2025 Recent Sermons

What is Good Friday About?

Pastor Jim Krauser's sermon for Good Friday, April 18, 2025

Readings: Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1 – 19:42

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world. In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is Good Friday about? Why are we here? It is a difficult day, a difficult event, a difficult story to tell and to hear. Who was it that first explained to you why it is called Good Friday? I think it was my mother, who simply told me (at whatever tender age I was) that it was because Jesus died for us. Simple. Easy. Important.

The other day on Facebook I saw someone refer to the Good Friday liturgy as a funeral.

If this had been written by a young person it might be overlooked as naïveté. I think that at some point 50 years ago I might have thought the same thing, but I was 15 years old then. But this was not only by an adult but by (as I recall) a pastor. I resisted the temptation to go into full COPS mode. (That’s Cranky Old Pastor Syndrome). I didn’t respond. And now you have to suffer or benefit from it, you can decide.

Good Friday as an expression belongs uniquely to the English speaking world (as Lent does). The German word means Sorrowful Friday, and growing up in the German Lutheran tradition it certainly was that. A day of quiet reflection that had a strong focus on Jesus’ time on the cross and “the Seven Last Words” Who here watched “As the World Turns”? On Good Friday the Hughes family (et al.) always went to church where the “pastor” solemnly read them out. Every year. In my hometown there was always an ecumenical “Tre Ore” [three hours] service at one of the uptown churches from noon until three. It also focused on the “Seven Last Words” with a sermon from a different pastor on each one. As a teen, I went to that several times as part of my personal observance.

In my earliest memory, there was a children’s service my mother took us to in the afternoon, and pastor showed a film strip of the crucifixion with a narration. By the time I was going to the evening service the next pastor had introduced the Tenebrae service with the gradual darkening of the church as we heard those same “Seven Last Words” and sang hymns until we sat in total darkness. Talk about solemn. And dramatic. I’ve often maintained it as we read through the St. John Passion in my several congregations. As I think about all of those memories, I come back to those questions: What is Good Friday about? Why are we here? It isn’t or shouldn’t be simply a rehearsal of the gruesome events of the day. Too often that has had negative and anti-Semitic results. This week I also read an article about how to deal with how the expression “the Jews” in John’s Gospel can be misheard, putting undue focus on the Jewish people as a whole. In modern times, one solution to that is to see Jesus’ fate in political terms, a Messiah — a king who threatened the rule of Ceasar, and who met an unjust and political death. And we can certainly see this thread in the various Passions. It allows us the indignation without creating present day persons to blame. But readings that seek to lay blame at the feet of any particular persons or group is a faithless reading. It ignores the collisions and collusions in the story that offer a judgment on humanity itself not in a juridical sense, but in a moral sense. What is put before us is more than the disobedience presented in the story of “the Fall” in the garden which is so often pointed to as the great paradigm of human sin. Yet, next to the story of Jesus it is a quaint and mild tale.

Today is the day of the servant who was despised and rejected. Of the one plotted against, betrayed, denied, adjudged, and abandoned. And even for those who kept vigil with him there was little more than the brokenness and emptiness of grief. What is told in this telling? What do we see? A world without God. A world turned away from God. A world with no recognizable, meaningful God in their hearts.

Today we see what sin means. Sin is not eating the forbidden fruit—face it that always makes sin seem so banal—sin is absence of relationship to life, but which I mean the Lord, the giver of life. How else can we characterize a lack of justice, empathy, or compassion? When Jesus tells the story of the man who fell among robbers, who is assisted by the despised Samaritan, how does it end when he asks who was neighbor to the man? “The one who had compassion on him.” But even then compassion seems such a dispassionate expression.

A better, truer way to put it would be to say “The one who loved him.”What was Jesus commandment? “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Those words were/are the prelude to today’s service. So in the Passion narrative, while we can/should/need to pay attention to all the characters and their motives and actions, we must not lose focus.

The central character is Jesus, the one made to be, seen to be a victim, but who is in fact, as Isaiah’s song tells us is the servant of God. The Passion of Jesus in the Gospels or the Passion of the Servant in Isaiah are both filled with images of great abuse. But their purpose is not to inspire vengeance—which tragically contradicts them. Their purpose is not to inspire shame—which tragically might only turn us in on ourselves. There purpose is to call us to compassion—to resuscitate our stony hearts—to make us alive as God would have us live.

This is what Good Friday is about. This is why we are here.

