Category Archives: Recent Sermons

July 25, 2013

“Sit Down & Be” – Sermon 07.21.2013

By Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Luke 10:38-42

Click here to view a video recording of this sermon.

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and risen Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

At this point in the summer season, my guess is that you are saying one of two things – you have already had your fill of the heat and summer fun and are ready for whatever is coming your way this fall OR you are still waiting for your schedule to slow down enough so that you can actually enjoy a little summer fun before it’s too late.

When I’m in El Salvador with our brothers and sisters at Cristo Rey Lutheran Church a common greeting we offer each other is, “como es das?” Which means “How are you doing?” or “How’s it going?” Usually the response is “bein” or “mue bein” – “good” or “very good”.

If I ask that same question to someone in North Dakota the response is very different. More often than not, it sounds something like “I’ve been really busy!” or “I just don’t seem to have enough hours in the day anymore.”

That’s one of our favorite self-descriptions isn’t it? When we are asked how we are doing or how everything in life is going, we like to stress how high our activity levels are. We want people to know all about the craziness of our calendars.

I think that’s one of the great tragedies actually of living in the United States. We place such significance on initiative and  hard work; on getting things done and always trying to outdo the competition, that we fail to take time to slow down and enjoy things like having a little fun in the summer. We are so busy doing something that we rarely stop in order to just be for a little while.

Let’s face it. Most of us, myself included, we’re not all that good at dialing it back a little. We struggle for balance between always doing something; always moving at the speed of light that at times we loose touch with what it actually feels like to just sit down with Jesus and be.

And when we do in fact slow down a little, it’s usually just enough to catch our breath before we jump back into the busy-ness our lives. Our gospel reading today brothers and sisters from Saint Luke speaks to that directly.

Martha was busy – busy sweeping the floor, baking bread, setting the table. Martha, as Luke tells us is, “distracted by her many tasks.” She is caught up in busy-ness, distracted making sure that the dog is in the utility room, that the bikes are in the garage and the skateboards are out of the way; that the hors’ d’oeuvres are ready and the drinks are chilled; that the chex-mix is in the proper bowls and the candles are lit. Martha is busy making sure there is a place for everything, and everything is in its place, no thanks of course to Mary.

Martha is irritated. Martha is annoyed. And in what’s possibly the best version of biblical whining that we have, she marches into the living room and says to Jesus, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.” To which Jesus says “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part.”

“The better part”? Now what in the world does that mean? What is Mary doing that Jesus would point to it directly and say it is better?

I think it’s a point that we often miss in the midst of this very familiar gospel story. Jesus isn’t pushing Martha aside and telling her that she is kind of grabby and needs to take a break. Remember her sister Mary is not stretched out on the couch taking a nap. She is sitting at the feet of Jesus. One could argue that she is in fact doing something.

I believe Jesus is telling Martha, and you and me today, that the core of our existence – of who we are as children of God – is in our life with him. And that life with Jesus is not boring. It doesn’t require us to overbook our calendars. This life with Jesus is experiencing being with Jesus always. Being with Jesus in worship and service and in telling everyone we meet about the story of God’s redeeming love and mercy for all people. It’s an active life who’s center is not in the amount of work we have before us. To keep distractions and worries at the fore-front instead of Jesus.

I think that’s what’s going on here. Jesus calls Martha, Mary, and everyone of his followers since this day in Bethany so long ago, into deep devotion toward the central element of faith – being with Jesus. The apostle Paul describes it as Christ “formed in” us. (Galatians 4:19)

I think Mary was beginning to figure that out. Discovering that her life with Jesus was more important than making sure the lemonade was cold when the guests arrived. Does this minimize our call to serve our neighbor as Lutheran Christians? Absolutely not. But hopefully this story of Mary and Martha helps center us a little.

I just returned from a week of spiritual retreat in Dallas. During this retreat, one of my mentors said that, “our outward journey of faith is deeply rooted in and sustained by our inward journey of faith.”  Did you hear that?

Our outward journey of faith, how the world sees us as followers of Jesus, is deeply rooted in and sustained by our inward journey of faith, the times that we simply sit at the feet of Jesus and be. And Lutheran Pastor Rob James said that the question he wrestles with is: “If we are not listening to Jesus, how are we sure that we doing the right work?”

Believe it or not brothers and sisters in Christ, your life in Christ is way more than making sure you say a quick prayer from time to time to check in with God or methodically doing a devotion every day or even showing up for worship once in a while. Jesus offers Martha, and you and me too, a better part that isn’t just about staying busy all the time.
Two things to take with you – First, when you and I are distracted by many things, we miss what’s most important. Martha is worried and distracted by her mile-long to-do list. Jesus doesn’t say that having a list or wanting to do the list well is wrong. He simply says that Mary has chosen the better part. In other words, Mary has stepped out of the fast lane, put down her to-do list for a short while, and slowed things way down.

The best “To-Do List” I think I’ve ever seen had five things on it: 1. Wake up, 2. Take a shower, 3. Eat, 4. Breathe, 5. Blink when eyes start getting dry. Repeat as necessary.

Hopefully you the see the wisdom there. I think it reminds us of what is most important. So the second thing I offer you today to take with you is this. It comes right out of Mary’s example: “Don’t just do something, sit there.” A lot of us never take the time to do that and for some of us it is almost impossible to even think of attempting it. But I challenge you to do just that in the next seven days.

