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July 13, 2008      

                            

Pentecost IX

 

 

First Reading :  Isaiah 55:10-13

Second Reading : Romans 8:1-11

Gospel:  Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

 

 

Listening to God

By Richard Holmer

 

 

Listen.

 

 

The first and last word Jesus speaks as he tells the parable of the sower is:  LISTEN.

 

 

He begins:  “Listen!  A sower went out to sow . . .”

 

 

He concludes:  “Let anyone with ears listen!”

 

 

If you’ve got ears, use ’em!  God gave you one mouth and two ears, so you should listen twice as much as you speak.  Listening means paying attention, taking what you hear to heart.  Jesus brings good news.  The gospel is a message – a message that needs to be heard, to be received.  St. Paul said, “Faith comes through hearing.”

 

 

This is why we continue to take the time to read the scriptures aloud – they are meant to be heard.  It’s why preaching has been central to Christian worship for 2,000 years:  preaching is an auditory event.  Reading a sermon is not the same has hearing it.

 

 

How else do we know about the grace of God except by hearing it?  We come to know Jesus by listening to the words of Jesus – and listening to those who know Jesus speak about him.   Jesus is God’s life-giving Word to us.  To take this word to heart is to be saved.  Which is why the appropriate response to hearing the Word of the Lord is always, “Thanks be to God!”

 

 

Thanks be to God that we have a God who speaks to us, a God who addresses us in our deepest need and speaks to us in both truth and love.  Our God tells it like it is:  the truth about us that is in many ways uncomfortable, and the truth about God that is our lasting comfort and joy.

 

 

The first and great commandment is to love the Lord our God.  An essential way to do this is to pay attention, take the time, and listen.  You and I know intuitively we are being loved when someone listens to us with undivided attention.  It’s the same with God.  So it is our place, first of all, to listen to God.

 

 

This is the primary purpose of worship.  Worship is our time to set aside all distractions and agendas and open our hearts to God.  For worship to have any value, we must be good listeners.

 

*        The listening starts even before the service begins, as we enter the sacred silence of this space and remember God is here.

*        We listen for God in that moment of the confession set aside for reflection and self-examination.

*        We hear God speak words of assurance, announcing the entire forgiveness of all our sins.

*        Of course we listen for God in the readings from scripture (many times I hear something as the lesson is read aloud that I had not noticed in my silent reading.).

*        We listen to the sermon not only as the words of the preacher, but also as the Spirit-filled Word of God.  And there is not one sermon preached, but as many sermons as there are listeners.

*        In speaking the ancient words of the Creed we hear again the essential truth about Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

*        And then as we share the peace, we hear not just our friendly greetings – but the peace of God that passes understanding.

*        And here at the table we hear those most reassuring words:  “This is my body, given for you,”  “This is my blood, shed for you.” (if we’re not listening, the we’re just chewing.)

 

 

*   *   *   *

 

 

Listening is a big part of what prayer is all about.  Prayer isn’t mainly meant to be our laundry list of needs, wants and concerns offered up to God.  The fact is, God knows what we need better than we do. 

 

 

Prayer is our time to listen to God.  “Be still and know that I am God,” the psalm says.  Prayer is giving God time to make himself known to us – to be God for us.

 

 

 

 

*   *   *   *

 

 

Listening is also a way to be in this world, listening attentively for a word from God that can be easily overlooked.  We pay special attention to those whom Jesus told us to notice:  the poor, hungry, homeless, sick, prisoners, strangers, the ones in need, the ones who are easy to ignore.

 

 

To listen is to love your neighbor.

 

 

Between his first and last word, instructing us to listen, Jesus describes the real impediments that exist to listening.  He tells why it is that people fail to take the good news to heart.  It does make you wonder why when God speaks, not everyone listens.

 

 

God’s word is good seed, the highest quality – a seed that is scattered abundantly, you might even say recklessly.  There is no shortage of seed – it gets spread all over the place. 

 

*        In some cases it falls on hard ground, on hardened hearts – hearts made hard by circumstances or cynicism or despair or stubbornness or willfulness.  The seed can’t grow on hard ground.  Is your heart ever hard like that?

*        In some cases the word is first welcomed with excitement and joy – but it is not embraced in a lasting way.  The roots are shallow.  The response is all on the surface.  There’s no abiding commitment.  Is your spiritual attention span ever short like that?

*        Sometimes the good seed gets planted, but then it is choked and overshadowed by the weeds and thorns of so many competing messages.  Jesus calls them the cares of the world and the lure of wealth.  Does that sound at all familiar to you?

 

 

*   *   *   *

 

 

Yet in those who receive the word, who take it to heart, it bears fruit abundantly.  In the words of Isaiah:  it accomplishes the purpose for which God sent it.  From a single grain came many times more:  30 – 60 – 100 fold ® Abundance.

 

 

Good things come to fruition when we listen, when we give Christ our full and undivided attention.  Jesus saw firsthand how hard this can be for us – how hard it is to listen.

 

*        Maybe it is when our hearts get broken, cracked open by tragedy, that we are finally able to truly listen to God (after all, who was most eager to hear Jesus?)

