Agricolae

061426 SermonDownload Biblical Text: Matthew 9:35-10:20 It is very rare you stumble across something in translation that I’d describe as uniquely terrible. Words don’t just mean one thing. They have a range of meaning from hyper-literal to extremely metaphorical. You could also label them formal to slang, and general to specific. Most translation issues are more like “I think the translators were a bit to formal and general. The word in its original context is more specific – say raven and not just bird – and more colloquial – say it happened instead of behold.” And the translators would rightly point at their degrees and expertise and tell me to shut up. And this is part of the reason people migrate to different English translations. If you look at about 5 version you can get a sense of the range (say KJV, ESV, NIV, NRSV, NLT) because each of those translation committees tended to have their sweet spots. But occasionally you find something like “affliction” is Matthew 9:35 in the ESV. The ESV tends to default where possible to the KJV. But the KJV goes with sickness. The NLT illness. The RSV with infirmity. And the point in getting this picky is that affliction is something that comes from outside. The word itself, which the RSV gets, is something that comes from the inside, some softness, some weakness, an infirmity. And so you have two type of A to Z phrases. Jesus heals every disease (outside) and every infirmity (inside). And you have the people being harassed (outside) and helpless (inner strength). And the gospel is that Jesus heals all of these. The Devil and the World might harass. Our sinful flesh makes us helpless. Jesus heals. The sermon develops that insight.

060726 SermonDownload Biblical Text: Matthew 9:9-13 We live in a world that attempts to start moral cascades or moral panics all the time. The sermon hopefully demonstrates that and how they have sped up with social media. What the text does is both expose that this mechanism of the world has always been with us. And then it shows us what stops them. Or maybe if not stops them, it shows us how the gospel addresses them. Jesus turns their logic inside out. First, because the logic of a moral panic is the logic of contagion. We think we can stay righteous by excluding “sinners.” The gospel is only for sinners. Jesus came not for the righteous, but for sinners. Which we all are. The second way that Jesus and the gospel flips the world’s logic is that it is not the contagion that spread, but the healing. Christ eats with tax collectors and sinners. In Christ we have nothing to fear from the world. We are called like Matthew to follow Christ which is a dramatic change. But the gospel sends us out to offer the balm – the blood of Christ.

053126 sermonDownload Sermon Texts: Athanasian Creed, Matthew 28:20, Genesis 1:1-2:4 The Sunday is Trinity Sunday, so the Athanasian Creed is a fixture. We say it responsively, and the congregational response isn’t clear enough, so I’m sorry it isn’t on the recording. Although we had a new reader this morning who did a very good job with a very long reading in that Old Testament lesson. So, the seed idea for this Sermon comes Professor Richard Beck. He is a prof at Abilene Christian, and I’ve been reading him for what seems like forever. I’d say that all his books are on my shelf, but most of them are in my Kindle along with all the underlines (145 over 4 books, the ones in the physical books I don’t have a count on.). Now we diverge in quite significant ways. He I think would still call himself a Progressive Christian, while I’m a confessional Lutheran. The difference is that most people who would use that label do so to avoid thinking. Dr. Beck is the opposite. You occasionally find these people who are close enough to you that you can think along with them fruitfully, but they are different enough to be challenging. That has been Dr. Beck to me. Anyway, in his most recent book – The Book of Love – he starts out with a couple of very powerful ideas. The first you find embedded in the first part of this sermon that rests on the Old Testament lesson. The devil, the world and our sinful nature present us with an ontology of death. Life is the temporary accident. The Bible is the book of an ontology of life. Death is the temporary thing. Because in the beginning God is. And in the end, God is. That is the point of the first part of the Athanasian Creed. Father, Son and Holy Spirit eternal and coequal. The second idea from Dr. Beck is that God – best seen in Jesus Christ – is for us. You can’t lose His love. The second part of the Athanasian creed presents this to us. So that by the time we get to those end statements on the judgement, we already know that the judge is in our corner. Which means we are free to go embrace and ontology and a teleology of life. We can go live it. Because God is for us.

