Lent 5 [John 12:1-8] (17 March, 2013)

This sermon was preached at St. John's Lutheran Church, Karoonda at 9 am.  

 In high school our lockers were in two separate parts: the main part and a little shelf above, and if you wanted to save time, you could prop the door of the top shelf open. But it also led to the favorite locker prank: perfume bombs. “Congratulations. Now your locker will smell very strongly of cheap perfume for the next two months.” Something is filling the whole house here when these words from John 12 are read.

Mary honored Jesus in what she did, with an expensive aromatic oil (the kind used for all sorts of reasons, also used to prepare a body for burial). But this is easily confusing for us today. One, usually a person's head is anointed, and the feet are washed with water. Two, usually when you are anointed, the liquid isn't wiped off, hair or not. And three, if you use a whole bottle of expensive oil like this, it fills the whole room (sweetly). What's going on?

Mary herself doesn't know what's going on, not exactly. But it seems like she has some small clue that this is her last time to do something like this. It just seems like the time is short. And it was, as the previous verses talk about the plot to kill Jesus, and a few verses after these are the Palm Sunday account, the start of Jesus' Passion.

So the explanation for her actions is twofold: It was an act of thanksgiving and faith; and so her act of love and devotion was both big and humble. She didn't anoint his head but his feet. She used the whole bottle, but in devotion she may well have thought, “Oh, I used the whole thing”, and in deep humility wiped off the excess with her own hair. It's these little details that John uses, as an eye-witness, to point out that her humility was as big as her thankfulness.

Thankfulness for what? That's in verse 2 “Lazarus was one of those reclining with [Jesus] at table.” The same Lazarus that Jesus called out of his grave in chapter 11. For Mary there is no thanksgiving too big. Her brother was alive again, there at the table again, as if his death had never happened. That thanksgiving is a heavenly joy, if we think about it.

And really, she emptied the oil at the very place where her faith rested: where Jesus is. She showed who she believed in.

And that's the biggest honor. Not what she did, but whom she believed in. Mary doesn't really get it though, as no one does before the cross and resurrection, but what she does get is that no thank you is too big and that she won't have an opportunity like this again. So for us, we do Jesus honor by trusting that the great worth and honor is what he has done for us on the cross. What he did on the cross is of great value, especially when compared with our thanksgiving and praise. To trust in our works is actually to dishonor not only Jesus but also our works! Just like Mary's expensive oil is just a drop in the bucket when compared with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.

So Mary honored Jesus in that way, but Judas dishonored him in this way: “But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, ⁵ "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" ⁶ He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”. He spoke something that was good, but his motives were wrong. He didn't want to give the money to the poor, he wanted to cheat and steal. As the 'treasurer' of the disciples, he helped himself to the money that was put in there. So the words he spoke, he spoke as a cheater and a thief. That's the seventh commandment. But since his words seemed right, and made him look good, that's the ninth commandment, which exposes the people who say the right and proper things in order to get their hands on someone else's property in the wrong way. That's the dishonoring.

That's the dishonoring because the biggest insult was his unbelief. John is definitely comparing Mary and Judas here. Judas' unbelief was hidden then, but not to Jesus, and not forever. His greed led him to betray the Lord, but that was the symptom, and unbelief in Jesus was the disease. That's the very first commandment. And we've broken all ten.

Transition: But, we're not just comparing Mary and Judas. Jesus has the last word here: “Leave her alone, she has kept it for the day of my preparation for burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” The house was filled with the fragrance, but that's not the only thing it was filled with.

The weight of sin and the sweetness of the Gospel hung powerfully in that room and wherever God's Word is. Lent is an urgent time, especially the fifth Sunday in Lent, the last one before Palm Sunday, and it is urgent because of the weight of sin and the need for forgiveness. That certainly hung in the room – for there is unbelieving Judas (sin is real), and raised Lazarus (death is real), and believing Mary. But that is because Jesus' death hung in the room, because the time was short; and Judas would be the one to betray him, and Mary anointed his body for burial.

But because Jesus' death hung in the air, by faith it is not unpleasant, but very very sweet! Jesus' death is sweet to Christians. This is so because he honors us, by gladly bearing our own death. Like the first verse of the hymn: “A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth, the guilt of sinners bearing and laden with the sins of earth, none else the burden sharing; goes patient on, grows weak and faint, to slaughter led without complaint, that spotless life to offer, he bears the stripes, the wounds, the lies, the mockery, and yet replies, “All this I gladly suffer.” “ This is sweet to us because it is our righteousness. The epistle reading today from Philippians speaks of this, that we are declared righteous with a righteousness that is not ours, doesn't come from us but to us: “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-- ” 'Nothing is so sweet to me than the cross of Christ for the forgiveness of all my sins. No other feet deserve such oil as the feet of my Savior.'