*        Perhaps when we grow beyond the shallowness of short-sighted immaturity we become more able to take the gospel to heart.

*        Or when we finally see the lure of wealth for the thorny weed it truly is, maybe then there will be room for grace in our lives.

 

 

God’s word is good seed.  It still yields bountifully.  It grows in us when we take the time to listen.

 

 

Faith is always a mystery – why some have it and others don’t.  The seed is widely scattered:  the Good News is proclaimed not just to some, but to all.  Faith in the gospel promise is a gift from God.  To call faith a gift is to recognize it is God’s doing – yet we have our small part to play all the same.  A gift is truly and fully given only when it is received.  When Jesus knocks on our door, our small but necessary part is to open that door and let him in.  Like newborn hatchlings in the nest, we must open our mouths, our hearts, to be fed by God.  Otherwise, we go hungry.

 

 

God is speaking to us all the time – just as radio waves are constantly being broadcast. 

 

 

What you and I need to do is tune in.

 

 

Let the seed of God’s word be planted in you.

 

 

Listen!

 

 

Amen.

 

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July 6, 2008      

 

Pentecost VIII                                      

 

 

First Reading :  Zechariah 9:9-12             

Second Reading : Romans 7:15-25a

Gospel:  Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

 

 

 

 

This week we heard from Guest Preacher Reverend Terry Dufur.  Pastor Dufur blessed us all with his warm and humorous words on the Gospel.  

 

 

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June 29, 2008      

 

Peter and Paul, Apostles                                      

 

 

First Reading :  Act 12:1-11             

Second Reading : 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18

Gospel:  John 21:15-19

 

 

 

 

This week we heard from Guest Preacher Reverend Terry Dufur.  Pastor Dufur blessed us all with his warm words on the Gospel.  He will join us again this Thursday, July 3rd and Sunday, July 6th.

 

 

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June 22, 2008     

 

Pentecost V                                      

 

 

First Reading :  Jeremiah 20:7-13             

Second Reading : Romans 6:1b-11

Gospel:  Matthew 10:24-39

 

 

Letting Go

By Richard Holmer

 

 

One of the remarkable things about infants is the strength of their grip.  When a three-month old baby latches on to your finger, that grasp is impressively tight.  At that age they will grab hold of anything:  glasses, earrings, necklaces, hair.  At a baptism I had an infant grab my lavaliere microphone just as I was about to baptize him – almost as if he wanted to share a few remarks.  Another baby grabbed my pectoral cross as I leaned over the font. (Grabbing the cross at baptism seemed very appropriate.)  And the thing about a baby’s grip is that they don’t know how to let go.  Once they get a hold of something, it’s like they are clamped on – and you must gently pry their fingers loose.  This pattern of grabbing and holding on tends to continue throughout our lives.  We hang on tight to our stuff, our ideas and opinions, our habits and traditions, our relationships.  At times, like an infant, we don’t seem to know how to let go.

 

 

 

*   *   *   *

 

 

 

Death is letting go.  Truly, when we die we can’t hold on to anything.  Ready or not, when we come to die, we must let go of everything.  St. Paul has something like this in mind when he relates baptism to dying.  In Romans 6, he writes:

“ . . . all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.  Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

 

 

 

 

Baptism is our participation in Christ’s death and resurrection.  It is about both dying and rising.  These verses from Romans are read at the opening of the liturgy for the Burial of the Dead.  I have always found them to be powerful and full of assurance.  These are wonderful words to hear at the end of life – to be reminded of the hope and promise of resurrection.

 

 

 

How about at the beginning of a life?  If we like to hear the baptismal promise of life in the face of death – how do we feel hearing about death at the beginning of life?  What’s it like to be reminded that baptism is a way of dying with Christ?  (It’s also a way of rising with Christ – but before the rising comes the dying.)

 

 

 

This talk about dying isn’t something unique to Paul.  Remember that Jesus said that whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses it for his sake will find it.  In our own time, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said:

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

 

 

 

Dying means letting go.  Life as a baptized child of God is a life lived letting go – letting go because we trust that God will never let go of us.  This was the freedom that Jesus enjoyed:  he didn’t hold onto anything in this world:  not possessions, not family, not friends, not even his own life.  Jesus traveled light, and he was even willing to let go of his life in the prime of life.  It’s not that Jesus didn’t appreciate things and family and friends and life itself.  He just didn’t cling to them.

 

 

 

And so instead of always grabbing and grasping, living with hands clenched and refusing to let go – you and I can live with hands wide open to love and to serve. 

-                                                      We can live as Christ lived;

-                                                      We can “let go and let God;”

-                                                      We can go through this world with open hands instead of hands that are   always clinging.

 

 

 

*   *   *   *

 

 

 

It would be nice if it worked that way – but that’s not quite how it goes, is it?  It would be beautiful if we could all manage to be “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus,” as Paul puts it.  But baptism isn’t magic.  Baptism doesn’t suddenly transform us into clones of Christ, letting go of all our sinful ways and always doing what Jesus would do.

