Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Reformation Sunday, Fearless Generosity Series • October 30, 2016

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

This is an incredible weekend in the life of the church. And I’m not talking about the universal, church everywhere kind of church. I’m talking very specifically about this church – Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.

I’m hopeful that you sense the Holy Spirit in this sacred place this weekend and every time you enter it, every time you gather for worship or serve one another in Christ’s loving embrace, every time you step foot on this property. I’m also hopeful that you sense just how incredible this weekend is and what a blessing this weekend is for those of us who call this holy place our church home. Finally, I’m hopeful that the Holy Spirit’s breathe in you today will cause you to be fearless in how you live this week and every day of your life in Christ as you share God’s love in all that you say and do.

So…this weekend is the beginning of our annual fall worship series that focuses our attention for a few weeks on stewardship. And when I say the word stewardship, I speak not only of the money that God has entrusted to your care. I’m also talking about every other aspect of your life that God has entrusted to your care. How you are a steward to the trees and birds and soil and water flowers and fish. How you are a steward to the people you know and love and the people who you can’t stand the sight of and even the people you will never meet. As our worship theme today invites us to focus our attention around – to be a steward is a call from God into a life of Fearless Living.

This weekend is also confirmation for 46 young people in our congregation who make public affirmation of their baptism in the Rite of Confirmation. It is a time of great blessing that calls these brothers and sisters in Christ to live fearlessly because they are loved unconditionally by God through their savior Jesus.

And this is also a weekend in which millions of Lutheran Christians around the world reflect upon events that happened 499 years ago on October 31st in a little church in Wittenberg, Germany. Events that began something called the Reformation – a movement within the universal catholic church that continues to shape the church and God’s work through the church today.

I hope and pray that you join me in rejoicing for all that this week brings, calling us into Fearless Generosity in more ways than any of us can comprehend. After all, as God’s children we see generosity as part of God’s nature from the very beginning of creation. Don’t believe me – open your bible to page one and read the two creation accounts that make up the first two chapters of Holy Scripture.

And if we believe that we are in fact created in God’s image as these early verses of scripture claim that we are – then we are also called to join with God and live generously.

It is actually against everything that we are created to be to behave in ways that cause us to be stingy or grumpy or withhold God’s gifts to us and try to keep them all to ourselves. Keeping everything God gives to us has nothing to do with how God created us or intended us to live!

The Apostle Paul’s words in his letter to the church in Ephesus will guide our time together in worship over the next four weeks. “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

These words stood in stark contrast to the secular world view of Paul’s day. I think they still stand in stark contrast to the secular world view. Reporters, politicians, leaders of business and industry, and others in the communities in which we live often have an approach of negativity and scarcity – things that are far removed from God’s generosity and abundance. Negativity and scarcity that are often fueled by fear.

The Apostle’s encouraging words to us call us to live without fear. Believing that God is able to do abundantly far more than anything we are able to ask for or even think about asking for. And, even more amazingly, God chooses to work through us – through you – through me – to accomplish more than we can imagine!

Mark Kirchoff, author of an “Overview of the Book of Ephesians” believes that “The church is an organism in which power and authority are exercised after the pattern of Christ himself and as stewardship, a means of service.” [Mark Kirchoff, “Fearless Generosity,” Giving, volume 16 (2014), p.4.]

One of the great theologians and teachers of the last century in the church is Professor Marcus Borg. Dr. Borg taught at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN and for several decades at Oregon State University.

In his book “The God We Never Knew” Dr. Borg wrote that, “The Christian life is not about pleasing God the finger-shaker and judge. It is not about believing now or being good now for the sake of heaven later. It is about entering a relationship in the present that begins to change everything now. Spirituality is about this process:” Borg wrote, “the opening of the heart to the God who is already here.”

As you think about the events of the past week in your life or in our community or across the United States or in other corners of the world, how open are hearts to this God who is already here? What might God be placing on your heart today that will change you in order to allow you to live differently tomorrow? Are you and I open to that kind of fearless generosity?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we allow our hearts to be opened by the God who is already here and the ways in which we are being called into a life of fearless generosity, may the Apostle Paul’s blessing to the Ephesian church also be a blessing to Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Using us as willing vessels, God through the Holy Spirit – which is the power of God at work within us – will accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask for or imagine.

Please join me in prayer…

Good and gracious God, who hovers over the waters of creation, reignite our imaginations as we think about the many possibilities for this world that you so love. May we be found faithful in caring for the earth and all that is in it. May we be found grateful in celebrating all that you so generously offer. Fill us with a sense of reverence and awe as we seek to give witness to your creative activity in the world. As we leave this time of worship today, may we sow seeds of justice, of hopefulness, of generosity, and of peace. In the name of our savior Jesus, we offer our prayer this day and in all the days to come. Amen.

Luke 15:1-10

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

An elementary teacher asked his classroom one day, “If all the bad children were painted red and all the good children were painted green, which color would you be?”