And Jesus' death hangs over the church, sweetly, because God's Word hangs over the Church. For as Jesus has the last word, that last word is a proclamation of his cross and death for you. It's even better than the raising of Lazarus, it's the opening wide of heaven's gates to you! It is a proclamation of his life, death, and resurrection for you. That is what Scripture says.

And God's Word hangs powerfully over the Church when we make the biblical distinction between what we believe in and what we do because we believe. They are related, as Mary believed in Jesus and so that's who she anointed. But to confuse who we believe in with what we do as a result of believing is to believe in our works and not Christ. Remember the order of our reading: first Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, then Mary anointed his feet.

Where God's Word hangs powerfully over the Church, there God grants pure hearts. The hymnwriter can put it this way in verse 2 of A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth; “This Lamb is Christ, the soul's great friend, the Lamb of God, our Savior, whom God the Father chose to send to gain for us his favor. “Go forth, my Son” the Father said, “And free my children from their dread of guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, but by your passion they will share the fruit of your salvation.”

When Mary anointed Jesus we are called to repent and believe in the sweet fragrance of Christ's death!

[And when this all goes on, we believe this is by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Scriptures.]

Conclusion: So what hangs over the Church is sweet and enjoyable. And thanks be to God that it is nothing less than the Word of Christ's death, which grants pure hearts by faith and not by works, and does so by the forgiveness of sins. And so the Word draws us nearer and nearer to the biggest Sunday of the Church Year at Easter, which is made so sweet by the Friday called Good, and tasted on Maundy Thursday, and looked forward to on Palm Sunday. Here comes Holy Week. Amen.   

Lent 4 Video Sermon

Lent 4 [Luke 15:1-3,11b-32] (10 March 2013)

 This sermon was preached at Trinity Lutheran Church, Tailem Bend (9 am) and St. Johns Lutheran Church, Karoonda (11 am). 

Want to know what's so great about this parable? Everything. Also, that it's about families, which all of us have in one way or another. But this parable is about a family that isn't quite like any earthly family. And those differences are where all the enjoyment comes from.

So Jesus told a parable: There once was a son with a bad conscience. He made poor life decisions, yeah? Careless and wild living. But it's easy to skip over that he asked his father for his share of the inheritance. That's a big insult, because what has to happen normally to receive an inheritance? The person has to die. So what is the son saying to his father? I wish you were dead, I'm treating you like you were dead, all these and worse. Big insult.

So two things happen when he receives the inheritance, and they're related. He leaves, and he has a bad conscience. He leaves because his community would have noticed what he did to his father, and it would seem that he leaves because he doesn't want to have to deal with any of that: either the reaction of the community or dealing with life in his father's house. In this situation, what could he do right? All that's right for him is what he wants; that's a bad conscience. But look what the bad conscience gets him? “He squandered his property in reckless living.” The bad conscience leads to more bad decisions. The son is now lost, lost in a pig sty, and in need.

But the other side of this parable is: There once was a father who was also kinda reckless. What's more surprising than his son asking for his inheritance now? That the father gives it to him! That's the surprise. He just does it. Doesn't he know that what his son is doing isn't okay? Yes, he does. How do we know? Because when the son comes back, the father sees him from far away. How would he do that unless he was looking, and constantly grieving and looking for the return of his lost son?

And there's the biggest surprise of the parable: it's not that the son comes to himself. That's obvious: “I'm in the wrong here. And I'm starving. My father's servants aren't starving, they're doing pretty well for themselves. I'll just go back, confess that I'm in the wrong, and ask to be a servant, and that will be my life from now on.” That makes a lot of sense. But the surprise is what the father does. He humiliates himself by running to his son. An important man wouldn't run like this, especially because it means picking up your robes a bit and exposing your legs and that was a huge humiliation in the ancient world. And at any rate, it's the son who should have been running to him. And he throws himself on his son in love. So what does the son say? “I did wrong. Make me a servant”? Do we realize how silly that sounds? He doesn't say that. He only says, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” That's it. As if the father would even let him say more. He calls for the son to be dressed, not like a servant, but like a son from head to foot. Here's a reckless father. He gives his son his spot back in the family, which he in no way earned, and this is the most important part, in no way COULD he earn it. Not that overwhelming love.

