Happy Reformation Day!

Have you read the 95 Theses? Somehow when you read them today, you don't get the thunder and lightening that accompanied them when Luther posted them on the notice board in Wittenburg. Then, it was a new awakening.

Or maybe I'm reading them wrong.

The Reformation still has a lot to say to us and our times, especially to the "self-made" and "do-it-yourself" versions of Christianity available in the faith marketplace. The message of grace and the love of God as the saving agency for all is still not being heard.

So do we go to worship in our churches to placate and angry God and hope the we'll become worthy of having the Creator cut us a break? Or do we go and give thanks that "... God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

Reformation Sunday ---- 26 October 2014

John 8:31-36

31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." 33 They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, "You will be made free'?" 34 Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

...you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

• I had a fantastic sermon lined up. It almost wrote itself and jumped into my lap. All that was needed was to type it up. I had been discussing things with another pastor while we were eating lunch in Windsor earlier this week. Pastor Steve and I discussed a few things and the sermon jumped up and shouted “Preach me!”
• Then came the events of Wednesday in Ottawa and I knew I couldn't preach the sermon that wrote itself. At least not as it was.
• The shocking events of a few days past cannot be ignored. To do so would do a disservice to reality, to us as a congregation, and to the Word among us.
• But the Word of God lives among us and has something to say for us in each event of our lives.
• Some of us might be frightened by what has happened. The events of this week might bring back bad memories and such memories have a way of replaying themselves and dredging up old fears. Some of us might be angry. A very good friend of mine, a veteran of the Canadian Forces, told me how angry he is (not was, is) and how the attack on the soldier at the War Memorial, the Memorial itself, and on the Parliament building was truly an attack on the values and the honour of the entire nation. I don't think he's wrong. He and many others are angry enough to want to do violence on those they perceive to have done these things... and he doesn't like the fact that he feels that way. No one is sure what will happen and what our nation will become through all of this.
• Something has changed. There are things that change in the blink of an eye and there are things that change like the wearing down of a mountain.
• Change is the only thing that never ceases. Some hold that every 500 years -more or less- the Christian church is hit by a wave of change. These waves move like the tide over the scope of time. About 2000 years ago, the Word of God made flesh entered into our world. About 500 years later, the Western Roman Empire collapsed, even after becoming a Christian state. Fast forward another 500 years and we see the Great Schism between Christians in the West and in the East, a divide that still has not healed. Another 500 years shows us the Protestant Reformation and all the changes that has brought to our civilization. Add about 500 more year, and we come to our own day, another time of change.
• Today the historical churches find themselves dwindling and becoming irrelevant to so many. What is called the “emerging church” looks very different from what we might be used to. Lay-led with less clergy involvement, the worship of these emerging churches appears tremendously informal and the expectations for the congregation are often higher. Old forms shrivel and new ways, unfamiliar ways, take their place. As an ancient hymn says “Over ancient forms departing/ newer rites of grace prevail.” We may not recognize the Christian Church in 100 years or 50 years or even 20 years!
• My telling you this is probably no comfort at all, yet it is true. We are awash in change and today we may feel cut loose from all moorings, adrift in a storm of chaos, and without direction. We don't know what our own government will do and we surely don't know what those who have attacked our way of life will do. We don't know what tomorrow will bring for any of us, whether we think of the weather, our families, our ways of thinking, or our health and life. Monday is election day and we have no idea what changes may come from that.
• This is the truth and as Jesus said ...you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. We should know that Jesus was not talking about the realities of our mundane lives, but about discipleship. The entire quote is "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." Discipleship then leads to truth and freedom in Christ. That is what John was saying to the people he was writing to. Their searching for truth led them to directions that took them far from faith in Christ and John wished to have them back. He saw things in sharp contrast so for him you either were or were not, without nuances or grey areas. Truth was never simple but it did make those who were disciples free. And that was a freedom of grace given by God and freely received.
• This understanding of grace is the insight that propelled the Reformation and still makes Christians confident; Not confident in a certain way of being or in a political situation. Not confident in themselves surely, but confident in Christ who redeemed us, holds us, forgives us, justifies us, and sanctifies us... despite ourselves and our sins. It is in him that our confidence rests, no matter what goes on around us or within us.
• Since we always want to take something home with us after the service, is there a message we can take away with us on this Reformation Sunday? Is there something we can cling to in the face of change and fear? Where do we put our trust in the face of wave after wave of change and the roll of history? Three things: First, if you'll permit me to quote the present Pope of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis said “God is not afraid of new things.” Second, Katherine von Bora, Luther's wife, put it this way: “I will cling to Christ like a burr to an overcoat.” Third, we can hear and cling to the old and saving message of the Reformation, well spoken in the hymn with which we will end today's service: “On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.”