It isn’t the particulars but the purpose. The particulars merely capture our attention. But the purpose is to learn the lesson: Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.Isaiah tells us this is a “good” day in the first words of scripture we heard today. See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.It is indeed a good day.

We speak of the “Great Three Days” of which this is one, but they are a whole. If we lose sight of that, this is indeed funerial if not a funeral. And if a funeral a funeral for who. For God? God forbid! Today, as part of the “Great Three Days” we see what is ultimately the funeral (that is the burial) and then end of sin and death. And that is not a funeral at all, but a day of rebirth for us and all creation.

Our Psalm began with the great lament “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” but also offers us the vision of the people of God made alive.“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; all the families of nations shall bow before God.For dominion belongs to the LORD, who rules over the nations.Their descendants shall serve the LORD, whom they shall proclaim to generations to come.

They shall proclaim God’s deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying to them, ‘The LORD has acted!’”We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world. In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Washing Feet: Forgiveness, Love, Humility & Servitude

Pastor Jim Krauser's sermon for Maundy Thursday, April 17, 2025

Readings: Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; ! Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17,31-35

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world. In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Throughout my years of ministry, I’ve probably included the washing of feet less than 30% of the time (I’m guessing). This is for several reasons; some practical, some liturgical and theological or perhaps a little bit of both.

First, I’m not all that agile and it’s gotten worse over the years. Bending down or getting on the floor and up again isn’t easy, nor is it pretty for you to watch. At my last congregation the chancel had several steps so I could kneel in front of the person fairly easily.

Second, usually it is difficult to get volunteers to participate. Having your feet washed by another is not common in our culture or day. It makes people uncomfortable. In my first congregation, after I presented the idea to my worship and music committee there was resistance which grew into threats that people would boycott the service if we went ahead with it. (I kid you not.) Shoes, socks and panty hose makes it clumsy. In some places, pastors attempt to approximate it with a handwashing, but I can’t support that as it doesn’t really embody the same level of humility and servitude presented in the Jesus’ actions. The truth is we have no modern equivalent.

Third, it takes quite a while even with only a few participants. And for the most part the congregation can see little of it.

Finally, what happens in this scene is a symbolic action. It was not meant to be literally repeated. Not then, and certainly not now. And if it were, it would be not simply for the liturgical leaders to do so, but for all the disciples to wash one another’s feet.

Of all the Gospels John emphasizes signs and symbols, especially when and where it departs from the framework of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Nowhere is this more striking that in this presentation of the Last Supper. We see him gather with his closest friends on the eve of the Passover, we hear little of the meal itself, but first comes extraordinary action by Jesus. It echoes a scene in each of the gospels, though with significant differences. In these it is Jesus who is anointed (on the head) by an anonymous woman at the house of Simon the leper in Matthew and Mark. Here in John, Mary of Bethany who anoints his feet and wipes them with her hair.

Luke gives an even more detailed story that takes place at the home of a Pharisee. The woman is only identified as a woman of the city and a sinner. She also uses and expensive ointment, but anoints his feet and then wets them with her tears. There is no open criticism of this act, but as on other occasions Jesus reads the situation and what is in the heart and mind of his host. He then uses it as an opportunity to teach on the nature of forgiveness. He tells of the two debtors whose debts are forgiven, 500 denarii and 50 respectively. Jesus asks Simon which will love the creditor more? The obvious response is given. The one forgiven more. Jesus then points out that his host had not provided for the washing of Jesus feet (the custom of the day), but this woman had. He concludes: “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” He then tells the woman her sins are forgiven and dismisses her. While those begin to debate “Who is this, who even forgive sins.”

I’m sorry for this lengthy wind up. But do you see what I see? In that telling and in our gospel we heard tonight, the washing of feet is a used as a sign of love and also as a sign of “being clean” is linked also to the forgiveness of sins which is itself an expression of the love of Jesus for his disciples, but as a witness to the world.

How many of you know what Maundy means? It’s a Middle English adaptation of the Latin word mandatum meaning commandment. Today is the day of the giving of Jesus [new] commandment. It’s association with the Supper may point us to the words, “Do this remembrance of me.” but though an imperative expression (and arguably a commandment), we have heard an explicit commandment this night: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Through the sign of washing of feet, Jesus identifies both forgiveness and love as acts of humility and servitude, of giving oneself over to another. Through the sign of washing of feet, Jesus identifies the greatest witness to him and his ministry is this kind of love, not merely affection or feeling, but self-giving. This is first and foremost the embodiment of Jesus himself in those whom he loves, and by whom his love is spread.