Now you, you have a Savior who is just as reckless, generous, loving, and compassionate as this father in the parable. He threw himself on the cross, humiliating himself, for you. In baptism he gives you his own spot, to give you everything he has as the only Son of the Father. You have a Savior who loves lost things, and so he died for you.

But don't think that you can use this parable to show that the father thought whatever his son did was okay. Never use this parable to bless sin. When the father rejoices at having his son back, that's only possible if he was silently mourning what his son did. Jesus didn't bless sin, but he didn't write angry newspaper editorials and just leave it at that. He didn't go to war, he surrendered. He surrendered his life because of sin, to forgive sin and to give eternal life through him. Sometimes the biggest hammer of the Law is the grief of a family member who loves you anyway. And, on the other hand, if we do so many things in life to make our family happy, how much more important is it when it comes to something God has commanded. Luther talks this way in the Large Catechism on the Lord's Supper. He says, 'Don't do this on my account, but that the Lord said “This, do”. Don't do this for my sake, but for your own!”

But I digress.

And you know, there was another son, and he was also lost (in a different way), but he had the same father who rejoiced to have mercy. There was a son who heard the sounds of a feast, of rejoicing, but refused to come in. Now, as the eldest, he was off working, but as the eldest it was his job to be the host of the feast. He refuses, and so the father has to come out of the feast to the son. That's another example of the father humiliating himself for the sake of his son. And he does it!

There was a father who was grieved by his “good” son's lies. He says he's never disobeyed his father (when what did he just do?), and worse yet he thinks that he's a servant and not a son. He says, “Look, these many years I have served you.” He thinks he's earned everything he's gotten. And so he despises the compassion of his father. But the father shows that the real gift is being a son: “Son, you are always with me, and all that's mine is yours.” What does the father do? He points his son to the joy of forgiveness (“It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive, he was lost, and is found.”), and he never pointed his son to anything he could earn.

There is a Savior who gives a good conscience, went to the cross because unbelief isn't okay, and because you can't earn grace. Luther says that the promises and gifts of Holy Communion are an even more important reason to go than the fact that God commands it and takes it seriously. If God really and truly gives forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, if Christ humiliates himself enough to put his true body and blood in your mouth and on your tongue, who wouldn't run to receive this great gift and take the Lord at his word?

There is a Savior who has Christians that are like him because they're forgiven: they don't go to war, and scream and shout. In sadness they shake the dust off their feet. They know that without the work of the Holy Spirit there would be no saving bonds between God and us at all. The rejoice over the things he rejoices over: the forgiveness of sins.

Conclusion: Our Lord Jesus lives to forgive; we aren't made alive by earning this.

(Because who could?).

Amen.

Midweek Lent [John 11:1-44, 19:23-24] (6 March 2013)

This sermon was preached at Trinity Lutheran Church, Tailem Bend, at 7:30 pm.

What's the first thing an escaped prison inmate does that's also the first thing a sports club that's losing money does? Get rid of their uniform, either to blend in and escape or to make money from more merchandise sales. But uniforms are pretty handy. They're handy for Christians as we all share a few, and yet we don't all dress alike nor should we. That's the second riddle.

And that's what draws together these two different readings from John chapters 11 and 19. They seem far apart, but when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was only a short period from his own death on the cross. They're so far apart in John because John sets aside chapters 14-17 to record Jesus' words to his disciples right before his betrayal and arrest. So really these two readings are close together. And let's see how.

In chapter 11, Jesus gets the news that his friend Lazarus is dying. But he waits a few days, and when he arrives, Lazarus has been dead 4 days. Jesus speaks with his sisters Martha and Mary, telling Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” Then he asks to be taken to the tomb, and even more asks for the stone to be taken away. Martha is so surprised that she says, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor”. But the people are even more surprised when Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb, and out he hops, still wearing and bound with the grave cloths. So Jesus says, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

What Lazarus was wearing was no longer suitable for him. But that's only because he was raised from the dead. See, resurrection means nothing if sin and death mean nothing. We want the glory of resurrection without the reality of sin and death, but to actually do that is to have neither. There's a surefire way to rob resurrection of its truth and glory; just take away the seriousness of death. Why would we want to do that? So that we can have the feel good feeling of resurrection without the sad and painful reality of death. And that's both true – resurrection is great and death is sad. But without acknowledging that death is the wages of sin, you don't have resurrection. Because resurrection isn't feeling brand new or whatever; it's being dead, because sin is real and is the cause of death, and resurrection is being raised from the dead, because Christ's resurrection from the dead is real.