052426 SermonDownload Biblical Text: Numbers 11:24-30, Acts 2:1-21, Pentecost The Holy Day was Pentecost – hence the red and the Holy Spirit. Both Pentecost and the Holy Spirit are parts of more staid Protestantism that tend to get forgotten or played down. And I think they tend that way for what this sermon attempts to address. What we really want is God in a Box. Whether that is because we would like personally a God who does what we want, or whether we are protecting God’s reputation from losers and unsavory acts, we can find ourselves like Joshua telling God to “stop it.” The problem there is that the Holy Spirit does what He wants when He wants. And if your theology can’t handle that, as the kids say, it’s not going to make it. The flip side of that is faith, that God loves you, and if this is how the Spirit is acting it must be for your eternal good.

051726 SermonDownload Biblical Text: John 17:1-11 Glory is not something that we Lutherans talk about all that much. The Reformed talk about it much more while the world talks about it all the time. But that is the subject of Jesus’ prayer. Both in terms of the Father and Son glorifying each other, and in terms of the son glorifying his own and how they glorify him. So this sermon attempts to give a biblical framework for thinking about glory and contrasts it largely with the worldly conception of glory. And then it tries to hold out a way that we can live with this glory – a treasure in jars of clay. For any who know this sermon owes a debt to C.S. Lewis’ essay “The Weight of Glory” although it is not just a complete rip-off. His essay is longer and more complete. This sermon is more tightly focused.

051026 SermonDownload Biblical Text: Acts 17:16-31, 32-34 There are sermons that bubble up from things that take place during the week. Even the day before you commit them to paper. And then there are those that are the considered reflection of a long span of time. This one might have been sprung on me late in the week, but it is one of the second type. The text is Paul in Athens. And Paul in Athens is such a rich text. Why this is one of those long simmering preparation sermons is because the way this text has influenced the church that I have spent most of my adult life in I am convinced has been dramatically wrong. If you just say “Mars Hill” in church-y circles, there is an assumed theology. And just because two places that adopted the name blew-up, doesn’t mean the theology met its end. The sermon examines that theology. Attempts to point out its fatal flaw. Proclaims what the necessary corrective is. But also must admit that in the conflict with the world, the world can be very attractive. People of their own volition can choose the world. And that maybe they want to. It’s a bit complicated, but I believe it can be meaningful to those who have turned away from the world and toward the Spirit.

050326 SermonDownload Biblical Text: John 14:1-14 The text ends with what I personally think is one of the toughest sayings in the bible. “You will do greater works than these” along with the promise to ask anything and it will be given. Any fair presentation has to establish what works are being talked about such that the promise could be true. The question about prayer is a little easier and most people will accept answers like “well, if you ask for a knife, because you are going to kill someone, that isn’t likely to be answered yes by God.” But saying that those who believe will do greater works than Jesus is much tougher. The lead up to this saying is about who exactly Jesus is and what works – or maybe I should say work – he is doing. And that work is primarily filling up his Father’s house. The work Jesus is doing is calling people back into a right relationship with God – with the Father. And that is where the sermon starts. And it builds from there through the conversation that Jesus has with Thomas and Philip. A conversation that I think is almost natural and deeply enlightening. As well as full of good news.

042626 sermonDownload Biblical Text: John 10:1-10 Easter 4 is Good Shepherd sunday. The readings always come from John 10. In year A we get the first part of it. Two “Amen. Amen” or “Truly. Truly” sayings of Jesus. The sheep are present and there is talk about shepherds, but it’s a long chapter. This early part is a bit more polemical. There are shepherds and their are thieves and robbers who only want to kill and destroy. There are those who hear the voice of the shepherd, and unremarked but the binary demands it, there are those who follow the voice of strangers who are not the sheep. So this ends up being something of a meditation on evangelism. In Jesus’ framing evangelism is simply the voice of the shepherd – the true shepherd, eventually the good shepherd. And the sheep – the true sheep – know the voice of the shepherd. Evangelism is a proclamation. And that is what this sermon meditates on a bit. How it is the proclamation to each individual. “Your sins are many and great. But I have paid them. Follow me.” And you either know that voice, or your don’t.