Think about that. What color would you be? Red? Green? And would the color you choose change if we asked someone who knows you well what color they thought you would be?
After a few minutes of thought, one wise child in the classroom answered the teacher’s question by saying that they wouldn’t be red or green, they would be “striped.”

In today’s gospel reading, and in our world today if we’re being honest with each other and ourselves – Jesus is the only one who isn’t striped. There are times in all of our lives when we are among the lost. There are other times when we are among the found. There are times when we are good. And other times when we are not.

One of the reasons I’m a Lutheran Christian today is in part because of one word that is so central to Lutheran theology and how we understand ourselves to be in relationship with God and each other in the body of Christ. That word is “and.”

In the words of Martin Luther, “we are simultaneously saint and sinner.”

In the words of that wise young student, we are red and green.

Or in relation to our gospel reading today, there are times when we are sheep simply grazing quietly and obediently amongst the flock and other times when we are so lost that we don’t have the faintest clue what life would even be like as a sheep that is in fact part of the Shepherd’s flock.

The good news about being in relationship with God through the savior of the world Jesus, is this. God knows that we are at the same time red and green, saint and sinner, lost and found. And God loves us anyway.

You and I are so often stuck behaving like the Pharisees and scribes at the beginning of today’s gospel reading. The Pharisees and scribes complain that Jesus eats with sinners. The question I always ask myself is…who else would Jesus eat with? I mean, the Pharisees and scribes don’t realize that there is no other kind of person. Even when Jesus is eating with society’s most elite and seemingly most righteous people, he is eating with sinners.

Jesus offers these parables about being lost in response to those who criticize him for welcoming sinners and eating with them. Pastor Bruce Epperly wrote that, “The Pharisees and scribes believe they are righteous – good citizens, faithful churchgoers – but they lack grace and forgiveness. Their hearts have closed down to sinners and in so doing they have closed their hearts to God.”

I can’t tell you how many times I have thought or behaved in a way toward another child of God that resembles the way of the Pharisees. And I can’t begin to share with you how many times I have heard or witnessed the same thing from others toward me or someone else.

Why is it so hard for us to move beyond finger-pointing and name calling? To move beyond all of that and into a realization that we are all the same. We grumble and say to Jesus, “you’re not going to eat with those people, are you Jesus?” The truth is, we are all those people. Sinners in need of the Savior’s loving embrace, bringing all of us back into a flock whose shepherd is the God of all creation.

The fifteenth chapter of Luke is filled with stories of God’s unconditional love. God’s unrelenting quest to find every lost sheep, every lost coin, every lost person. God’s welcome to sinners all and God’s invitation to join in an everlasting meal. There’s that and word again. An everlasting meal that begins today. Do you and I believe this? Do we really believe that God loves us and is on an unrelenting quest to find us?

I heard a great sermon a few weeks ago in which the preacher made this claim about Christ’s church today. He said, “Having little or no expectations for change is a dangerous situation in which to find ourselves.” And he went on the prophetically challenge the church to raise our expectations!

As we celebrate Rally Sunday this weekend, I think we should raise our expectations a little. You see, Rally Sunday is not just about the start of youth programming or church school or the return for many of us to a more regular schedule of worship attendance after a summer away.

Rally Sunday gives the church – which includes all of us who seek to follow the risen Christ Jesus and claim to be members of this little part of the body of Christ known as Good Shepherd Lutheran Church – Rally Sunday gives the church a chance to raise our expectations.

To raise our expectations about what it means to worship together as a community of faith grounded in the Lutheran Christian tradition.

To raise our expectations for what it looks like to educate our children in the faith.

To raise our expectations for how we are connected to our community as the hands and feet of Christ serving our neighbor.

To raise our expectations and claim ownership for our own life-long journey in education and growth in the Christian faith. Not a journey that ends when confirmation is over.

To raise our expectations as we are called to be the hands, feet, and voice of the risen Christ in the world today. May our words and our actions be reflections of the Shepherd’s love for all of God’s children.

To raise our expectations that we truly do believe that God is on an unending quest to find us when we are lost.

To raise our expectations that God will paint us green again and again and again in spite of all the ways that we insist on behaving like the only color available to us is red.

Every single one of you here today is an important part of this congregations ability to raise our expectations. None of you can sit this one out and let someone else do the work.

Because every one of you matter.

You matter to the person sitting next to you. And you matter to others who are also part of Good Shepherd that you may never have an opportunity to meet in person. You matter to your friends. You matter to your family. You matter to me as one of your pastors. And most importantly, you matter to God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Rally Sunday I hope and pray that you and I will raise our expectations. And in doing so – there’s that and word again – God will change you and I in ways that are far greater than anything we can imagine with human minds and hearts. Raise your expectations and be changed forever. Come Lord Jesus, come and be with us in each day. Amen.