The 19th Sunday after Pentecost --- 19 October, 2014

(Beyond the worship, Oktoberfest will be held this evening at St. John's. For sausage, hot potato salad, sauerkraut, and apple crisp... "Nichts besser!") 

Matthew 22:15-22

15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16 So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. 20 Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" 21 They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." 22 When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

"Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."

• Concern over giving to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's is long-standing. It encompasses taxes, laws, military service, and even where people live.
• At this time, there is a great controversy going on in a city I used to live in. In the city of Houston, Texas, a number of pastors are up in arms and loudly protesting a political situation in that city on the Gulf of Mexico.
• According to many news reports, the city government has subpoenaed a number of the city's pastors, requiring them to submit their sermons to the city before preaching them in their pulpits on Sunday. They were also to turn over copies of all communications regarding this ordinance and the person of the mayor.
• The concern is over a city ordinance against discrimination over homosexuality and gender identity. The sermons in question may or may not be about those issues and were demanded because they might be in violation the city ordinance. This is further complicated by the fact that the mayor of Houston is a woman who is quite open about her sexuality and is in a relationship with another woman. The pastors in question are known for their support of more “traditional” understandings of sexuality and have preached on this before.
• This is a touchy situation. Does the city government have the right to vette a pastor's sermons for any reason? Does a pastor have a right to preach what would seem to be a discriminatory message? Time will tell how this will play out.
• Pastors have often preached unpopular sermons and many have gotten into a lot of trouble over what was said. Jesus himself suffered for what he said in opposition to the powers of his day. John the Baptizer and all of the apostles suffered for their preaching and only John the Evangelist is said to have escaped martyrdom. Christian history is full of examples of Christians suffering for the sake of their conscience and the Word of God – John Chrysostom, Jan Hus, and Martin Luther come to mind. Closer to our own time, we find Dietrich Bonhoffer and Martin Luther King.
• This question is never an easy one. When ever this question come up, there seems to be no common ground between what God asks and what the powers of this world ask. Things are simple when what is asked of a Christian is obviously sinful or wrong. It is always the grey areas that hold the controversy.
• In the reading today, Jesus is responding to a trap laid by the odd alliance of the Pharisees and the Herodians, two groups that normally would have nothing to do with each other. They ask about the lawfulness of paying the Roman tax. If Jesus says “yes”, he'll be known as a collaborator with the Roman occupation. If he says “no”, he is in rebellion against Rome, an action with brutal and bloody consequences.
• He asks for the coin used to pay the tax and then asks who's image is on the coin. Upon hearing that the Emperor Tiberius' image and title is there, he says -in effect- “Since it's his image, give it to him. Just remember in whose image YOU are made.”
• There is the point of the story. If the coin is the emperor's because of his image there, let him have it. Where is God's image? According to the Book of Genesis, WE are made in God's image, and his image is on us all. It is to God that we all ultimately belong.
• Beyond that, we are in many ways God's tangible presence in the world. It's been said that a Christian might be the only glimpse some people get of God. Beyond that, God is often hidden in the natural world and God can and does use the people, events, and moments of history to bring about his will. Our reading from Isaiah speaks to that, even to the point of calling the Persian king, Cyrus, the “anointed one” of God. He's the one who liberated the Jewish people from their exile in Babylon.
• So God is not entirely separate from what he has created. His grace in our lives is one sign of that. The most powerful sign of God's entry into our world is the incarnation of Jesus. In this wonderful event, our God not only influences our history, but becomes part of it.
• In preaching, we uphold and proclaim grace. To say that all we are and all we will be is a result of grace let's us remember grace. We also remember grace when we proclaim our creation in the image of God and our salvation in God's Son. All government on earth derives it's authority from the one whose word is law and salvation.
• We will always live in some sort of tension between God and Caesar. However we live in some sort of tension each and every day since we are both saint and sinner, since we live under Law and Gospel, since God is revealed AND hidden, and since our saviour is both Divine and human. With those powerful tensions in place, what is one more?

