Nothing but a Worm... Reformation Sunday

Oct. 26, 2014                                                                

Ps. 22:1-8, Rm. 3:1-28, Jn 8:31-36

Story: Trying to teach the meaning of confession, a Sunday school teacher wanted to make sure the class had understood her point. She asked, Can anyone tell me what you must do before you obtain forgiveness of sin?

There was some silence, broken by a small voice piping up from the back of the room.... You gotta sin!

Prayer

I have to give credit for the inspiration of today’s sermon to Ryan Stephenson. Ryan wanted to use Ps. 22 as the basis for his confirmation faith paper… I thought it was a good idea… but mom decided Not So Much. So… I told Ryan that I would use Ps. 22 for my Reformation sermon. So… here we go…

While I don’t know if Luther actually said this, but it is often attributed to him in academic circles of which I heard often in seminary as a statement to identify humanity… 

“I am Nothing But a Worm.”      

It could also be said, that Luther by posting his 95 thesis on the Wittenberg church door on Oct 31, 1517 was responding to God’s vision for reform of the Roman Catholic Church.

Some 4 yrs later in 1521, Luther who has greater clarity of God’s vision for him, stands before the emperor and church leaders who are demanding him to recant all his writings and ideas. He boldly stands and states, “Unless I am convinced by God’s Word, I’m held captive to it, Here I Stand, I can do no other, I will not re-cant, God help me.”

With these words Luther and the church were “Set Free” from church tyranny and set free to be about “God’s Mission” in the world.

“Set Free” to hear the truth of God’s Word.

Jesus says, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

I can’t help but remember the movie “A Few Good Men” with Jack Nicholson screaming at Tom Cruise… Cruise saying…. “I want the truth… Nicholson…You can’t handle the truth.”

And thus the Reformation is set in motion and it’s not only about changing the heart of the church as a much needed endeavor, but also about changing the heart of humanity… ie looking at our sinful selves.

The truth of our humanity is we are most often not true to ourselves or others. The reality… we are worms in the dirty soil of life. As Ps. 22 says, “I am merely a worm, far less than human, and I am hated & rejected everywhere.” Paul spins it a bit less negatively, 

“All have sinned & fall short of the glory of God.”

My friends… we all live with the condition called sin and it creates in us a state of insecurity, fear, anxiety that we are not safe, not sufficient, and not worthy of love & respect.

We tend to think about this thru the lens of “Original Sin” but when you look at the Genesis story more closely, before there is original sin there was “Original Insecurity.”

That is, Adam & Eve… (and Eve is doing all the talking, but Adam is right there with her) are really insecure and worried that God has not shared with them all they need to know, thereby being seduced into finding their worth, place, knowledge and power and apart from their relationship with God. In other words… Because of their insecurity, they disobey God’s command and sin.

Let’s look at our sin from a couple of perspectives.

Sin as Plural

When we tend to look at sin most often in the plural – Sins – as in describing bad things we’ve done. 

This could be describes as a force – a power that seeks to rob us of abundant life of God – and a condition in which we are trapped. And there are only two things you can do about sins, that is, those things we do wrong: punish them or forgive them. However, this can be lacking as well and the risk here is often the person involved is unchanged. Because the temptation to continue increases the more we accept this force as a condition.

Sin as Singular

When we look at sin in the singular -  Sin -  we have to deal with our own insecurity which is the root of the bad things we do. We are insecure of our Jobs… Money… Possessions… Life. What are you insecure today about? When we are insecure we seek security at most any cost. We lose freedom when we seek security because it just feels better to us. And there is only one way to deal with insecurity…. and that is with “LOVE”

Love creates a whole person no longer plagued with insecurity. When was the last time you felt completely loved and accepted, worthy of dignity and respect, and still felt tempted to sin? If I’m honest… not enough…this happens few and far between.

In our gospel story today Jesus offers freedom. The people believe they are free because of Abraham. They have a heritage, but Jesus implies they are really not free. And… they have a penchant to self-justify, which of course was what Luther discovered, that self-justification somehow earns they’re way in too God.

We tend to look at this self-justification as something we must do…right! We’re insecure people… RIGHT!

You see… there is nothing we can do… heritage… traditions provide no guarantee for us. The fact is… we don’t have to do anything to grow closer to God. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things for God… it’s all about motive. If our motive is to earn our way… we will find it hard… if our motive is a response to the graciousness of God… well… we will discover how much God does love us.

So my friends… We are accepted Simply because God LOVES US.
Paul says it plainly in Romans 3:22-24, 28.... “God treats everyone alike. He accepts people only because they have faith in Jesus Christ. All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. But God treats us much better than we deserve, and because of Christ Jesus, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins. We see that people are acceptable to God because they have faith, and not because they obey the Law.”

