Where You Finish

 Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 28, Year of Our + Lord 2014

St. John Lutheran Church, Laurel, Montana

Where You Finish – Matthew 21:23-32, Philippians 2:4-11

   It’s not where you begin that matters, but where you finish.  The sinners and prostitutes obviously started badly, but hearing the message of John the Baptist, they repent of their sinfulness and trust in the coming promise of God that John announced.  The chief priests and elders of the

people, on the other hand, seem to have made a good beginning.  After all, religion was the center of their lives.  They even serve as authorities, publicly demonstrating their Godliness.  But, they reject the repentance, and the promise, that John the Baptist preached.  They refuse to believe his message, even though an examination of the Scriptures would teach them John’s message was true.  They reject John and his message, and so were, according to Jesus, setting themselves outside God’s favor.  The chief priests and the elders are the second son, who said he would go and work in his father’s vineyard, but in the end refused, finishing badly, outside the favor of the father.     

                                                

    Where you finish is an appropriate question as I come to you today speaking of our Lutheran mission in Spain, a country with a long Christian history, a land with many visible signs of the Church, but a place where the true center of Christian life, repentance for sin and faith in the promise of Jesus Christ, is rare.  The same problem plagued the Church in Luther’s day.  Indeed in every day and age our natural human tendency is to make Christianity about human authority, or outward appearance, or popular approval.  We want to make Christianity about anything, anything but repentance for sin and faith in Christ.  We resist simply receiving the true faith from God’s Word, as God presents it, because God’s truth makes the sinner in each of us very uncomfortable. 

     Martin Luther was God’s unlikely instrument to bring repentance and faith back to the center in 16^th century Europe, and the world.  But sadly, the power of the Roman Church, and especially of the Spanish Inquisition, meant that the Good News rediscovered by Luther did not receive much of a hearing in Spain.  The Reformation had a tiny beginning in Spain, but was crushed and driven out by the Grand Inquisitor.  Many evangelical reform minded Christians were burned at the stake in Spain during the 1500s. 

 

     But the story in Spain is not finished.  That is to say, God is not finished with Spain.  Today we, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Lutheran Church of Argentina, are working together to try again, returning to Spain with the message of repentance for sin, and faith in Christ alone, who is our righteousness before God the Father.  I have accepted a call to join this work, to be a Church Planter in Seville, Spain. 

     Of course, going to Spain as Christian missionaries is a bit tricky, because most people would say that Spain has historically been a “Christian” nation.  Spaniards might well take offense at Lutherans suggesting there is something deficient in their faith, much like the Chief Priests and Elders took offense at Jesus.  The setting of our Gospel this morning is Holy Week, the days between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and His arrest and crucifixion on Good Friday.  The day before our reading for this morning, Jesus had ridden the donkey into Jerusalem to cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David.”  Then He drove out the money changers from the Temple, and proceeded to heal the lame and the blind. 

     Feeling threatened by Jesus, the priests and elders, the religious authorities, confront Jesus, demanding to know by what authority He acted.  As a condition of revealing His own authority, Jesus very cagily asks them to say what they think of John the Baptist’s authority, where did it come from?  Jesus’ condition shuts down their questioning.  On the one hand the chief priests and elders do not want to acknowledge that John the Baptist had any real authority from God.  But on the other they are afraid to disparage John before the crowds, who loved John the Baptist and held that he was a prophet sent by God. 

     Upon their refusal to answer, Jesus presses the point, telling the story of the two sons, in order to point out the sinful hypocrisy of the chief priests and elders.  The first son is initially rebellious, but later turns to the way of the father.  The second son is outwardly compliant, but in the end refuses the father’s will.  Jesus then praises the repentance and faith of prostitutes and other obvious sinners, who like the first son, started badly, but finished believing in John the Baptist’s message.  Then Jesus rejects the pride and self-righteousness of the religious elite, who pretended to care about God’s Word, but finished by rejecting His messenger.  It’s not where you begin that matters, but where you finish.  

     Jesus’ verbal assault enrages the priests and elders.  If you read on in Matthew 21, you will discover Jesus continues piling on, very pointedly revealing their sins, and promising that God would reject the scribes and priests and elders, because of their refusal to believe in Him.  They don’t like this very much.  Indeed, it drives them to seek Jesus’ death. 