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost --- 12 October, 2014 --- Thanksgiving weekend

{Our service this Sunday had a Thankgiving weekend background and the sanctuary was decorated with various types of produce.}

Matthew 22:1-14

1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, "Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.' 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, "The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 "But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, "Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?' And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, "Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 14 For many are called, but few are chosen."

"Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.”

• Parables are stories, first and foremost. They take everyday events and use them to get across a message that is beyond the everyday. They aren't fables like Aesop's fables. A fable uses animals or things of nature to get across a moral message. The fox wants the grapes and when he can't reach them, he declares them to be sour. The frogs want a king and are upset when the gods send a stork as their king. Parables use human things... like wedding banquets or field work or travel from Jerusalem to Jericho.
• Having said that, we have to note that there are fantastic things and ideas in every parable. The father watches for his so-called prodigal son all day long. A Samaritan takes care of an injured Jewish man when he finds him in a ditch.
• The parable we hear today is one of exaggeration in almost every way. The guests invited to the wedding refuse a royal summons for trivial reasons. They abuse and even kill the servants sent to announce the wedding feast. The king responds with a murderous rage and brutal military action... against his own country! Refugees and all sorts of folk, both good and bad, are then brought in to the banquet, but one unlucky fellow is thrown out into the “outer darkness” because he was not dressed properly! This “outer darkness” is not some back alley following a trip in some mobsters car trunk, but the cosmic cold and dark between planets! All the while, the feast is kept hot in the banquet hall!
• If you feel that this has a comic book feel to it, I'd agree. Wedding receptions in comic books aren't even as fantastic as this! So where is the good news here?
• At second glance (the first being the realization of the Batman-style of this story), we might be confused and frightened by the implications of the parable. Not accepting the invitation could lead to a really, really bad response. Coming to the feast improperly dressed leads to wailing and gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness. What's to keep us from being trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and hustled out of the hall by the hired muscle... simply because of a fashion issue?
• Well, it isn't a fashion issue. It's an attention issue. The original invited guests decided to tend to their own concerns: But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The man tossed into the outer darkness did the same. He neither dressed to come to the wedding, nor did he accept the hospitality offered him, since in Jesus day, the host of a wedding (especially a royal one) would provide wedding robes for all the guests. It appears that none of these people took the invitation or the situation seriously.
• Wedding banquets are a time of celebration and festivity. They are supposed to be fun and, in telling the parable, Jesus goes to great lengths to describe the banquet and the preparations: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet. A party such as this would not be one to miss, especially since it was thrown by the king for his son's wedding! The original guest list and the man mentioned later not only put their own concerns before all else and refused what was offered; they refused to rejoice and be part of the party!
• Let me ask this: do we take our salvation and our relationship with God for granted? When we come to worship, do we come out of duty? Out of fear? Or out of a sense of gratitude for what God has done for us? I'm sure any of us might have mixed motives on any given day, depending on circumstances, mood, and health. Still what is our basic motivation for worship?
• We've all been invited in God's grace to be part of his Kingdom. Yes, we join in the ministry of God's Kingdom and we are – every one of us – ministers of the Gospel of grace. But is that all the Kingdom of God is for us? What about this? The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.
• Considering what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and in daily grace, there is plenty to rejoice in. Our rejoicing may be tinged with sadness because of the losses we all bear in life, but even in that, God is no less good.
• Read today's Psalm again. Psalm 23 is a psalm of mourning in some traditions and is over-used in some styles of devotion. Still it is a thanksgiving psalm, remembering what God has done. It could even be a way of saying that we can be grateful and celebratory now and we can look forward to more of that when we “dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
• This may not be a parable set with our celebration of Thanksgiving in mind, but it is a reminder of celebration. The Kingdom of heaven is something to be celebrated and to rejoice in, no matter what our state in life. We have been invited and we have been chosen in grace.

Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.

The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost --- 5 October 2014

Isaiah 5:1-7

1 Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3 And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!

