman is pretty. Maybe she’d like to be the prettiest. That means she’d like it if nobody was even close to being as pretty as her. Or let’s say there are many children in the family. Which of them is the favorite? There can only be one favorite. To be the child that mom or dad loves most feels good. I think you can see where problems arise. Being the prettiest can bring about meanness and conceit. With favorites in families there can be lifelong resentment. It’s not hard to see how these things can be bad.

What is to be done? I think a lot of people believe nothing can be done. We have no other choice than to accept things as they are. The best will be the best and the worst will be the worst. Since that is the way things are, you should try your hardest to be the best. Then you’ll get that recognition you crave. If someone is not getting recognition, then it’s because they aren’t trying hard enough. If they tried harder, then they’d be recognized too.

This is a very powerful philosophy. It makes sense. It’s assumed to be correct. It’s everywhere. To learn something different, therefore, will require effort. You’ll have to learn new and different rules. Take Jesus’s statement in our Gospel reading. He said, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” To be first be last. It almost sounds non-sensical. Those are opposites of one another. If the first are last, then they can’t be first. The first are first and the last are last.

But Jesus helps us with what he says after that. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Being the servant of all throws a different light on things. It shows us a different way that we might use what has been given to us. What comes naturally to us is to use whatever we have to promote ourselves. We try to make the case that we are the greatest. But if we would serve, then we would use what we have for others—to lift them up, to do them good.

Consider something I’ve already mentioned—prettiness. It can seem to be something that is only good for the girl who has it, but it doesn’t have to be used that way. A pretty girl can give her prettiness to her man. She wants him to enjoy her prettiness instead enjoying her prettiness for herself or using her prettiness to distinguish herself from others. Or a pretty girl can love the girls who have not been given what she has been given. She can forget about her prettiness and associate with the lowly—not in some ostentatious, obnoxious, ugly way, but in a genuine, friendly way. Thereby she gives away her prettiness to those who are less so, and who might be somewhat shunned because of it.

Boys can do this too. Boys often value different things than girls. Athletic boys can hang out with non-athletic boys—bearing with them, not ridiculing them and demeaning them. Boys who know how to use guns or tools or other desirable things can take in those who don’t. In this way a boy gives cover to another.

You know how it usually goes, though, don’t you? A hierarchy is what comes naturally. The best are at the top. The worst are at the bottom. Those at the top differentiate themselves from the rest with their greatness. They are not like them. They are best. The rest are not. Those at the bottom should know their place and burn with envy. That’s the way it is—so so many say.

That’s not correct if Jesus is correct. Maybe Jesus is a fool. Lots of people don’t believe him. But he says that greatness is not when you use what you have for yourself. Greatness is when you are the last of all and the servant of all. Greatness is when you lift up others, when you help and improve others. The lowlier the people you can help, the better, because when you are helping really lowly people you are being like Jesus.

Think of the way that Jesus is. If ever there was anyone who is the best, then that would be Jesus. But how does Jesus use his greatness? Does he point at disappointing people and say, “Look at how much better I am than you!” “Look how sinful you are and how righteous I am!”

No. Jesus doesn’t do this. He could if he wanted. He truly is so much better and so much more righteous than we are. But he doesn’t use what is his to stare at himself in the mirror, admiring himself, comparing himself to those who do not have what he has. He uses what is his to help those who are without. He makes others better.

And there’s no one who’s too low for him. There’s no one about whom he says, “Ach! That one is too disgusting!” He rejects no one. The rejection is always on the other end. The sinner says he doesn’t want to associate with him. The proud one says, “I won’t have your condescension and charity!” But as far as Jesus is concerned, he is willing to be last of all. He is the servant of all. The word “all” means without exception. He will help you.

You can see how Jesus’s friendliness, Jesus’s reaching out, Jesus’s free acknowledgement, acceptance, and approval of people is beautiful, helpful, and good. Another word that we could use to describe all this activity of Jesus is “love.” Jesus loves us, therefore we should love others. The apostle John has written, “We love, because he first loved us.”

There are a lot of people who want to be recognized. They are aching for it. You can give them that. Now I’m sure you could come up with excuses for why you shouldn’t. I’m sure that if you used your eagle-eye glasses for fault-finding, you could find faults in anyone. Thank God Jesus didn’t do that to you. If Jesus were looking for faults in you, so as to excuse himself from help you, I’m sure he could have. But he didn’t. He loves you, so you should love others.

And, as I mentioned before, the lowlier the person, the better. The more like Christ you will be. So love that person whom you have found to be distasteful. Love that person from whom you will get no benefit in return. Jesus says that we should love even our enemies.

