Jesus wept, do you understand? John 11:32-42

Jesus wept: do you understand?

A wise man in our church told me that he's ready to preach a sermon if I ever ask him. He said the text for his sermon would be two words from John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” He said his sermon would be two words long too, “I understand.”

Reading this week's gospel reveals something very human about Jesus meeting with Martha. Jesus' friends knew that he would have had the power to keep Lazarus alive. Still with all that power over death Jesus came to the family of his friend Lazarus he wept.

Maybe there are days when you understand why God in flesh with all power in his hands would weep. Yes Jesus had the ultimate power and as people of faith we know it's true; but death has some power too before Jesus calls for a resurrection to new life. Yes Jesus could overcome it; but he knew the sorrow of the situation just the same. Our faith doesn't take away the grief; but it gives us hope that in Jesus all who believe will rise again.

Totally Free John 8:31-36

Reformation Sunday 2009

You're free right now because of all that God has done.

You're free to go right now ... or to stay. I hope you'll stay and keep reading; but if you don't want to you are free to go. You are free because of what Jesus has done for you and me and the whole world by dying and rising.

Jesus came to set us free; radically and totally free. Free from sin, free from death, free from the Devil.

Most people don't believe that they need to be set free. Jesus came and died in order that we might be free, completely and totally free, forever. He didn't come to set you free by giving you a weekend pass. He came to get you and me ought of the jaws of sin, death, and the devil. Many people hear these words about true Christian freedom and they scoff. Its been that way when the truth has been spoken for 2000 years. John writes that,

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

For 2000 years Jesus has been setting people free. In Jesus own day the people who heard him speak told him that they didn't need freedom. In our day its the same. We think we are free and we tell God just as much. God isn't a fool. 2000 years ago Jesus turned to the scoffers,

34Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:31-36 NRSV

Jesus came to set us free from darkness and bring us into the light. What's in the darkness is often hidden and take's the most help from God to overcome
... isolation ... loneliness ... temptation ...
these things often aren't seen, but they are very real and the evil one works in them.

Jesus comes to set you free to live and to have a full life. He comes not because you are perfect but because he is in the process of remaking imperfect people in God's image. Maybe you think that you need to have it all together to be free in Christ. Jesus didn't come for the people who knew everything or who could do everything on their own. He didn't come for the perfect. He came for the imperfect. He came to help and you qualify.
AMEN

Who did it? He has... Isaiah 53:4-12

"He did it." "Did not, she did it."

Parents witness their shifting blame and passing accountability. One kid blames another. One hits another. The cycle keeps rolling.

Yesterday morning, the children's choir lined up to sing. Right in front of the Altar Rail our twin 6 year old girls started pushing and shoving. I sat 15 feet away (in that uncomfortable cushy throne-like-chair reserved pastors) and watched them tussle. They faught over who could stand next to another girl. Pushing and shoving ensued, one fell to the ground. Whining and crocodile tears flowed. I stepped over, trying to be a dad, and asked them to stop. The choir director chimed in, mom came up with the baby in her arms, and sat down next to me.

The girls wanted us to be referees. The wanted to tell us just who did what to who. Neither one wanted any accountability. We just wanted them to sing about God's love and mercy.

God knows that the real hurts we cause in the world. God knows we shift blame pointing to another's sin and culpability rather our own. Isaiah responded, on God's behalf, to the nation of Israel that in it's troubles started to take account for it's wrongs. He told them of the one to come who would be accountable. Isaiah didn't argue to get out of trouble or get another into trouble. He's told Israel God's plan of one who will come to take on all sin.

We want to justify ourselves. We are still the same kids even as adults. We conservatives act like our belief in God's revelation makes us good enough to earn the price of eternity, Jesus' life poured out. We liberals like to act like our love for our neighbors makes us good enough to earn Jesus' life poured out for our passage into heaven. Read Isaiah 53. Come to terms with who did what for who.

"...he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Who did this? Jesus did. Thanks be to God.

For God this is possible Mark 10:17-31

This Sunday's Gospel reading has me wondering about the rich and their place in the Kingdom of God. God's kingdom, Luther says, comes on its own, but we pray "Thy kingdom come" in hopes that it comes into being among us. God alone knows the needs of the world today. God alone sees the desperation

It's been trendy, this past month, to make observations about the super rich and their role in our current culture. Michael Moore released a new film and Ralph Nader published his first novel and each of these two appear to be pointing, in their own way, to the unique place that wealthy individuals have in our economic world.

The rich have been present as long as the church has existed. In Jesus days wealth and poverty coexisted, just the same as they do in our days. Questions of God's blessing, human sin, justice, and fairness have been with us all along. A man with many possessions wanted to get into heaven. He came to Jesus and asked what he had to do to get into the kingdom. Jesus response was deceptively simple. Sell everything, give away all the money to the poor, the come and follow. The man went away devestated. Jesus was simply answering the man's question.