041926 sermonDownload Biblical Text: Luke 24:13-35 The Road to Emmaus is one of the most evocative stories in scripture. It has some echoes of the Old Testament and the “Messianic Secret” in the line “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” It also fits in perfectly with Luke’s love of travel narratives. We are always on the way somewhere. But for me – and liturgically coming on Easter 3 it plays into this – it is a post-resurrection appearance that deals with knowing. How do we know? In that way it can be something of a Lukan Thomas story. Except where as John’s answer is the beatitude – “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” – which plays into John’s love of sight metaphors, Luke’s answer has some layers. I pull in John Wesley’s quadrilateral which in the way it gets used might be the most misused theological framework. I touch on that in the sermon a bit. Wesley had an answer to “How do you know?” It was roughly: Revelation, Tradition, Experience and Reason. And at least how I think it should be taken that order is a hierarchy. Scripture or Revelation is the bedrock. Tradition, something that is ever growing, is the witness of the saints and ages. It illumines the fullness of scripture. Experience is how these intersect with our lives. And the last, reason, is really teaching our fallen self to see God at work. They aren’t separate ways of knowing that are weighed against each other. They work together. And as the sermon develops the text, Jesus walks the pair on the road to Emmaus from experience through tradition and back to the Scriptures. And then they are prepared to see.

Biblical Text: John 20:19-31 041226 sermonDownload The 2nd Sunday of Easter always has the Gospel Text of the Apostle Thomas. There are two things that you can preach from this text. 1) The Office of the Keys. And I touch on that at the start. 2) Figure out something to say about doubt. And that is the tougher one. Mainline Protestantism – which the LCMS is both part of and not part of – for a generation plus has glorified doubt. Which is a terrible misreading of this text and what the bible consistently has to say about it. It is not that the Bible denies doubt. In fact as I’ll build in the sermon, it isn’t just Thomas. Everyone has some significant doubt. But doubt is a childish thing. If you are going to accomplish anything – if you are going to have life – you are going to have faith. They, faith and doubt, aren’t opposites. Doubt is a valid starting point that must give way when proof is offered. It could give way to knowledge. It could give way to accomplishment. It can give way to faith. Doubt is the starting childish position that matures into something real. The Introit for the day really starts off with the theme – “Like Newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation.” (In Latin that is Quasimodogenidi, the famed Hunchback was born on this Sunday and so called Quasimodo.) Jesus tells Thomas to “stop being faithless and believe.” That is a maturing faith. One that stops with childish things and believes.

040526 sermon (easter)Download Easter is a day for pure proclamation. He is risen. Death and Hell have been defeated. And Chrysostom’s Easter sermon has been the model ever since he himself preached it in the 4th century. This is mostly stolen with some adaptions for the texts we read today (Jeremiah instead of Isaiah) and for 21st century idiom. Which honestly I was surprised at how little of that updating there was. Sixteen centuries and half a world away, it still preaches.

The recording is the full service. The service was a Tenebrae service built around the seven words of Jesus from the cross. The rhythm and theater of the service is Reading, Hymn (which in this case is three verses of a hymn each reading specifically designed for this service), a meditation and the dowsing of a candle (which you can’t see, sorry). A meditation on the seven words from the cross ends up being a different animal than the fuller passion reading. You aren’t really telling the story or reflecting on any of the other characters. It is strictly about what is so important that Jesus says it to us while he is on the cross. I think you might find it surprisingly moving. I always have.

040226 MT SermonDownload Maundy Thursday in the Lutheran Tradition as I have learned it is about the Lord’s Supper. The entire service is built around remembering and celebrating the sacrament. This sermon to me is a meditation on that tradition as I have received it and attempted to steward it. It ponders the biblical reality of Judas at that table, with a contrast with Peter. After all, both betrayed Jesus. And it ends with simple proclamation. The tradition inherited is not complex. It leaves plenty of questions. Most unanswerable. But there is plenty for faith to grasp onto. Because this supper is for you. For Forgiveness. Even the worst of sinners find pardon here.