Jesus’s saying is a strange recipe for greatness: “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” You might be saying to yourself, “That won’t make me happy. That will make me miserable.” Don’t be so sure. Loving and being loved are the highest things in life. The more you love the more you’re loved. There’s no limit to how much you can love. Jesus says that he can become the water of life in us so that we become like a spring. A spring of water just keeps going and going. Life and love bubble up even unto eternal life.

To do the opposite of this cannot turn out well. This is an important warning. People think it is neither here nor there if they are as vain and conceited as peacocks. Not so! James warned us in our Epistle reading that jealousy and selfish ambition are demonic. Demons hate and hamper and destroy life. So do the proud and cruel self-promoters. Hell, because it is the opposite of heaven, would seem to me to be the place where there is no love—a truly terrifying possibility. No love!

You know how good love is, so don’t shut yourself up away from it. Do not strive to be the greatest by comparing yourself. Greatness is when you use what has been given to you to make other people better. Greatness is being like Jesus. Love like him. Be the last of all and the servant of all.

240908 Sermon on being "opened up" to God (Pentecost 16) September 8, 2024

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If you can imagine what it would be like to be deaf and unable to speak, then you might understand why Jesus said “Ephphatha,” which means “be opened” in our Gospel reading. Deafness and muteness close a person in on himself. It is difficult to take in the thoughts of others because you cannot hear them speaking. It is difficult to communicate one’s own thoughts because the speaking is not clear.

Hearing well and speaking well can easily be taken for granted. We don’t know a good thing until it's gone. Restoring losses like blindness, deafness, lameness, or muteness dramatically improves people’s lives.

Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 35 talks about changing lives for the better. Isaiah lived more than 700 years before Christ, but he talks about things that Jesus did: “The eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame man shall leap like a dear, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy.” Jesus did many miracles having to do with precisely these ailments. Think of how their lives were changed for the better.

There are several videos on the Internet that show something similar. Perhaps you’ve seen them. The videos show little kids getting glasses for the first time, or hearing aids or implants for the first time. These kids already know mom and dad, but they had never seen them clearly or heard them clearly. The first time they can see or hear they are filled with awe. Joy comes over their faces. Sometimes there are tears. The world opens up for them. That’s life and liveliness. It is as Jesus said, “I came so that you may have life, and have it more abundantly.”

Jesus’s bringing of abundant life is, again, fulfilling what Isaiah wrote. All of Isaiah 35 is about the restoration of life that the Christ brings about. Dry, dead, and barren places like the desert will come to life and bloom. Fraud, violence, and death will be no more. The redeemed will enter into Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.

What features most prominently in Isaiah 35, however, is life with God. It says, “They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.” We heard at the beginning of our Old Testament reading these words, “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong, fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.’” Those are bracing words if you have the guts to believe them. “You will see God,” and “God is coming for you.”

If you think about it, isn’t it the case that we need to be “opened up,” so to speak, to this reality of God—that we should see him, that he’s coming for us? Blind people need to be opened up to the reality of seeing. Deaf people need to be opened up to the reality of hearing. It’s not like sights and sounds don’t exist when someone is blind or deaf, it’s just that they cannot perceive what’s actually there. So it is with God. Our inability or unwillingness to acknowledge him doesn’t mean that he doesn’t exist. To no longer be severely hampered—to no longer be blind, deaf, lame, and mute when it comes to God—requires a miracle along the lines of the man whom Jesus helped in our Gospel reading. We need to be opened up, otherwise we won’t even know what we are missing.

So it can be also for those who are physically blind, deaf, lame, or mute. Those conditions can be lived with. They are not fatal. It’s just that large swaths of reality and joy are withheld. We can be that way with God too. In fact, that is our natural predisposition. We by nature are closed off from God, and we think that’s just normal.

Consider your daily routine. It’s so easy to go through an entire day without hardly giving a single thought towards God. We just follow our routine: Get up, make coffee, take a shower, go to work or school, come home, watch Netflix, go to bed. God is there the whole time, but we have nothing to do with him. It’s as though we were blind, deaf, lame, and mute towards him without even knowing it.

I could almost see Jesus groaning over us like he did with the man in our Gospel reading. “Wake up you sleepy head!” I could see Jesus saying to us, “Be opened.” Life is more than food and drink. Life is more than work and vacation. Life is more than amusing ourselves to death. We can be as unthinking and uncaring as livestock, consuming what’s given to us, oblivious to the coming slaughter. That’s not how we are to be. We are much greater than the other animals. We have been made in the image of God. That makes us capable of high and divine things that we should take in, consider, and interact with. We can know things like truth, justice, mercy, peace, sacrifice, hope. On top of all these things we can even know God.

Now, I can hear some critics saying that all that stuff about truth, mercy, and so on is a waste of time and money. There are a lot of people—the most powerful people in our society—who think that jobs, money, business, technology, and so on are the only things that matter. All that other stuff is too high-falutin’. These people usually pride themselves for their practicality and for living in the real world.