 

 

 

No one knew this better than Martin Luther.  Luther did see baptism as the drowning of our old, sinful self – but he also observed that the old sinful self proves to be a pretty good swimmer!  Luther compared sin to the whiskers on a man’s chin:  you can shave them all off, but they always grow right back the next day.  Baptism is not a cure for sin – not this side of heaven.

 

 

 

*   *   *   *

 

 

 

I appreciate the frankness of Ronald Goetz, who served for many years as a professor of theology and ethics at Elmhurst College :

“Most of us know in our souls that we have no intention of fulfilling Christ’s incredible demands:  sell all, resist not the evil man, take no heed for the morrow, leave one’s family, bear the cross.  Our premeditated disobedience makes our claims to being Christian somewhat curious.  Our worldliness leaves us hoping that Jesus’ grace will in the end overwhelm his demands.”

 

 

 

Truth is, you and I are no different from all the Christians who lived before us.  We can be fickle and faithless.  We are anything but sinless.

 

 

 

*   *   *   *

 

 

 

So is St. Paul just blowing a lot of mystical smoke when he talks about baptism as dying and rising with Christ?  Luther didn’t think so.  For Luther dying and rising with Christ was not a one-time event, but a daily discipline.  In his Small Catechism he asks the question, “What does Baptism mean for daily living?”  His answer:

“It means that our sinful self, with all its evil deeds and desires, should be drowned through daily repentance; and that day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever.”

 

 

 

Dying to sin means shaving those whiskers, day by day.  It means letting go each day.  Rising with Christ means claiming the promise of grace, one day at a time.  That is, we need to be born again and again and again as the children of God.  Each day you and I need to ask:  what needs to die today so that I can live a new life in Christ?  What do I need to let go of:  grudges, resentments, privileges, fears, pride, lust, selfishness, envy, greed? 

 

 

 

All the recent flooding reminds us that sometimes circumstances compel us to let go of things.  When your house is flooded, your stuff gets ruined, and you have no choice but to let it go.  The waters of baptism don’t compel us – but they do empower us to let go of what we cling to.  We can let go because we trust that God will never let go of us.

 

 

 

St. Paul knew the freedom that comes with letting go, the freedom of no longer being intimidated – no longer afraid of dying.  When threatened with death, Paul replied, “You can’t kill me, I already died.” 

That same freedom has been given to each of us. 

-                                            It is not an easy freedom, but it is genuine. 

-                                            We have been named and claimed in baptism. 

-                                            We have died with Christ – and we shall live with him. 

-                                            It’s for each of us to claim the promise each day.

 

 

 

*   *   *   *

 

 

 

The Christian life has to it the quality of “already and not yet.”

 

 

 

We are already in God’s hands, and we have not yet let go of this world.

 

 

 

We are already assured of a home with God, and yet we’re still living in this world.

 

 

 

We are already richly blessed, and not yet fully trusting and grateful.

 

 

 

The victory over sin and death has already been won by Jesus Christ, and yet we still fight our battles each day, fighting to let go of what finally doesn’t matter – and depending on what really does.

 

 

 

Amen.

 

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June 15, 2008    

 

Pentecost V                                       

 

 

First Reading :  Exodus 19:2-8a

Second Reading : Romans 5:1-8

Gospel:  Matthew 9:35-10:8                

 

 

Sent to Serve

By Richard Holmer

 

 

Last week we were reminded of the great mercy of our God.  When Jesus called a despised sinner like Matthew to be one of his disciples, he demonstrated that the love of God truly does extend to every last, unworthy one of us.  We hear echoes of that same mercy in today’s Second Reading from Romans, where Paul writes:

“at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly . . . While we were still sinners Christ died for us.”              

 

 

The Savior who reached out to the likes of Matthew has mercy on us all – he invites each of us to know and enjoy his grace and peace.

 

 

As the gospel narrative continues today, we see that those whom Jesus invites, he also sends out to serve.  The original 12 disciples are listed by name – and here for the first time they are referred to as “apostles”:  those who are sent.  We see Matthew, the tax collector’s name on the list along with Peter and Andrew, James and John and the rest.  This “sending out” of the twelve in chapter 10 of the gospel anticipates the so-called “Great Commission” which comes at the close of the gospel in Chapter 28.  We might think of this as a little commission – kind of like a short term internship.  Jesus sends them not to the whole world, but only to the house of Israel .  It is to be their trial run in ministry.

 

 

The twelve are sent to do what Jesus does – to have a share in Christ’s ministry.  Jesus gives them authority to

-        proclaim the good news

-        cure the sick

-        cleanse lepers

-        cast out demons

-        even to raise the dead!

 

 

Jesus places major responsibility on their shoulders.  That’s what is challenging about their task – it is also what is glorious:  to do the work of the Kingdom of God .

 

 

The appropriate response to receiving mercy is to act mercifully toward others.  This sounds basic – even obvious – but it is all too easily overlooked.  The training Jesus imparts is consistent:

-        Love others as I have loved you.

-        Forgive as you have been forgiven.

-