Don’t just do something.

Sit there.

Sit there.

Set aside all of the distractions and worries that make up your life and focus on the “better part” that Jesus offers.

And in doing that, I hope and pray that you experience being with Jesus. It’s the better part for all of us who seek to follow the risen savior Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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June 26, 2013

“Return Home…Tell Someone” 06.23.2013 Sermon

By Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Luke 8:26-39 • June 23, 2013

Click here to watch a video recording of this sermon.

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and risen Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

Hopefully you’ve been paying a little attention over the last few weeks of worship. If you haven’t, I encourage you to go back and check out the gospel readings from the last several weeks again. Maybe use it as part of your prayer and devotion time this week. We’ve heard about a slave, a dead man, a sinful woman who might even have been a prostitute, and today a madman possessed by a demon who identifies himself as “Legion.” Which indicates that it’s not just one demon, but probably thousands of them in this man. This section of Luke’s gospel piles one exciting story on top of another.

This isn’t a time for summer vacation brothers and sisters. It’s time to experience first-hand how Jesus widens the circle of the people of God to include those who are seen as contaminated and outside the community or dirty and unclean. You know who I’m talking about, people like you. People like me.

The characters in our gospel readings over the last month or so reflect somebody that we’ve all seen before, somebody we may even know. And ultimately, somebody who forces us to open our eyes and take an honest look at ourselves.

But usually we live more like the couple from Good Shepherd as they drove through the mountains of western Montana over Memorial Day weekend.

“Every time he raced around one of those narrow curves, I was scared half to death.” is how the wife of this couple described the weekend experience.

“I couldn’t understand what she was so scared about.” The husband told me. “I kept telling her to just do what I do. Keep your eyes closed!”

If we define “demons” as forces that capture us and prevent us from becoming what God intends us to be, then I believe that you and I are surrounded by – even possessed by – as many demons today as those that Jesus encounters in the Bible. Our demons take many forms: mental illnesses, addictions, obsessions, destructive habits, accumulation of material possessions, and many other things that you are thinking about right now.

If we look at other Gospel stories of “demon possession,” all the demons Jesus confronts have three things in common: they cause self-destructive behavior in the victim, the victim feels trapped in that condition, and they separate the victim from normal living with family and community.

Sound familiar? Don’t many of us suffer from the same kind of burdens? Notice the similarities between the demon-possessed man in today’s gospel reading and the demons that possess us. The demons hurt him and cause self-defeating behaviors. Don’t our own obsessions, addictions, bad habits, even resentments cause self-defeating behaviors that hurt us, and others, deeply? They can cause us to feel bound up and trapped, flailing to free ourselves but powerless to know how.

The man in our story today is cut off from all things that enable him to be human. He doesn’t live with people or in a home, but “in the tombs,” probably in caves that were used as burying places like what we would know as cemeteries. He is “driven by the demons into the wilds.” In other words, he’s experiencing a “living death,” separated from people and normal living. When you and I are plagued by our own demons, don’t we feel dead inside? Don’t we feel separated from ourselves? From others? From God?
To any of the demons that possess us, the message from Jesus, today and in all days of our life in Christ, is one of hope and new life. So the point of the story before us today, and really of all the demon-possession stories in the Gospels, is that the power of God can cast out demons.

That’s a key to the success of programs like Alcoholic Anonymous. The twelve steps of AA begin with these three: 1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.; 2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.; 3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him.

Alcoholism remains a great problem – a great demon if you will – in North Dakota and the United States. It’s even worse in places like the former Soviet Union. Before the collapse of the USSR, Soviet officials appealed to American Alcoholics Anonymous members to help them set up AA groups in their country. However, because the Soviet Union was officially an atheistic nation – it was actually against the law to believe in God – they asked that the first three steps to be taken out. The Americans refused, stating that the first three steps are the basic ingredients to the success of the program. God is important to the healing that can happen through AA. And members of AA realize that they not only need God’s help but the support of people around them. Becoming free from our demons is never a “do-it-yourself” project. You and I need God to free us from our demons. We also need the support of the community around us.

So Jesus walks into this desperate situation of a demon-possessed man and chases the demons away, offering him healing and hope for a new life. Jesus walks into our broken lives today and offers you and me that same healing and that same hope. And let’s be very clear hear. It’s not because of “how much we have done,” it’s because of “how much God has done for us through a savior named Jesus.”

One final thought. We call the end of the Gospel of Matthew the “Great Commission.” It’s where Jesus sends the disciples into the world saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

At the end of today’s gospel reading there is another bold commissioning for those who seek to follow the risen savior Jesus. After the healing has taken place, Jesus is chased away by the people of the city. Only the healed man remains and according to verse 39 in today’s gospel reading, the man couldn’t stop talking about what Jesus had done for him. He wants to stay with Jesus, but Jesus commissions him for God’s mission and says, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

His ongoing witness reminds us that this is our role too. Jesus sets us free from the demons that possess us. People around us will try to chase Jesus away. Our calling as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ that Jesus commissions us to be part of today is to keep talking, to keep witnessing to Jesus’ work in this broken world, to keep hoping that at the end of the day, everyone will know the love and power of Jesus that they may have been chasing away.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, when you leave worship today, return to your home, and for the sake of the good news of our risen savior Jesus Christ – tell someone, open your eyes and tell someone, about how much God has done for you. Amen.

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