We are washed in the waters of baptism, waters which are a sign of cleansing and rebirth, of forgiveness and new creation. We are washed and cleansed once, and only have to have our “feet” washed to be clean all over. As Christians we cling to God’s word of promise, we are baptized—we are cleansed. But we return again and again to our baptism in confession (and perhaps tears) to have our “feet” washed in words of assurance and absolution.

So because the washing of feet is relatively obscure, I will suggest to you that our Confession and Forgiveness this night is for us an embodiment of that symbolic action Jesus did as his passion was about to begin. We do so with both the public declaration of forgiveness and with the personal signs of the laying on of hands. It is the sign of the impartation of the Spirit at baptism (and at confirmation); the sign of God’s healing at the anointing of the sick. I will also suggest to you that tonight we remember Jesus’ commandment of love as we turn from the personal sign to the communal sign of love in the sharing of the peace. It was the word of peace that Jesus spoke to the woman at the Pharisee’s house in connection with the forgiveness of her sins. And it is with the word of forgiveness and peace we are given to each other and sent into the world. Forgiving sins as we have been forgiving; loving as we have been loved.

With whatever gesture we use, this is the most intimate and transforming moment of our gathering and our most faithful to the new commandment as we greet one another, whether we are family, friend, stranger, or yes, enemies. For just as in the Supper, in this sign of forgiveness and love we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Amen.

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Heed & Learn Forgiveness & Compassion

Pastor Jim Krauser's remarks before the gospel reading, April 13, 2025.

Readings: Isaiah 50:4-9; Psalm 31:4-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 22:1 - 23:56.

Now usually I will offer my remarks about the Gospel and readings after they have all been read. But today we hear the story of the Passion, and though I, and perhaps you, do not always remember particularly well, the Sunday readings from week to week, it is likely the passion story rings familiar.

On Palm Sunday, in most cases we heard only the story of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. On Wednesday mid-week services we read from the “Passion History” which blended or harmonized the passion from the four gospels into a single narrative. Since the late 1970’s we rarely if ever heard it as we do now, with Matthew, Mark, or Luke, on Palm Sunday and John on Good Friday. Too often Good Friday we reduced to the “Seven Last Words from the Cross.” Almost no one uses the blended Passion History any longer, as it tends to erase the unique qualities and features of the individual Evangelists.

So with all that said, I’m offering these brief remarks before the reading of the Passion. Let me start by saying that Luke’s passion is my personal favorite.

It is quite different from the more austere and grim versions of Matthew and Mark, which give us the basic frame of the story. They lay out for us the injustice and violence visited upon Jesus; the betrayal, denials, and abandonments. They show us (with John) all the pain and suffering. Matthew and Mark only record one utterance of Jesus: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” a lament from the Psalms. A cry of anguish, usually understood to be the fullness of the incarnation. But not to be forgotten a cry of faith; it is, after all, a prayer.

Today. while Luke does not shy away from the elements in Matthew and Mark, above and beyond those Luke’s telling records expressions of the purest Gospel and also from the Psalms a ringing declaration of confident faith. These transform the passion from a dark tale dominated by blood and gore, pain and fear, suffering and death, to a message addressing us with grace and life, making sense of it for us, drawing a distinct line between the heart of humanity and the heart of God. It is the human community that is the voice of vengeance and wrath; it is the truly innocent man that is the voice of forgiveness and grace.

Jesus here embodies the teacher Isaiah. We should heed and learn. We should learn forgiveness and compassion. We should learn that we are remembered by Christ when we call upon him even in the depth of our own condemnation and pray “Into your hands we commend our spirits.”

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world. In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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The Hope of Anticipation

Pastor John Marschhausen's sermon, April 6, 2025

Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4-14; John 12:1-8

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Jesus Christ.

My Friends: One of the artistic nuances or subtleties in writing a piece of music is how to bring your composition to a close. If you’re a composer, what do you do for those last notes and chords so that everything comes together in a clear, resounding, memorable finale? Too long is overkill … too short, and you miss the power and beauty of a truly memorable finish.

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Well, this final week of Lent is a little like that – a “prep” for the “grand finale” of Holy Week and Easter. Today we’re called to lean forward … to look forward … to where we’re going – not by rushing from here to Easter, but with a genuine sense of anticipation.