     Do you ever find yourself behaving like the chief priests and elders?  Are you attracted by feel good preachers who never really point out your sins, but instead spend all their time encouraging you to believe in yourself?  Do you get tired of having your sins pointed out?  Of confessing “I, a poor miserable sinner?”  I know I get tired of being reminded that I am holding out on God, again, guilty of being selfish and unloving to my family, again, caught up in the idols of money and ease and self-satisfaction, again.  It is a painful thing, to face this most difficult truth.   

     But, when I’m forced by God, working through His Word and His preachers, forced to confess my sins and my sinfulness, it is a good thing.  Because it’s true.  True for me, and true for you.  It’s true, and necessary.  Knowing and confessing my sinful inability to meet God’s standard is not yet salvation, but it is a necessary precursor, an irreplaceable preparation.  The sinners and prostitutes confessed and repented of their sins, for the joy of the promise.  But the pride of the priests and elders caused them to reject John and his message.  Humility is right and necessary for us sinners.     

      Christians do well then to proclaim the truth of human sinfulness with great personal humility.  After all, Jesus does it with great humility.  Now, you could argue He is kind of hard on the priests and elders, but consider for a minute who He is.  Jesus is Almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things.  Every breath his enemies ever took was a gift from Jesus, and yet they attack and despise Him.  Jesus could have rightly responded to the priests and elders by utterly destroying them.  But He doesn’t.  Instead, Jesus loves the Chief Priests and Elders, just like He loves the tax collectors and prostitutes.  Jesus loves them all, even though they are all sinners.  Yes, loving them means He must speak some painful truths to them.  But He speaks this on His way to the Cross, where He will make their pain His own, where He will love them, and the whole world, unto death. 

     Indeed, Jesus speaks in this way to the Chief Priests and elders in order to bring on His Cross.  And there, on a pile of stones called Golgotha, bleeding on a Roman Cross, Jesus finished His work by profoundly humbling Himself.  More than He did when He became a human being, even more than He did when He lived a simple life of poverty, Jesus humbled Himself, by dying for sinners, for prostitutes, for chief priests and elders, and for you and me.   

     Humility is key to Jesus’ great work of salvation, and so it is also key for us, who trust in His salvation.  Whether one is serving as a missionary in Spain, or seeking to witness to your neighbors in Laurel, humility is indispensable.  Humility is important on a human level, to prevent people from thinking you are self-righteous, “Holier than Thou.”   Even more, humility is important because humility is so central to the story of Christ. 

     The mission of God requires humility in God’s people, and, it also, requires knowing how to finish.  We should be humble, but we need also to finish well, to be bold to speak the truth at the right time, to dare even to speak of the Cross.  Because there, on the Cross, we discover the finish.  The sin of both sons is damnable, the first son who refused and the second son who lied, promising but then refusing.  The sin of both is damnable, because sin is rebellion against God.  The sin of both sons is damnable.  But the sin of both sons is covered, washed away, atoned for, by Jesus, on His Cross.  There on the Cross, you have already finished well, for there, Jesus declared, “It is finished,” for you.   

     My wife Shelee and I are here today to tell you about God’s exciting work in Spain, to encourage you with this Good News.  And we are also here to ask you to do more in your Father’s vineyard, specifically to consider partnering with the people of Spain by financially supporting us.  But before you decide, before you even consider partnering with the Lutherans in Spain, we need to be clear.  Working in the vineyard is important, each of us playing our part in God’s mission is vital.  God desires and commands it of His sons and daughters.  But your place in the family vineyard does not depend on your work in the family vineyard.  Rather, your ability to work depends on you first being brought into the family.  And this work is the Work that Jesus has finished, for you.  In Christ, the Father favors you, forever and ever.  This Gospel, this good news, that “it is finished,” is what the Mission of God is all about proclaiming.  And so first and foremost, hear God’s Good News for you.  The “it” of your salvation is finished. 

     This “It is finished” Good News is what pastors and congregations together tend in the vineyard of God.  The stewardship that God has given to His Church is not about money.   Let me repeat, stewardship is not about money;  rather stewardship is about the Gospel.  Our treasure to invest in the world is not gold or silver, but rather the precious blood of Jesus which covers all sin, your sin, my sin, the sin of prostitutes, chief priests, and elders.  So, to be a good steward, first, be filled with the Gospel, as you are doing today.  Hear, say, sing, pray and eat the Good News that Christ has finished the work of salvation for you.  This is how God prepares you to be useful in His Mission, by filling you up with His Gospel. 