Jesus released Lazarus from the grave, really and truly, and so he commanded that his funeral preparations (the cloths) be undone. “Unbind him, and let him go.” And there's more comfort for sinners in this reading too. It's what Jesus does on his way there: two things – he weeps and he is “deeply moved”, but that word is used for anger, irritation. This death bothers Jesus in those two ways, and bothers him according to his two natures. According to his divine nature, death is not an original part of creation, and he can't stand the way it afflicts the creation which was formed through him. But according to his human nature, he is so involved in his creation that he mourns what death has done to Lazarus, his friend. It's because Jesus is bothered, and is going to do something about it, that he says, “take away the stone.” He does something about it right then and there. But he does something about it at his cross, defeats sin and death at the cross. And he does something about it at his tomb, when he leaves it alive, after he was put into it dead.

And so we read Jesus' words “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”, we read them at funerals; not because they make us feel better, but because they're true. We read them for the exact reason that they are true, and that's only because the subject those words address is true also. True, but conquered.

Transition: So in John 11 Lazarus looses his uniform of the grave and the grave cloths, and in John 19, Jesus is put to death and loses his clothes! [That's the object for this Wednesday, the dice that determined who got Jesus' tunic, his inner garment.]

But Jesus lost more than his clothes at the cross. He laid down his life. He really and truly died. And the soldiers who were ordered to put him to death on the cross, they divided up his clothes, a bit for each. But there was one part they couldn't divide equally. Each soldier already had a bit, but there's one more piece: his tunic. And what could they do, it was woven all in one piece. “We wouldn't want to tear it”, they said, so they had a good idea: cast lots. That means a roll of the dice. It's a good thing they had such attention to detail, as they put to death the Lord of Life. And even though they didn't know what they were doing, as Jesus prays to the Father for them, they are still fulfilling God's Word from Psalm 22: “They divided my garments among the, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Every detail of Jesus' passion went according to the detail that had been laid out, and all so that you may be forgiven.

And look at the weight of sin. The world is so twisted that it mistreated Jesus, God made flesh. At his death he possessed nothing: not belt, not head covering, not outer garment, not sandals, not tunic. Yet by his poverty you are made rich (by the forgiveness of sins).

Jesus by his poverty takes away your uniform of the grave and gives you the uniform of his righteousness in Holy Baptism. That's the clothes we all wear when we're released from the grave. They are the clothes we all wear when we are washed into Christ's death and resurrection. They are the clothes we all wear when we receive the forgiveness of sins by faith. They are the robes that have been made white in the blood of the Lamb. They are the proper uniform of the Christian whatever we may wear.

Jesus released Lazarus from the grave and lost his own shirt to clothe you with forgiveness in Holy Baptism.

Conclusion: Lazarus had his uniform taken away and his death taken away. Jesus had his uniform taken away when his life was taken away. Jesus left a uniform in the water when he joined his holy word to it in Holy Baptism – forgiveness of sin.

[My Salvation Is Found in Christ Alone . . . Who Is The Resurrection and The Life.]

Amen.

Lent 3 [Luke 13:1-9] (3 March 2013)

This sermon was preached at St. John Lutheran Church, Karoonda (9 am) and Trinity Lutheran Church, Tailem Bend (11 am).

There's two fun games you can play with the news: 10 commandments in the news [look at a news story and name which commandments deal with the areas of life found in that story] and where can I run for refuge [the answer is always to the mercy of God through Christ]. None of those games are called “look how much God hates those people, but he really loves me”. This is found in the tongue in cheek anecdote “God hates Cleveland” (see Cleveland Browns, Lebron James :The Decision). But all these things, these aren't how we tell how God feels about us. But Jesus clearly shows:

God is pleased when we repent.

Transition: The thing about talking repentance is that you've got to be careful with it, because this is people's consciences we're dealing with here, and we don't want bad consciences to fool themselves into feeling good, and we don't want terrified consciences to go away without being put at peace with God. So we look carefully at Jesus' words here. And so we make a distinction between what God can do and what God does do.

There's what God can do, and that's judgment. And he does this. But look at the parable that Jesus told. There's something we miss, and it's how easily the owner could have had the unfruitful fig tree pulled down. He doesn't have to go through the council, he doesn't need his neighbor's permission, he's the owner, if he wants it done, it gets done. He has the authority, and it's sill to say he doesn't. That's the thing about God being God. Like the owner of the tree, he is able to plant and to uproot. If one, then the other.

