Tag Archives: Jesus

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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March 3, 2013

“Bear Good Fruit” 03.03.2013 Sermon

By Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Luke 13:1-9 • March 3, 2013

Click here to hear an audio recording of this sermon.

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

A little boy runs across a farmer who has a truckload of cow manure. The boy asks him what he is going to do with all of that cow poop. The farmer tells the little boy, “I’m taking it home to put on my strawberries.”

The little boy looks up at the farmer and says, “I don’t know where you come from sir, but where I come from we put cream and sugar on our strawberries.”

I’m not sure how much that joke has to do with our gospel reading today or even the sermon for that matter, but I’ve been gone for a few Sundays and thought it was kind of cute, so I figured I’d share it anyway.

This is the third Sunday in the season of Lent. In our gospel reading today, the crowds are saying some pretty crazy things to Jesus, aren’t they? About Galilean blood being shed in the temple by Pontius Pilot and intermingled with the blood of animal sacrifices on the altar because of their sin or a tower collapsing and killing innocent people because of their sin. But, we don’t say things like that anymore, do we?

During his first interview after this year’s Super Bowl, a reporter asked Ray Lewis from the Baltimore Ravens, “How does it feel to be a Super Bowl Champion?” Lewis responded, “When God is for you, who can be against you?”

Excuse me? God had a favorite team in this year’s Super Bowl? You mean God liked one of the Super Bowl coaches, the Harbaugh brothers, better than the other one?

Or how many times have you and I heard someone say or even thought this ourselves.

“The poor are poor. It’s their own fault. They should get a job.”

Or “The sick are sick. Maybe they should have taken better care of themselves and then they wouldn’t have gotten sick.”

Or how about those preachers on television who proclaim that natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy or Katrina happen because of the sins of people on the east coast or in the city of New Orleans.

Don’t those things sound a little like the crowds who confront Jesus today in Luke’s gospel? Evidently things haven’t changed much over the past 2,000 years.

I think Lent might be the most misunderstood season of the Christian church year. It often feels more like New Years Day to me rather than a season that walks us to Jerusalem and death on a cross. During Lent many of us give something up like chocolate or fast food or we try to exercise more or get more sleep. Like most of our New Year’s resolutions – many have all but disappeared by the time we reach week three.

You and I really want to change, and Lent always seems to be a pretty good time to give that a shot, especially because we’ve usually already abandoned our New Year’s resolutions by the time Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. But year after year, Lent after Lent, it comes and goes and the blood of old issues remains, buildings of bad attitudes continue to fall and hurt innocent people, and addictions continue to halt the bearing of good fruit from our trees.

Maybe instead of focusing on giving something up, we should look more deeply at what Lent may actually be calling us to be about. Especially in light of the text that we have before us today.

We often fall into the trap of assuming that our relationship with God through Jesus Christ depends upon us becoming something or changing into some sort of super hero Christian that is vastly different from who we actually are. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

I think sometimes Jesus needs to knock us upside the head and remind us of that once in a while. Remind us of all of the crazy things that we say and do and tell us, “You’ve got it all wrong.”  Or as Jesus says in verses 3 and 5 in our gospel today, “No, I tell you; but…” The “buts” in these two verses are important. They signal a turn, a turn away from worrying about the sins of others; and a turn to think about our own sins and our own life.

Jesus says, “No, I tell you: but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did!” In the 13th chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus turns the crowd away from a discussion of other people’s sins and turns it to focus on their own need for change and repentance. For your need for change and repentance. For my need for change and repentance.

I found an insight from Pastor Todd Spencer helpful this week. He wrote, “Part of the adventure of Lent is recognizing how we have participated in unfruitful ways.” And he went on to say, “So we ask God who created us to forgive us, so that we may begin anew.”

Humorist Garrison Keillor eloquently stated a long time ago that, “You can become a Christian by going to church just about as easily as you can become an automobile by sleeping in a garage.”

During this week in Lent, and at all times in our life together in the Body of Christ for that matter, Jesus calls us to repent. And repentance is not about feeling a little bit bad or guilty for something we may have said or done with the hope that we will do a little better next time. Repentance is a radical reorientation of oneself; literally a “turning around” – a complete change of heart, a total change of direction.

So you and I shouldn’t worry necessarily about Lenten resolutions, because we’re being invited into something that is far more than that during Lent. We’re being invited to fully believe and live in the paradox that Jesus offers. In light of the chaos and calamities that can happen to any one of us at any time and in light of all sin that still exists in our world today, you and I are invited each and every day to call upon God to repair our own brokenness. Don’t assume that because you are still around on this earth it’s because you bear good fruit all the time and have no need to repent.

The world may want to blame the withering tree for its inability to produce fruit; or the sin of someone else causing our own problems; or the sins of many causing horrific events like towers to fall or hurricane winds to blow. After all, at least then the world has a superficial explanation for why these things occur and someone else to blame.

The good news of the life, death, and resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ is not found in our ability to blame others for our own sin. The good news is that this Jesus offers you and me forgiveness, reaches into our very lives, reminds us of our roots, nourishes us with unconditional and abundant mercy and grace, and allows us to bloom, to flourish, to freely share our gifts with everyone we meet.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus calls you and me to repent. May that be the fruit that we bear during this third week of Lent. Bear good fruit. Amen.

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