     Then, as you are filled to overflowing with the joy of God’s love, remember that this congregation is your first mission concern.  As you rejoice in your salvation and all the blessings God has showered on you, support the work of St. John.  Then, go beyond, remembering that God’s Church is universal.  As God gives you ability, support His mission with your prayers and talents and gifts for work beyond St. John.    Like the work in Spain.  Or Papua New Guinea.  Or Sri Lanka.  As you are connected and support the Mission of God with your prayers and your money, you will receive joy, the joy of knowing and participating in God’s ongoing work around the world.   

     As we are gathered together today to receive God’s Gospel gifts and also consider the work that grows and continues around the world, I can think of no better way to ‘finish’ than to hear again from St. Paul:  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, and did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, nevertheless made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on 

earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ 

is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, Amen.

Jesus Does It All

Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, September 7^th, Year of Our + Lord 2014

Grace and Holy Trinity Lutheran Churches, Three Forks and Belgrade, Montana

Jesus Does It All  – Mark 7:31 – 37

     When the Lord called this sinner to be a pastor, He knew what He was dealing with.  So God didn’t stretch me too far, because He knew I couldn’t handle very much.  He didn’t send me to some strange place, like Maryland, or Texas.  He more or less sent me home.  I was born in Roundup, and grew up in Forsyth.  So when I served my vicarage in Billings, at Mt Olive, and then was called and ordained in Sidney, it was almost like serving in my home town, without all the difficulties of actually serving in my home town.  I didn’t have a bunch of members who remembered my childhood.  But, as we drove around Sidney and Fairview upon our arrival, I was amazed to see many houses that were identical to houses in Forsyth, even down to the same paint scheme.  Apparently, back in the day, builders must have moved up and down the Yellowstone River, building the same houses over and over again.  Even more, Sidney, Fairview and Forsyth share much the same economy, culture, and way of speaking.  Ranchers, beet farmers, railroaders, oil workers instead of coal miners, but still, very much the same.  The quirks and values and ways of life in Sidney and Fairview were all recognizable.  Beginning my ministry in Richland County was an easy fit, meaning there were less challenges for our Lord to have to overcome as He sought to serve His people there. 

     When the Lord issued His second call to this sinner, this time to be an overseas missionary, once again, He didn’t stretch me too far.  A bit farther, perhaps, but not too far.  Some of my fellow missionaries in the orientation at St Louis are going to strange and difficult places, like Indonesia, and Hong Kong, Kenya, and Papua New Guinea.  Not me.  When the Lord decided He wanted to use me in overseas missions, He chose Spain.  Where Shelee and I have lived before.  In fact Sevilla, the city where we are to locate, is only about 80 miles from the town we lived in the 1990s.  On top of that, Sevilla is a beautiful city, a place we know and love.  Do I have to learn a new language?  Well, no, I just have to get better at a language I have spoken off and on for 30 years.  Not a huge stretch, which is good, because I need all the help I can get. 

     Kind of like the deaf and mute man that Jesus healed in our Gospel today.  Jesus had to do everything, even to the point of getting involved in ways you might find, well, gross.  I always hated it when my mother would spit on a tissue and spin around in the station wagon to clean my face right before we arrived to visit someone in their home.  But Jesus has no qualms about putting His fingers in this deaf man’s ears, spitting and touching His mute tongue.  The text doesn’t exactly say, but it sounds like Jesus spit on His fingers, then touched the man’s tongue.  Ephphatha, be opened, Jesus sighs, calling to heaven.  The Word and the actions together make the miracle.  Our Lord does it all, whatever it takes, to unstop this man’s ears and give him a tongue capable of speaking properly.  Which is the point.  You and I can do nothing on our own.  We are weak.  Our ears are stopped up with the lies of the satan and the world, as well as with the self-aggrandizing thoughts we love to proclaim about ourselves.  Self-esteem is the byword of pop psychology, but wholly unfitting to followers of Jesus who know that no one is good, but God alone. 