They’re wrong! They don’t live in the real world. They’ve made for themselves a world that doesn’t have a Creator in it who daily and richly provides me with all that I need. The real world has God in it. The real world has God’s commands and curses, his promises and blessings. Just because a person is unable or unwilling to acknowledge that, doesn’t make it so.

Imagine if there were a blind man who didn’t believe that such a thing as sight exists. He’s utterly convinced of that because he’s never experienced it. Thus this arrogant man would like to impose his lack and his poverty on everyone else. So it is with those who scoff at God’s Word, who scoff at Jesus’s sacraments, who scoff at truth, love, beauty, and so on. Why? Because it’s work that’s important. Or amusements are important. Or it’s simply a matter of being anesthetized and vegging out to pass the time.

I know a lot of people like this. I know myself. I know that I can very easily pass my days without much thought regarding God. I know, as another example, that I do not love God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind. A spiritually blind person might respond, “Well, no one can do that, so who cares?” But what if we really are supposed to? What if we really can? What if Jesus was sent to cure our blindness? What if Jesus is meant to open up in us a closed-off-ness that we just thought was normal?

Jesus says, “I came that you may have life, and have it more abundantly.” Jesus turns back the curses that hamper life. He heals physical blindness, deafness, and so on. Everyone can see the goodness of that. What is not realized as frequently is that Jesus opens us up spiritually to things we wouldn’t otherwise know. We wouldn’t otherwise know these things, because these things are only learned from the prophets, from Jesus, and from the apostles. Just as the blind man doesn’t know what it means to see until sight is given, so also we do not know what it is like to know God until Jesus opens us up to that.

We can know God by his Word. We can learn how to live with him in his creation from the Psalms. We can learn about our future from prophesies like Isaiah 35. We can begin to love God by the power of the Holy Spirit. We can think about God more often than never or twice a day. We can call upon him in prayer. We can restrain ourselves when we know that going further down the path of temptation would bring us into sin. We can begin to live a new life. What some can’t see or hear we can begin to see and hear.

But, as the apostle says, “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now we know in part, then we shall know fully, even as we have ben fully known.” Paul is talking about how we only get an inkling in this life. I suspect an experience awaits us that is something like those videos that I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon. Those little kids never knew that they could see so well until the first time those glasses were put on their faces. They didn’t know how beautiful Mom’s voice was until they heard it. So it will be also for us.

What will it be like to see God? What will it be like to look Jesus in the face? Jesus opens us up to this hope with his Gospel. No one has seen God except Jesus who came from God. And yet, because of Jesus, we will see God in his holiness and splendor. I suspect that just a moment of that will contain more living in it than our entire life here below.

Therefore, do not be deceived. Don’t be tricked out of this healing. Jesus warns us against following those who are blind: “If the blind lead the blind, they will both fall into the pit.” Do not be blind to God. Do not be blind to truth, love, righteousness, sin, justice, redemption, and many other spiritual things. Our world is full of people who say that none of that matters. They are blind. They are closed in on themselves. “Ephphatha!” Be opened to God and to one another. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

240901 Sermon on Jesus's teaching concerning clean and unclean food (Mark 7:14-23) Pentecost 15 September 1, 2024

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Let’s begin by defining a couple words: defilement and sanctification. These words are opposites. Defilement is when someone is made unclean and unholy. Sanctification is when someone is made holy. Whether we are defiled or sanctified is of utmost importance for how God regards us. If we are defiled, then we are unacceptable before God. It’s like having something rotten in your home. It stinks. Put that stuff outside. It doesn’t belong in the house. That is how are we before God when we are defiled.

Being sanctified is the opposite. When we are holy, we belong with God. One of the ways that the Bible talks about holiness is by being properly dressed. When we are properly dressed we have no need to be ashamed. If we were found in our underwear, or naked, we would be ashamed. But when we are properly clothed we are acceptable. We can be seen. So it is for those who are holy.

Defilement describes a state of being where we have no business being together with God. Sanctification describes a state of being where we belong together with God.

Understanding defilement and sanctification is essential for understanding the religion that God gave to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai in the Old Testament. God wanted the Israelites to be holy so that they could be with him and he could be with them. To make the Israelites holy God instituted many laws, rituals, and practices. Moses wrote these down in Exodus, and, especially, in Leviticus. The entirety of Leviticus is God’s instructions for avoiding defilement and what is to be done if someone has become defiled.

One of the regulations that God gave at that time was about clean and unclean foods. Clean food could be eaten without defilement. Unclean foods would defile the eater. For example, beef and lamb could be eaten. Pork, shellfish, and several other animals would defile the eater. We won’t get into the whys and wherefores of this. You can read about that yourself in Leviticus 11. What I’d like to point out is that according to the laws God gave to the Israelites, there was such a thing as unclean food that would defile the Israelites if they ate it.