Closing

The Reformation was about changing the heart of the church away from our self-justification or works to salvation. God knows us all to well… even our insecure attempts to justify ourselves through our work, accomplishment, wealth, or status. We are nothing but dirty worms that by faith God loves us more than we can imagine which takes away all our insecurity.

We believe in a God that not only forgives those sins (Plural) we commit, but also promises unconditional love, acceptance, and grace. And God’s gift of grave and love puts to death our attempts to justify our sin (Singular) and raises us to new life so that we might demonstrate God’s love to others.

Puttin on the Ritz

Oct. 12, 2014      
Isa. 25:1-9, Matt 21:33-46

I heard a story from Larry King on the radio this past week where he shared a story of Betty & John who had been married for 60 years. Betty made as part of her commitment to John to have a healthy lifestyle. As best as she could she made sure they ate health foods.

The last 10 years of their lives Betty changed their meal routine to include bran in most of their meals. John wasn’t overly happy about this change.

Then Betty & John died and they’re standing at the pearly gates with St Peter to welcome them. John was amazed at the beauty of heaven and told St. Peter this is a great place… WOW!!! John then asked Peter… do you have bran here? St. Peter just smiled as John took it all in.

Then Peter started showing them around heaven and Betty & John were just amazed at the beauty of it all. St. Peter then asked if they were hungry. Sure… said John, and Peter took them to the banquet room and John’s eyes grew with excitement as he saw the banquet table full of everything imaginable to eat. The fruit & vegetables were so colorful and fresh… the roast beef… lamb… you name it and it was there.

John then turned to Betty and said… “Why did you feed us so much bran?” “We could have been experiencing all of this 10 years earlier.”

Prayer

Here we are again… another difficult story from Jesus. It’s not about a vineyard… but about a banquet. And this story is really bizarre. It starts out simple enough… but then gets really crazy. People don’t show up… and the people who do get beat up and killed. Then the king invites people off the street, then deposes them because they’re not dressed well enough. Then it gets really absurd and the king burns down the city. And those remaining get tied up and thrown out. What are we to make of this story from Jesus?

First… a couple of things this story is not…

1. This story is NOT a real event… this did not really happen. But is a method of speech Jesus uses often to get his point across especially over against the righteous religious leaders. Jesus is using Hyperbole or Exaggeration to make his point again to mostly the Pharisee’s.

2. This story is NOT a matter of “Jews Vs Christians” that often characterizes many a pastor’s sermons. Theologian Lance Pape says, “Matt and his community understand themselves as faithful Jews who had responded to God’s call to the kingdom banquet, but others had inexplicably rejected the great invitation and good news.” So… this story from Jesus is really a parable of an intense family feud. Emphasis on “FAMILY” because Matt. and his community are struggling with what it means to be faithful to the God of Abraham or to whether Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah as the prophets promised. So… Last week’s story was about the Religious leaders failing to nurture the vineyard and today… it seems to be a skirmish within Matt’s faith community.

A little background about Matt’s community…

Matt’s faith community is primarily Jewish and their faith understanding is tied to Abraham and the Torah, and the prophetic promises of a Messiah. Think of the challenge many of you experienced when St. Peter’s & Gethsemane merged…   

They have an understanding of God’s judgment along with God’s promises of salvation through a Messiah. They also have an understanding that they are God’s chosen people. And… they are struggling with their Jewishness is good or bad if they believe in Jesus. To go along with this struggle they are also being marginalized and experiencing alienation & rejection. An illustration of this might be something like… “What do we do with people we love, but don’t believe as we do?”

Often I think our response would be to condemn those who believe differently. We most often see this with very conservative religious groups. They seem to offer an argument of what we disagree with rather than what there is in common. I also think people might view this story out of its greater God context and use it to point out that all Christians are judgmental. Rather than point out where Jesus starts the story as the kingdom of God is like a wedding banquet where everyone is invited. Many tend to focus on the later part of the story as gospel when the good news is actually embedded in the invitation.

I believe we need to hear the latter in this story. That being… God is more interested in inviting all to the banquet despite all the good, bad, and the ugly. God is most interested in an expansive and radical love and inclusiveness.  And… I believe this story really offers us an invitation to forgiveness & Grace rather than punishment & fear.

Closing

I believe theologian David Lose says it best… “If we can practice trusting God enough to resist condemnation but instead pray for those we disagree with, we might find ourselves more capable of sharing why what we believe is important to us rather than just insisting that believing is what matters. If we respect the questions, beliefs, and struggles of those we disagree, we might be able to offer care and support in the name and example of the one who died and was raised rather than condemn, and we may just be the most powerful witness we can offer.”

Finding the Pony

Oct. 5, 2014                                                  

Isa. 5:1-7, Matt 21:33-46

Humorist Steven Wright once said, “If you must choose between 2 evils, Pick the one you’ve never tried before.”