     We are not good; we do not do things well.  Now, we may be good earthly neighbors, and we may even be able to do a few things of earthly value, like cooking a meal or doing a job or changing a tire.  But we cannot do anything of heavenly value, not by our own powers.  We couldn’t save ourselves if all it took was one pure thought, for we are sinners, through and through. 

     That’s why the crowds were so amazed at the Ephphatha miracle, of the opened ears and the loosed tongue.  Jesus did something uniquely good.  In fact, as bad as the English would be, I would prefer if we translated the crowds exclamation this way:  He has done all things good.  The Greek word for “well” is kalon, the adverbial form of the adjective kalos, which means good.  “Well” is the proper English translation, but I prefer good, because it reminds me of what Jesus, along with His Father and the Spirit, saw in the first light, and in the first separated land and seas, and in the plants and the birds and sea creatures and the animals.  God created these things, and saw that they were good.  Tov in the Hebrew.  Kalos in Greek.  God did good, and then smiled to see His good creation, very good, even, when the man and the woman were added. 

     Jesus, in restoring the broken bit of creation in this man’s ears and tongue, also did good.  Something new was breaking into this fallen world, so the crowds were amazed, because they knew no mere man could do all things well.   

     But Jesus could.  Jesus can.  Jesus has and He still does.  Jesus does it all.  This is the importance of the Incarnation, of the Son of God becoming a human being, becoming the one good man, come to live the full life of good deeds that God demands.  That work is, in Jesus, done.  Finished.  Good.  Jesus is the one sinless man come to make payment for sin, come to face the full wrath of God against all human sin, dying the eternal death we deserve, all packed into a few horrific hours on a Cross.  That work is done.  Finished.  Good. 

     And Jesus didn’t stop working at the Resurrection, nor even after His Ascension, when He sat down at God’s right hand.  Jesus is still doing it all, through the power of His Word. 

     The intimacy, the uncomfortable earthiness of this miracle is no doubt part of why the Church has always associated it with Baptism, where Christ joined you to His Cross, His death, and His New Resurrected Life.  Drowning is even more uncomfortable to consider than having somebody touch your tongue, but that is exactly what God has done to you in the waters of Holy Baptism, drowning your sinful nature, your Old Adam, in order that a New Man, a new creature, a redeemed child of God, might rise to live in righteousness before God, forever.  Baptism, like this deaf-mute’s healing, is a personal, uncomfortable miracle. 

     Of course, another connection between Baptism and the Ephphatha miracle is the unplugging of ears and the loosing of tongues.  God does this work in Baptism as well, by using His Word of Promise to create faith, faith which makes alive because it trusts and receives the Living One, Jesus Christ, faith which naturally speaks the praises of our Savior. 

     Usually people don’t stand around astonished at a Baptism, but we should.  I argue that the miracles of Jesus today are even more awesome than those of Biblical times.  Today, in His Church, Jesus rolls a mystery and an awesome privilege all into one.  Because, although our Lord doesn’t appear visibly at Baptisms anymore, nor at Lord’s Suppers, He is truly present.  And mystery of mysteries, He chooses to work His good through the words and actions of sinners.  Like me.  Like Pastor Lehmann.  And, as God moves you to speak His Name and do His Mercy in your daily life, Jesus also speaks and does good through you.  Today, even though on our own, we are incapable of doing any truly good thing, God chooses to work His greatest good, re-creating the fallen world, through our words.  Well, actually through His words, which He puts in our mouths.  Jesus does it all.    

     And so I stand before you today to speak to you about supporting me as I go off to Spain.  Our Lutheran Mission in Spain needs more preachers.  I have been called to go and preach there, and I am very eager to go.  To make that possible, God is sending me around to find the partners who will support this work, partners who will love the Lutherans in Spain, and all the people in Spain who so desperately need to hear the pure Lutheran Gospel.  So, for Spain, you could say this sermon is kind of important. 

     And so, since this is kind of important, I could get all bound up, and nervous, because I need to do it right.  I could stand here and think about how I need to be persuasive and winsome and convince you that this cause is worth supporting, with your prayers, and with your dollars.  I could get all bound up… except that it isn’t true.  If the work that needs to be done is truly good and important, I don’t need to do it.  Jesus will do what needs to be done. 