The people were stunned. This "good man" was told he had to be even better. Then Jesus told them that relying on human strength alone won't get this man to heaven. "For mortals this is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." This is the gospel plain as it gets. This is hope for the hopeless. This is where turning to God and God's strength matters.

thanks

john

Where do you see God? Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12 Mark 10:2-16

God wants to be seen by us.
The God who made heaven and earth wants to be seen and to be known. In nature God wants to be seen. In the law and the words of believers God wants to be made known.

An old Scholastic Theologian I met (but never took a class from when I was at Saint Mary's)used to tell his students that if they looked at the Book of Nature they could see God at work. Look around, he advised, God wants to be found. When nature alone wasn't enough to show human beings God's will and God's presence the Creator called on prophets. God chose to send witness to tell the world about God's law, God's concern for the earth and humanity, and God's will. God wants to be known and to know us. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews understood God's desire to be known and to be revealed in our lives. He wrote about Jesus as a the culmination of God's desire to be known on earth,

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. ³He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1:1-3 NRSV

Jesus came as the clearest revelation that the world has known of God's love for all of us. He came not as people expected. He came teaching, as we hear in Mark 10, about a kingdom that would grow not through strength but through humulity. Jesus came welcoming all people recieve God's kingdom as children and warning them not to block any child or anyone with a childlike faith from coming into his presence. When we seek evidence of mature faith in people's lives Jesus invites us to see God like a child; with hope and wonder.

Can they do that? Mark 9:38-50

17th Sunday after Pentecost, September 27, 2009
Proper 21B or Ordinary Time 26B

In today's Gospel story a man, who was not one of the 12 apostles and who wasn't even “Following them” was seen casting out daemons in Jesus name. Jesus friends told him that they tried to stop him from doing it.

I think that Jesus friends were expecting a great reward for their efforts. I think they were expecting Jesus to pat them each on the back and say, “That a boy, way to go stopping someone from misusing my name.” Instead of praising them Jesus told them to leave the man alone.

This story about Jesus is a little tough to take if you are convinced your church and your church alone are the one right way straight to heaven. There's an old story about a man who arrived in heaven after dying. As he was being shown around by Saint Peter and some of the angels he noticed a huge hedge surrounding one part of heaven with a quiet please sign beside the hedge. The man turned to Peter and the Angels and asked, “What's with the big hedge?” Peter turned back to him and smiled, “That's where all the folks from the INSERT YOUR FAVORITE SEPERATIST CHURCH BODY NAME HERE go, they think that they are all alone up here.” I've heard that with so many other denominations in the punch line over the years and I think it really makes the point.

They're on God's side?

Jesus’ power is so big that it can't and won't be contained in the boundaries that we human make for it. Jesus love for God the father and for all of us is so total it won't exist just in the walls of this congregation or in congregations that think and believe exactly like us. Jesus was so passionate about the whole world that he couldn’t stand by and watch his friends try and limit the use of his name or the the power that it had to remake the whole world.

Jesus called them out for their actions saying,

“Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40Whoever is not against us is for us. 41For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

42“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.

I don't think that John and the rest of Jesus friends got the pats on the back and the hardy handshakes that they were expecting. So what about us. Are we to busy telling God who he can and can't work with and who he can and can't save?

Jesus, who's the best? Mark 9:30-37

From the earliest days, even before the cross, Jesus' followers have been trying to out do one another as super-disciples of their Lord. Jesus followers wanted to honor him and in turn the expect to find themselves in a place of greater honor than other believers.

The hard part is that following Jesus is (ultimately speaking) about dying to self and only then rising in Christ. We strive to serve more boldly. We believe we will become better people here and now and that we'll be honored here and now. What we don't realize is that all our striving leads not to immediate glory but to the cross and tomb first. Martin Luther king called it the Drum Major Instinct. We look for the glory here and now; but the glory we are waiting for is unlike any glory ever seen or heard of here on earth. Jesus was bound for the cross before rising and the cross is exactly where we're going to meet him.

In the Words of the 1970's classic Day by Day in the movie Godspell, Jesus friends always seek to be closer. "...to see thee more clearly, follow thee more nearly, and love thee more dearly..day by day." The desire to be close to God is good, but the desire to be the very closest to God is off the mark. Jesus response is simple if you want to be great live like he was living. Love, serve, give, and you will know great joy. Forget being the top servent of God. If you want to be great in the kingdom of God welcome Jesus into your life by welcoming other. The mystery of welcoming Jesus into our lives is that we must receive everyone from the little children to the old, from the poor to the powerful, from the sick to the strong like you are recieving Christ.