Matthew 21:33-46

33 "Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, "They will respect my son.' 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.' 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" 41 They said to him, "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time." 42 Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the scriptures: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes'? 43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls." 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard... There was a landowner who planted a vineyard...

• Simply hearing the reading from Isaiah and the reading from the Gospel of Matthew should make it easily understandable that the two parables are similar. Both involve vineyards and unexpected and unhoped-for harvests. It seems clear that Jesus' parable is based on Isaiah's; the details of the watchtower and the wine press show that. Both parables tell of a harvest that was not what was expected or wished for. The results that follow or might follow in the case of the parable in Matthew are not pleasant.
• Isaiah tells of a vineyard belonging to his “beloved” that, despite all the preparations and proper care, only yields “wild grapes” that cannot be made into wine or even eaten. So the vineyard's owner will cut down the hedge, tear down the wall, plow the vineyard under, and let the wild animals and the passers-by trample it down. Isaiah explains the parable, saying the vineyard is Israel and Judah, nations who's people have not brought forth a proper harvest of justice and righteousness. This justice and righteousness is justice for the poor and righteous action for all who live in the land. Because of this lack of justice and righteousness, the land will left for raiders and invaders to take and trample underfoot. Soon enough the Babylonians would come and take the bulk of the people into exile in Babylon.
• At the time, many of the people of Israel felt that since they were the chosen people in the promised land, their situation was divinely protected and unassailable by their enemies. It did not matter what they actually did, since their place in the world and before God was settled. They could not imagine something happening to change any of this and the idea of foreign invasion and exile was unthinkable... right up to the entrance of the Babylonian armies into the city of God.
• Jesus takes this same image of the vineyard a step further. His description of the vineyard is very much like Isaiah's and this borrowing is deliberate. Jesus is going to tell a challenging parable aimed straight at the religious authorities of the time. There are differences. The vineyard is not at fault; there are not wild grapes like the ones Isaiah described. The harvest of grapes is a good one, but those who are tending the vineyard are not willing to pay what is owed to the landowner. They go so far as to mistreat, beat, and kill those whom the landowner has sent to get is owed. Finally the owner sent his son, who should be respected as the landowner would be respected. Instead the son is cast out of the land that is his and killed. Jesus asks the crowd what would come next, and they respond "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time."
• Matthew makes sure his readers understand that Jesus is speaking to the chief priests and the Pharisees of the time, those who saw themselves as the gatekeepers of God's kingdom, the ones who could decide who's in and who's out. They are the one's from whom the kingdom will be taken. God's favour and grace remain with his people and now new people will be added to it.
• In the two parables, the offences that incur wrath are different. In the first, the vineyard will not bear the fruit of justice and righteousness. In the second, the tenants wish to take the harvest for themselves, even to the point of killing the son of the landowner. "This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.' They have either forgotten or refused to remember that they are steward of the land, working in the name of another who really does own the land. Because of that, they will lose their monopoly on the Kingdom.
• This brings us to today, the now, the present. Do these parable still have meaning for us? Indeed, they do! As always, the Scripture is incredibly modern in its message.
• The Isaiah parable is very current because justice is still wanting for the poor and the dispossessed. The church which is to be the voice and the protector of the poor and the forgotten has in many cases insulated itself from just those people. The righteousness Christians are to show the world often has more to do with how they act toward others in the grace of God than how they speak of God and defend what they think God wants.
• Jesus' parable reminds us that we are stewards, ministers, and recipients of God's grace and not the source of that grace. Neither are we the ones to decide what, where, and to whom God's grace will be limited to. It might be good for us to stand in awe of the unlimited nature of the grace of God.
• In Isaiah's parable, the prophet says Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard... The song he sings is one of love for the nation that the vineyard represents. It is a cry asking for return and renewed fidelity. It is a call to the one who is loved to be loved again. It is a song calling for correction, to be sure, but it is the call for correction, that says, like a parent or spouse “you are hurting yourself, and I will correct you for your good.” To use an often comedic cliché, “ This hurts me more than it does you.” It is a song of tough love, and as you know tough love is often toughest on the one who offers it. In Matthew's Gospel, this parable is preached mere days before the crucifixion and we know what an example of love that is.
• For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.