More than that, God is able to make sure evil people are punished. Now when the people tell Jesus “about the Gallileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices”, we don't have any historical reports about this at all, so we don't know what it is. But somebody in that incident did something evil, but Jesus does something unexpected. He responds, “You want to see evil sinners, you're all evil sinners. And God can punish, but just because you haven't had a tower fall on you doesn't mean you shouldn't repent too. Your life can be taken at any time and you should repent if you have tragedy or success!” Serious words.

And we can't say, “God can't do that”, just like we can't say “a farmer can't cut down an unfruitful tree.” “If it's not good for fruit, it'll be good for firewood.” That's what we do say. He can, he's the farmer. God can, he's God. This is like the section in chapter 29 of Isaiah, where we hear massive Law: “Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, "He did not make me"; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, "He has no understanding"? ”

But while what God can do tells you about sin, it doesn't tell you how he wants to forgive it. That needs a special word: the word of the cross of Jesus Christ. There's only one response to bad news: “That could have happened to me. I can only go to my God for refuge.” It's not “Look how much better I am than everyone else.” Never that.

And so when we have bad news and personal tragedy, we can't say, “I must have done something and now God is punishing me.” And when we have good news and personal success, we can't say, “I must have done something good and God is rewarding me.” Neither of those things are how you know how God feels about you. Only the cross of Christ shows how God feels about you: He loves you enough to give his Son over to death. Jesus loves you enough rescue you from the punishment you deserve.

There's what God can do, and there's what God loves to do, and that's bring about repentance and fruit. God doesn't love it when we don't repent. If you're a farmer, and you plant a field, and the plants come up, and they produce nothing, not one grain of wheat, ask them if they're happy about that. A whole field producing nothing. They'll say no. That's not what the plants are there for. If they won't produce you might as well just turn the whole field into a rock garden so it'll at least look nice. That's sin. That's breaking the 10 commandments. When we sin we defile God's own creation, we're not doing what we're there for, in fact we're doing the opposite. And Jesus says, “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Kids always say, “But”, “Yeah but”. No buts.

You should take a look, however, at the parable, and see that God wants to work salvation; that's the work he's happy about. And he loves to work with his tools for the sake of repentance, for the sake of turning from sin and believing the good news.

But the tools are unusual tools. Just like the gardener's tools seem destructive, at least to the tree. Manure, and digging around the base - these seem terrible. But look at their good results. So look at our suffering for its good results – fleeing to Christ for our salvation, and not to our own works, feelings, or excuses. And look at the tool of God's patience. The vinedresser says, “Let it alone one more year while I work on it.” God's patience is his desire to use his tools on those who don't believe: his Word. First, the word of Law. The Law is good by its results because it shows us our sin so we can only flee from our sin and to Christ our refuge. The result is faith. That's the fruit. This is created by Christ putting his righteousness in our account. This is the Gospel. This is amazing.

In the Large Catechism, Luther talks about repentance in the section on Baptism. Repentance is a daily return to the complete washing away of sin that is there in Holy Baptism. This is amazing. We return to our baptism in repentance and faith because this is life and death stuff. Our sins deserve death, and in baptism we received eternal life by faith. The Gospel of Christ crucified brought us from death to life in our baptism, and it remains valid every day. This is well and good for you (and others).

Living trees produce fruit for others. The owner of the tree says, “if it produces, well and good.” but that's only because it's doing what it's supposed to. When our fields produce, we say, “well and good”, because that's what they're supposed to do. It's like our young family members. They say, “At least I'm staying out of jail”. And you say, “What do you want, a cookie? You're supposed to stay out of jail!” The well and good is the use the fruit is used for. In doing good works, we function the way we were created to. But this only happens through faith in Christ. And faith has fruits, and they don't serve you, they serve your neighbor. In fact, they serve your neighbors in great ways. In fact, through your holy callings in life God serves your neighbors by means of your good works. And these holy callings and their fruits all look a little different: the fruitful spouse looks different than the fruitful laborer, than the fruitful health care worker, than the fruitful grandparent, than the fruitful volunteer, but all are called to pray for their own little patch of God's kingdom. All are called to pray for those outside the Church too, all are called to have patience with others and give up our rights and the things we like, for the sake of the neighbor. These are great results.

Conclusion: God punishes sin. Christ took the punishment for sin, and works his tools to bring repentance from sin, that by faith we may both receive the forgiveness we need, and serve our neighbors with the good things they need. God doesn't hate Cleveland, but Cleveland does need fruitful Christians there praying for it, as does every community on earth. May God grant us the life and death joy of the daily return to our Baptism during this season of Lent. Amen.