     It’s kind of like our singing in Church.  We try to sing well.  Because of the who and what we are singing about, because of the words we are given to sing, because of the message, we try to sing well.  Because the people of God are gathered here in His Name, that means Jesus is here too.  For this reason also, we try to sing well.  It’s important.  To fail to try to sing well would be wrong.  We truly want to sing well.  But the value of our singing to teach and uplift and console does not depend on our musical quality, but rather on the Spirit of Christ, who works through the words we sing, whether we sound like a meadowlark, or more like an old crow. 

     In a similar way, I, like every pastor, have a call to preach well, truly, faithfully, in a way you can hear.  And I want to do this.  But the creating of cheerful hearts is up to God.  That you should desire to not only support the ministry of Holy Trinity/Grace and Pastor Lehman, and the mercy work needed here, and also to cheerfully become a part of the effort to send me to Spain, that’s only gonna happen if Jesus does it.  I pray that it does.  I would be honored to go to Spain as your missionary.  But I know that Jesus will do the good thing that needs to be done.  He is the one that overcomes the frailties and weaknesses of every man called to preach.  He is the Preacher we hear, the Preacher faith hears, the Preacher who will deliver His gifts to His people, whatever it takes, just like He did in the Ephphatha Miracle.  Of this, you can be certain. 

     God will do all things well, in regards to my new call in Spain, as well as in regards to the ministry of your congregation here in Belgrade/Three Forks.  Maybe you can only pray, or give just a little.  Or maybe you can contribute a significant amount of time and labor, and a larger amount of money.  Maybe you can support your church every week, and my work in Spain every month.  Whatever God enables you to do, a little or a lot, when you focus on Christ and what He has done for you, when you are filled with His gift of forgiveness and new life, then whatever you do will be perfect, for Jesus will be working through you. 

     Your works will not yet be perfect in the sense that you won’t sin.  Jesus will have to come to us again, and again, to unstop our ears and open up our hearts with His Word of Law and Gospel.  That happy state of affairs when we won’t need to be corrected by the Law, the Day when we will need no more forgiveness, that Day will not come until the New Creation.  We will need to daily confess our sins and hear the word of forgiveness, until we die, or until we see Jesus riding the clouds, flanked by the heavenly host, ushering in the New Heavens and the New Earth. 

     Nevertheless, right now, today, by faith in Jesus, your works are perfect, because you are caught up in Jesus’ Mission, and He does all things well.  He has, is and will do everything well, everything needed, to deliver you into His Good Kingdom, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

To See Clearly

To See Clearly

     I found a single track mountain bike trail along the Yellowstone River Rimrocks, not far from our apartment in Billings, MT, so I snuck away this afternoon for a ride.  Great fun, pretty easy, all good, until the mist started.  As I headed back under the rims, the wind and rain in my face picked up.  By the time I reached the streets, my sunglasses were more like windshields, but which lacked wipers.  I could see, sort of.  It occurred to me that I should really get that accident insurance form into Susan Collins at the Office of International Mission.  A few seconds later, I was almost proved right, as the nicely sloped ADA compliant corner curbs along the bike path abruptly ended in a good old fashioned right angle curb that I just barely saw in time.  My swerve into the road went unpunished, and I made it back home in one piece.  Being able to see clearly is kind of important. 

     As Shelee and I continue preparing and support raising in order to head to Spain, where I have accepted a call to serve as a Church Planter in Sevilla, the ability to see clearly is central.  It is central for us to see clearly the tasks before us, and to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of Faith.  If we lose sight of Him, we will soon be overwhelmed by the task.  And that task, ultimately, will be very much trying to help people to see Jesus clearly.  Going to a land first evangelized in the first century will, I think, very much be about helping people to see clearly, whether avowed atheists who have rejected Christianity, or church members whose faith is clouded with the errors of the centuries.  In every place, but especially in Spain, the goal of Mission is for people to have their eyes opened to the Truth of our sin and God’s grace, by way of putting the pure Gospel in their ears.  For it is the Word of Forgiveness given in Christ that allows us to see the Cross as the greatest act of love, and to see the present and the future to be full of peace and joy.  God grant us all to see Him clearly. 

     If you’d like to learn more about the Lutheran Mission in Spain, you can go to www.lcms.org/warner, www.godsreigninspain.org, or, (and there is an English section) www.luteranos.net.  Thank you for your prayers, and for those able, for your financial support.  If you have a question, shoot me a message at pastorwarner@outlook.com.  Hasta Luego, pw