Prayer

Our readings today are in some ways like 2 evils… especially our readings in Isa. & Matt. On one hand our story from Jesus is a tough one to preach on and… it’s about another vineyard. Talking with colleagues this week about our readings they were going to pass on the Isa & Matt readings… the Philian text was more appealing and less confrontational. They didn’t see much grace or joy here…. I thought it was a cop-out.

On the other hand… one could use these two stories and hit the Shift/Alt keys and try to shift the emphasis to the Jews or Pharisees. No matter how you flip the coin we go thru this every year at this time in our church year. Those who follow the lectionary calendar can count on the stories, found in our bibles that get used, and are difficult ones to read and hear, and many pastors shy away from them many times.

These stories are tough because they are reflecting the end of Jesus’ life. The intensity is accelerating as the Pharisees are applying more and more pressure… even Jesus’ friends are getting doubtful. In addition… these stories are hard and difficult because they hit close to home and they are a reflection of us… and we would rather here the stories that are more positive.

So for me…. Rather than cop-out I’d like us to look at these stories as opportunities to look for the pony.

My internship pastor told me a story of a little boy digging in a large pile of manure when his father asked him what he was doing. The boy responded by saying, with such a big pile of manure… there must be a pony in there somewhere.

So … unlike my colleagues… we’re going to look for the pony.

Our gospel readings from Matt & Isa are quite similar. And some look at these final stories of Jesus from a political perspective. I don’t believe it’s so much about the politics of Rome as it is about the politics of the Jewish faith. We can look at it like this…

The Vineyard landowner is God.

The tenants/renters are the people of Jerusalem/Pharisees

Slaves & servants are the Prophets… they get killed.

The Son is Jesus… he gets killed too.

When Jesus asks the Tenants/Pharisees what the owner is going to do to them…

They cowell because they know they’re toast.

We could look at this story as it pertains to us in our day similarly.

The owner of the vineyard/Church is God.

The Tenants are the people/Us.

The servants/Prophets are pastors… they die

The Son is still and always Jesus…

The outcome is the same… it doesn’t bode well for us…

Vs  43 Jesus says, “The kingdom of God will be taken from you & given to the people that will produce fruit for the kingdom.

Isa 5-6… God says, “I will tell you what I will do, I will remove the hedge, it will be devoured, and the vineyard will be trampled, I will make it a waste…”

Not a good scenario is it!!

Where is the pony?

I want to suggest the pony is found in Vs.42… “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Jesus quotes Ps. 118:22-23. The point for Jesus and us is that even though the people…ie us…have killed & rejected him… he is still the one providing the opportunity to enjoy the promise of having the pony. More precisely… what God is looking for from this story & us is to be  disciples of His son Jesus.

To care for… and grow the vineyard… ie the church.

By growing… I’m suggesting it’s both more grapes & a greater quality of grapes.

Being in a disciplining relationship with Jesus and others accomplishes what God desires of his tenants/People… grow the kingdom and grow deeper in faith.

Produce Sweet Fruit.

Produce sweet fruit for the kingdom or God will deal with us in ways we may not like… just as this story from Jesus illustrates with the Pharisees… ie the religious folk. In a sense… Is Jesus is calling us out? I believe we can already see this by looking at the statistics of our church and see the decline. The vineyard is getting smaller across all of the church.

Commitment to Discipleship

Jesus’ words are our invitation and opportunity to draw closer to God by making a strong Commitment to discipleship values as a faith community. To practice the faith thru our 7 Core Values…

Welcome…Prayer… Worship… Learning… Service… Relationship Building… Generosity

The future sustainability of the church is tied to its ability to walk a discipleship path of faith. Without it… we simply wither away.

We talked about this earlier in the year…  What does Jesus command us to do at the end of His gospel? “Go…Make Disciples”

Closing: Story from Bishop William Willimon…  A Letter from Jesus to the Church called Mainline:
You know me, I love to make the old-line new. If you will stick with me, I shall give you a future, new wineskins, and all that. I am Lord of Life, not death. I shall move you from mordant decline to life. I've still got plans for you. You'll be smaller, but small can be good. Ask the Mennonites. You will no longer be in charge of the nation, if you ever were. Remember, the national church thing was your idea of church, not mine. Get back to the basics like worship, service and witness. Don't mourn the downsizing of your bureaucracy. You were once good at mission. Now that much of North America has never heard of me, it's about time to start thinking of yourselves as missionaries.

-William H. Willimon, You've Got Mail: Letters Jesus might write to churches today, Christianity Today, October 25, 1999, 69.