This is important background information for our Gospel reading. For the nearly 1,500 years, from Moses to Jesus, the Jews observed the distinction between clean and unclean food. But then in our Gospel reading Jesus says: “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

Let’s apply Jesus’s words to unclean food. Unclean food is something from outside. It defiles. Is Jesus rejecting the distinction between clean and unclean food? Yes, he is. Jesus is even clearer, later, with his disciples when they asked him to explain himself. He said, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus Jesus declared all foods clean.) Jesus said, “All foods are clean.”

There seems to be an obvious contradiction between what Leviticus 11 says and what Jesus says in our Gospel reading. Leviticus 11 says that there are several foods that what will defile you. Jesus says, “Nothing from the outside can defile a person. What defiles a person is what goes out from a person.” The Pharisees and scribes—always quick to point out any faults they find with Jesus or with his disciples—thought that Jesus was taking away from what God had commanded. We heard in our first reading that nothing should be added or taken away from what God has said.

But instead of thinking that Jesus is contradicting the Scriptures or taking something away, it might be helpful to think of what he is doing as fulfilling the Scriptures. The Law that God gave to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai was binding for a time, but that was not meant to be an arrangement that would last for all time. Something new would take its place. This was, in fact, already prophesied at that time.

In Deuteronomy 18, which is at the same time as Mt. Sinai, Moses speaks of a mysterious Someone who is to come, who will be like him, but even greater. Moses calls this one the “prophet.” He says, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brother Israelites. Listen to him.” Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy. Moses says, “Listen to him.” The people had listened to Moses. Now we should listen to this Prophet. Moses says so. So if Jesus declares that all foods are clean, then we should believe all foods are clean. Jesus is Lord.

In order to do this, however, you must understand who Jesus is. You must correctly identify him as the prophet spoken of by Moses. The problem with the scribes and Pharisees was that they didn’t believe, or didn’t want to believe, that Jesus is this prophet. They didn’t want to listen to him even though Moses told them that they should. Because they didn’t want to believe that Jesus is Lord, having authority over all things in heaven and on earth, they instead saw him as an enemy. They thought that he was contradicting Moses, taking away from Scripture, leading people astray. They became convinced that they would be doing God a favor if they got rid of him, and eventually they crucified him.

This question, of who Jesus is, is important and highly consequential for every human being—not just for those scribes and Pharisees. We know what they thought of Jesus. What do you say about Jesus? Your answer is of eternal significance. The Catechism teaches us the correct answer for what we should say about Jesus. It says, “I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord.” That is the shortest creed in Christendom. What does it mean to be a Christian? Being a Christian is believing that Jesus Christ is your Lord.

When it comes to what we’ve been talking about today—defilement and sanctification—Jesus being your Lord makes all the difference. The Catechism goes on to describe Jesus’s lordship, what he does as my Lord: “I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and his innocent suffering and death.”

You can hear defilement language and sanctification language in that description of Jesus’s lordship. We hear defilement language when we are spoken of as lost and condemned persons. We are defiled by what is in us and what comes out of us. It is as Jesus says in our Gospel reading, “What comes out of a person defiles him… From the heart comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.”

Does what Jesus says describe you? Do you have evil thoughts? Are you guilty of sexual immorality, which in the Greek is porneia, which is where we get the word pornography? Do you covet? Do you lie? Do you gossip? I, unfortunately, have done these things and more, which means that I am a lost and condemned person. As far as how I am in myself I am defiled and have no business being together with God. I should be swept out and put with the rest of the trash.

But there is sanctification language too—the opposite of defilement. The Catechism says that Jesus has redeemed me—a wonderful word! I am redeemed! I have been purchased. I have been won—not with gold or silver, but with the holy, precious blood and the innocent suffering and death of my Lord and your Lord. The sacrifice of this Lamb of God has brought about an eternal redemption so that all who trust in him will be clothed with holiness so as to live together with God.

In conclusion, defilement and sanctification might not be the most common words. But whether we are defiled or sanctified is of eternal significance. Whether we are defiled or sanctified determines our relationship with God. When we are living in sin and unbelief, we are defiled. When we call out to Jesus in faith and say, “Have mercy on me, a sinner,” we are sanctified.

The stakes have been raised, so to speak, from what was given at Mt. Sinai. Jesus reveals that our defilement is much deeper than we would otherwise think or imagine. It goes all the way down into our heart, the core of our being. But the remedy is also deeper. God has sent his Son to be the Lord who redeems us.  

Jesus is the one about whom Moses prophesied. We should listen to him. What he has to say is not bad for us sinners, but good and life giving. As Jesus himself says, “I have not come in order to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through me.” Listen to him.