October 1, 2012

“___ ___ ___ ___ __ __ _____” 09.30.2012 Sermon

By Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29, James 5:13-20  Mark 9:38-50 • September 30, 2012

Click ere to hear an audio recording of this sermon.

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

I made a conscious decision when writing the liturgy for this week to include significantly more scripture than we typically read or hear during worship at Good Shepherd. I hope these readings help us reflect on how we live as children of God in this world. And even more specifically, children of God who are called to live out our faith and life in Christ – in community. That’s right, I just said a word that some of us may think is quite nasty, especially spoken in church – community.

More often than not, it seems to me that our life in Christ today doesn’t focus nearly enough attention on that word. In fact, I believe that the Americanized form of Christianity that we see so often today has little to do with living in community. Our relationship with God is about choices we make individually to love God or ladders of success that we try to climb so that God will notice us more than the person sitting next to us in the pew or at school or at work. Our relationship with God is about how hard we can pray in order to get what we think we deserve. You and I want to make sure that we’re looking out for number one after all. And we want everyone to know that our sins are not nearly as atrocious as the ones our neighbor next door is committing!

I offer a challenge to each of us as we receive these scripture readings today. I hope and pray that you open yourself up to a relationship that God is painting in our community of faith through these holy readings. This relationship is a much different picture than what we see if we only look at the world around us. The picture of relationship with God through our savior Jesus has little to do with your own accomplishments or spiritual achievements. The picture of relationship with God has everything to do with God’s unconditional love, mercy, and grace calling you and I in every time and in every place to live as God’s children in community. A challenge like that is usually easier said than lived out.

Professor Amy Oden of Wesley Theological Seminary says that, “Mark’s Jesus warns that finger-pointing and scrupulosity (meaning our guilt over moral or religious issues) about others can distract us so that we do harm and cause others to stumble. Jesus returns the focus back to our own behaviors, the ways we speak and live good news, and the ways we place obstacles in the way of that good news.”

But what does that mean? Good news. What is this good news that you and I hear about so often when we come to church? And how do others who are not active in the life of a Christian community see and hear this good news proclaimed and lived out through us? Especially when, I’m not sure that you and I, who are active in a Christian community, know what this good news is or how we are called to live it out in the world?

The cover story in The Christian Century a few weeks ago has caused me to wrestle with that a lot lately. [“The Gospel in Seven Words”, The Christian Century, September 5, 2012, pg. 20-25] The article was called, “The Gospel in Seven Words.” I think it offers great insight and connection with our scripture readings today.

In the article, dozens of pastors and theologians from across the country were asked to do something. To proclaim the Christian message, the gospel or good news of Jesus Christ, using a maximum of seven words.

What you see in the boxes that appear throughout your bulletin today are some of their responses.

In our first reading from Numbers, God has freed the Israelite nation from slavery and captivity and provided for them all they need as they journey through the wilderness toward the Promised Land. But that’s not good enough. They think they need more. Manna alone isn’t enough. They want meat. Even as the chosen and freed people of God, they still live life in captivity.

“He Led Captivity Captive” is how Professor Carol Zaleski describes the gospel in that Christian Century article. “God has broken our fetters (our chains);” she said, “it remains for us to shake them off and enlist in the service of self-giving love.”

Centuries later, the writer of James offers a bold call to action for early Christians regarding what self-giving love is like in Christian community. The letter challenges the Christian community, in the years immediately following the death and resurrection of Jesus, to pray for one another, to forgive one another’s sins, and to hold each other up as united and equal parts for the common good of the entire community. I believe that same call to action can transform Christian communities still today. I don’t know about you, but holding each other up as equal can be incredibly difficult for me to live out from time to time.

Princeton Professor Beverly Roberts Gaventa says, “In Christ, God’s Yes Defeats Our No.” “We belong to God’s love,” she said, “from which we cannot finally flee. Grasped by that love, we are enabled to love God and one another.”

And how about today’s exchange between Jesus and the disciples in Mark’s gospel. The disciples seem to be pretty concerned with someone stepping into their spotlight as members of the elite Jesus country club. They’re not celebrating the fact that the gospel of Jesus, the good news of life in Christ is beginning to spread. They’re concerned that it’s being spread by someone who’s not a member of their club. With that kind of concern, they actually get in the way of Jesus ministry to serve, bless, and save the world.

Lutheran Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber says, “We are Who God Says We Are.” She goes on to proclaim in the name of Jesus that “we are the forgiven, broken and blessed children of God; the ones to who God draws near. Nothing else gets to tell us who we are.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what seven words describe your life in Christ and who you are as part of the body of Christ? Presbyterian Pastor M. Craig Barnes only needed four words. “We Live by Grace” is what he said. “By grace the Holy Spirit binds us to this savior, includes us in the church, moves our chaos over to create beauty, and interrupts our plans with God’s dream that we too become gracious.”

What words, in the name of Jesus, would you place in the seven blank spaces that are the sermon title this week? Those seven words paint a picture of the good news of Jesus Christ that is alive in our world today through you? For those words we give God thanks anAmen.

Related articles

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Recent Sermons

September 17, 2012

“Trying to Be Someone Else is Not Who You Are” Sermon 09.16.2012

By Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Mark 8:27-38 • “Trying to Be Someone Else is Not Who You Are.”