 Finding the Pony

Life in our world is often a big ole manure pile… Often we look at the pile and say it’s to big… I don’t want to deal with it. But, what if we looked at the pile with a sense of wonder & joy… like a child, believing that no matter how big & smelly the pile is… there’s a pony in there some place. And what will that pony be for Cana Lutheran? Could Cana as a faith community be willing to walk the path of discipleship? If we are able… we will begin to experience the life God has in store for us.

What's Fair

Sept. 21, 2014                                                                                     

Matt. 20:1-16

There was a man who had worked all of his life and had saved all of his money. He loved money more than just about anything. 

Just before he died, he said to his wife, “Now listen. When I die, I want you to take all my money and put it in the casket with me. I want to take my money to the afterlife with me.” He made her promise with all her heart that when he died, she would put all his money in the casket with him.

Well, he died. He was stretched out in the casket, his wife was sitting there in black, and her friend was sitting next to her. When they finished the ceremony, just before the funeral director got ready to close the casket, the wife said, “Wait just a minute!” She had a box with her, and she came over and put it in the casket.

Then the funeral director locked the casket down, and they rolled it away. Her friend said, “Girl, I know you weren’t fool enough to put all that money in there with your husband!”

She said, “Listen, I can’t go back on my word. I promised him I was gonna put the money in the casket with him.”

“You mean to tell me you really put that money in the casket with him!?”

“I sure did,” said the wife. “I wrote him a check.”

Prayer:

Our story today is a challenging one. There are several ways one could go with this story. A traditional view is found at the end in Vs 16… “The first with be last, and the last will be first.” Another view would be about eternal life. Another would be generosity. And another of which we will turn our focus… “What’s Fair?”

This story is unique to Matt. And surrounded by a parable of the rich young man, and Peter’s claim to have left everything to follow Jesus… Which he seems to make like a badge of honor that he’s been able to do. On the back-side of our story is Jesus’ 3^rd prediction of his death and James & John’s mother begging Jesus for prominent positions in the kingdom.

So… at first blush… there seems to be some coveting going on with Jesus’ friends as they think they’re a bit more special than others. So Jesus tells them a story about workers in a vineyard. Some start first thing in the morning… some at mid-day… And some near the end of the day. Then… at the end of the day the land-owner comes to the vineyard to pay the workers for their work. And that’s when a problem arises because the owner of the vineyard pays those that came to work last the same as those who started the day.

You can understand the rub… it’s not fair… right? Those who started in the morning should get paid the most… right? In the story following this with James & John… you can hear Jesus’ other friends saying the same thing… that’s not fair… we’ve been with Jesus too. You can understand the rich young man having to give up everything.

So… what’s fair in our lives? Over the past few years and in the last several months we’ve heard cries of unfairness as well.

The 99%... what’s fair?         The 1%... what’s fair?

The small business owner…. What’s fair?

The minimum wage… what’s fair?

Racism or the perception of racism…. Cops… Robbers…

Athletes… WHAT”S FAIR?

In our story… didn’t the workers who started in the morning agree to work for an agreed amount?  YES… it must have been a fair wage… they agreed to it! And doesn’t the owner of the vineyard have the right to be a generous as he sees fit with his money? YES… the story isn’t really about fairness as it is about generosity.

It seems to me that in part what Jesus is talking about is covetousness… That humanity covets what God chooses to give others. Think of the 9^th commandment… “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.” And in part we… humanity are thumbing our noses at the good gifts God does give us.

 Let’s be honest friends… covetousness is a problem isn’t it? The problem isn’t that others receive blessing from God, but that they are receiving blessing they don’t deserve. After-all… I go to church… I help out at church… I know how they live the other 6 days of the week…. They just don’t live the Christian life like me. I use to get angry and mad at my supervisor because she seemed to patronize the people who were always screwing around and not doing their jobs. They got the better schedules… all the perks. Until I got it in my head to do my job and do it well the rewards would come… and they did. When I was angry & resentful things often didn’t go well for me.

This is where our OT story in Jonah matches up with our gospel story. Jonah believes the people of Nineveh should be punished because they are bad sinful people. But God doesn’t do that… God forgives them. What we see is the generosity of God in the Jonah story as with the landowner, and Jonah’s covetousness as well as the point Jesus is making.

So… in closing… what I believe we can take away from this story is… in Vs 1 what Jesus is talking about is what the kingdom of God is like. The kingdom of God is not just a place & time, but where all people recognize God’s generosity and good gifts which we all enjoy. That no matter where we’ve been in our lives… No matter if we’ve been 1^st or last we have a place in God’s kingdom. That God’s generosity is for all… the first… the middle… the last.

Lutheran Theologian Karl Jacobson states it like this… “The scandal of this parable is that we all are equal recipients of God’s gifts. The scandal of pour faith is that we are often covetous & jealous when God’s gifts of forgiveness and life are given to others in equal measure.”

So… my friends… WHAT”S FAIR?