032926 SermonDownload Biblical Text: John 12:12-19, Matthew 27:13-26, Refrain verse: John 12:16 It was Palm Sunday or these days also the Sunday of the Passion. The service is actually a bit of theater starting with a procession of palms. But soon after the service switches gears to the reading of a longer passion account. I’ll be honest here, the hymns of Palm Sunday carry it all. You can open with Jubilant All, Glory, Laud and Honor and continue in the same vein with Hosanna, Loud Hosanna. After you’ve read the passion sits a wonderful modern hymn No Tramp of Soldiers’ Marching Feet that makes that transition itself. Close with Ride on, Ride on in Majesty which ends on the eschatological notes that this sermon does. “Bow thy meek head to mortal pain, then take, O God, thy power and reign.” The sermon is a study in contrasts. I like this one. Which honestly is rarely true. I’m too much of a perfectionist on somethings, but being an every Sunday preacher – and in lenten season much more than every Sunday – you can’t give each one the polish you might otherwise. But the inspiration comes from a note that John gives “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.” Each of the contrasts of the procession of Palms and the Passion underscores the divine irony. The disciples don’t understand, Pilate doesn’t understand, the chief priests don’t understand, the crowds don’t understand, and there were are with all of them. We don’t understand, until we see him glorified. It was all written about him. It all happened to Jesus. But it is only after the resurrection that we might understand. There is more in there as the sermon develops each contrast. And there is the final eschatological move. What we might foolishly have hoped for in that first kingly procession yet awaits. And that is the power and glory that we today so often dismiss. But that awaits for tomorrow. Today, the king comes humbly. Today, his throne is a cross. Today, he comes heart by heart in grace.

032226 SermonDownload Biblical Text: John 11:1-48 The introduction on a non-essential point is too long. Although it does tie into the situation of the story – the power of eyewitness accounts. When Jesus raises Lazarus of Bethany, and that guy is going to be walking around Jerusalem on a daily basis, it moved the Chief Priest’s Jesus problem to a new level. But as the sermon developed, it developed as a story of the reaction of three souls to the love of God. Because what happens with Lazarus – the entire story from when Jesus delays going until after Lazarus is dead until he calls him out of the tomb – is said to be for the glory of God and because God loves Martha and Mary and Lazarus. The disciples’ reaction is to avoid the life and death stuff, which the love of God is life and death stuff. Martha’s reaction is putting God on trial. Mary’s reaction is something like despair. And Jesus gives answers to each of these responses. When the love of God is proclaimed and realized on our lives, we probably realize that the ways of God are not our ways. The ways of God include things like suffering. The ways of God in this world are under the cross. And I don’t think the text limits the reactions that our souls have to this, but it covers three big ones. And the sermon is an exploration of how God answers these complaints of each soul.

031826 Lent MW4 SermonDownload This is something of the end of the Redemption Tour. We still have one more Lenten Midweek, but next week is actually the Annunciation, so I can tie it into the Redemption Tour, but the theme would change. These four weeks we’ve looked at specific things in the Christian life that get redeemed by it: worship, brotherhood, witness. The thing that ties them together is the Household of God. And the final version of that household of God is not made of leaves or sky or tent skins or stones. It is made of flesh. The living stones of the believers in Jesus. God has redeemed his House – You.

031526 SermonDownload Biblical Text: John 9:1-41 The Gospel of John is the upside down one. Water becomes wine. Good things do come from Nazareth. Messiahs are enthroned on crossed. And believing is seeing. The Gospel lesson text is often just called the man born blind. In my reading it is John’s living commentary on the Synoptics’ Parables of the Kingdom (Sower, Wheat and Weeds). What it leaves no doubt about is that God is at work in this world. He is at work constantly through his word both his direct proclamation and then through our witness. But hearts have two reactions: Belief and confirmed unbelief. And unlike the folk wisdom, what you believe effects what you see. If you want to see the work of God you have to believe his word. This sermon contemplates that reality through two larger movements. The first being the Sovereignty of God behind Jesus’ answer “neither sinned, but the man was born blind that the works of God might be displayed in him.” The second movement being the crisscrossing directions of the lives of the man born blind and the pharisees who insist they see. Through both of those movements it is presented to us to believe, that we might see both God’s proper work and his alien work in our midst.