Click ere to hear an audio recording of this sermon.

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

Let’s take a minute and try something. I’d like us to tell someone in worship today who we are. Or at least, who we think we are. I know that this is a Lutheran church, so I’m asking you to do something that is WAY outside of what is supposed to happen during a Lutheran worship service, but most of you should know by now that I’m going to do it anyway. I invite you to stand and walk around for a few seconds. Get up and go to 2 or 3 people and tell them who you are.

Very good. Thank you for that. You can go ahead and have a seat. I’m going to try and guess what just happened. Some of you made the decision not to leave the seat you are keeping warm. Some of you did stand and greet people and maybe even shared your name – first name only of course. A few of you probably described who you are by sharing what you do – I’m a teacher or a cook may be what you said. A few of you went a bit deeper and maybe said that you are a father or mother; a sister or student. My guess is that none of you said that you were the Messiah. And I would also guess that only a very few of you said that you were a child of God or even more directly, a follower of Jesus Christ. I could be wrong, but that’s my guess.

Our gospel reading today from Mark comes at a pivotal point in his telling of Jesus’ story. In what literally is the midway point in this first gospel, Jesus begins to shift the focus in his ministry from that of doing things – like healing and feeding – to that of identification. In particular identification that points him directly to the cross. It is the first time in Mark’s gospel that Jesus offers insight into his future – “That the Son of Man must undergo great suffering,” as verse 31 states strongly. That is the opposite of who the disciples have just told Jesus he is. They have just finished glorifying him with descriptions that would inflate even the most humble of egos.

You see, the exchange between Jesus and his disciples at the beginning of today’s gospel reading seems harmless enough. Jesus and the boys are walking along and he says, “Who do people say that I am?”. In other words who do others in the places that they have been, in the communities that they have already visited to this point in their journey say that he is? Remember, the Jewish community knows the scripture well. The disciples’ responses support that.

Then Jesus presses a little further. “Who do you say that I am?” You, who are my closest friends, who am I to you? Our text doesn’t tell us everything that is said in answering this question, but Peter doesn’t seem to bat an eye at saying that Jesus is the Messiah. This is the first time in Mark’s gospel that this claim has been made. Jesus is the Messiah.

You would think that the next thing to do would be to go everywhere you possibly can and proclaim Jesus’ identity as the Messiah. The Son of Man as Mark calls Jesus. To shout it out from every mountain top and valley and street corner.

But Jesus tells them to do something that is completely opposite of what the disciples think they should do. Jesus sternly orders them to tell nobody. The disciples can’t tell their families. They can’t tell people in the neighborhoods that they have already been to that have seen firsthand Jesus’ healing and feeding. Jesus sternly, as verse 30 points out, orders them to not tell anyone about him.

Maybe that’s part of the struggle we have. We are so eager to tell others about Jesus that we often fail to say anything. When Jesus asks us who he is, he’s not asking us to give him some fancy new title in order to inflate his ego a bit more, he’s asking us to lose our lives. To put aside all that distracts us in life. To see firsthand that God is present in all that we say and do and are. To not be ashamed to follow this Jesus who is headed to the cross.

This past week, I walked with two families as the life in this world of dear loved ones came to an end. By simply being together in the final moments of life in this world for these beloved children of God, we experienced rest in the sure and certain hope that death is not the final answer in our identity as children who belong to God and God alone.

At the beginning of this week, pastors from across the western North Dakota Synod, including Pastor Tim and I, gathered in Medora to wrestle with the incredible change that North Dakota continues to experience and what role congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America may serve in that change. I don’t think you’ll be seeing any Lutheran pastors handing out bibles or holding tent revival meetings in the oil field anytime soon, but you will see thousands of Lutherans laying down their life in order to support affordable housing projects that Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota is developing in that part of our state. Lutheran Social Services is the largest nonprofit organization addressing affordable housing issues that struggling families are facing in the oil field today.

On Wednesday evening Good Shepherd celebrated the beginning of another year of confirmation and church school. Through ministries like these we learn that life in Christ is a never-ending journey. A never-ending discovery that by losing our lives we don’t need to prove to God that we are successful enough or good enough or smart enough in order to experience his love in communities of faith.

On Thursday I was invited to preside at a renewal of vows ceremony for a couple that celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary this week. Through scripture and prayer; family gathered and a renewed commitment of love between two people – we witnessed a delicate moment that caused all of us to lay down everything that had consumed us that day and celebrate the love that God has for us in relationship with other people.

Needless to say, the question that has been on my mind and heart a lot this week is, “who am I?” That’s a great question isn’t it? Who are you?

In addition to having a cool last name, philosopher, theologian, and doctor Albert Schweitzer once wrote, “Jesus comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside. He came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow me!’ and sets us to tasks, which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts and the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and, as a ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who He (Jesus) is.” [Quest for the Historical Jesus, McMillon Press, 1945, pg. 403]

Brothers and sisters in Christ, take up your cross and lose your life for the sake of your savior Jesus Christ this week. Experience who he is and never forget who you are. A follower of the risen savior Jesus Christ. A child of God. Amen.

Related articles

Leave a comment | posted in Recent Sermons