Living all of life in anticipation is part and parcel of being a Christian, isn’t it, my friends? … because we live on this side of death … on this side of heaven. We’re not there yet, as St. Paul reminds us in our 2nd reading! We’re only able to anticipate the fulfillment of all God’s promises! Today calls on us to recognize this sense of living in anticipation as it’s played out in various ways through our scripture readings.

In our 1st reading, God’s people were exiles in Babylon as the prophet Isaiah calls on them to look forward in anticipation to their trip home – a trip God had promised them.

Well, my friends, there are parallels between living as exiles in Babylon, longing to go home, and our lives today. In the face of violence and war … in the face of cultural and political upheavals that seem to have gone crazy – and yes, in the face of a beloved congregation wondering about its future – it’s easy to despair and to wonder “where is God?” in all of this. Just as the people of Israel did in Babylon, it’s easy to start thinking that “the old, old story of Jesus and his love” has become just that: little more than an old story … a story that no longer seems to have much bearing on us … or for us.

Yes, we need to borrow for ourselves the message of Isaiah … a message of promise and anticipation … a message that sings out a wonderfully hopeful tune: that our God is, indeed, always up to something new … even when we might not be able to see it at the moment.

For me, St. Paul’s word for us in Philippians brings to mind the challenge I used to feel when taking St. Mark’s teenagers to Confirmation Camp at Calumet. Young people – boys and girls – invariably showed up with way too much baggage … with curling irons, makeup cases, i-pads. cell phones, hand-held video games and enough clothing for roughly a month. None of it was very helpful for five days and four nights in large camp tents … most of it never even got unpacked … and it was a huge challenge to transport all of that “stuff” to Calumet and then back again. How was I to keep myself – and them – focused on what was important?

Well, St. Paul had learned to set aside what to him had become worthless – excess baggage, so to speak – all his fancy credentials as a well-educated man of God … all his previously important self-esteem and self-image. Why had Paul walked away from all of that? Because Paul no longer needed any of it. Paul knew that in Jesus God had given him all that’s really needed, and so Paul was determined to embrace – to celebrate – to share … everything that this Good News meant to him … and let the rest go … trusting – anticipating! – that God would be handling it all.

My friends, as a pastor, it’s been my privileged many times to walk with people through their final days and hours. It’s an honor beyond words! I’ve often observed how the person facing death is able to let go of more and more … so that what’s truly important in life is lived as fully and richly as possible during that final time. Yes, those who are dying don’t have time for grudges … they don’t have time to nurse old wounds … they don’t have time to put up with the pretences of others … or the pretenses in themselves either – they’re anticipating heaven! Well, St. Paul is urging us today to do our best to live this kind of a life … at least a little more than most of us do now … to recognize and discard some of the “unnecessary stuff” – some of the “excess baggage” - and live a life of anticipation … a life rooted in – and yearning for – Jesus and what Jesus is up to … as we look at today and forward into tomorrow.

Now in reference to our Gospel … in spite of the fact that Jesus rebuked those who criticized Mary, some of us still think that Mary was a little extravagant, don’t we? I’ve seen this in congregations … as they wrestled with doing new things – things that some folks considered unnecessary or a waste of money or maybe, a little uncomfortable and possibly frightening! … such as considering all the options for our church in transition. Unfortunately, there are always a few who have a much harder time looking forward than looking back.

It’s a little sobering, isn’t it, that St. John aligns those of us who are always worrying about things with Judas? The difference, my friends, between Judas’ self-centered pragmatism and Mary’s lavishness – that difference was rooted in anticipation. What made Mary’s gift to Jesus acceptable was Mary’s faith - her trusting anticipation… Mary knew in her faith that a gift was coming to Mary much greater than the one she offered to Jesus … the same gift that’s coming to all of us … the gift that is Jesus Himself! Good Friday and Easter morning made Mary’s gift to Jesus – as expensive as it was – pale in comparison to what Jesus gave her. In the shadow of the Cross – in the light of that empty tomb – what’s a pound of expensive perfume?

Judas, unfortunately, couldn’t’ see this … because, using the imagery of Isaiah, Judas wasn’t able to anticipate going home … he wasn’t able to look forward … No, Judas only lived for today; only for himself … and Judas only measured “today” by what he knew from the past – not in anticipation of what God has promised for tomorrow!

In the spirit of St. Paul, Judas was one of those people who needed to hang on to his exalted self-image and his precious possessions … because he refused to allow himself to look forward – with trust and anticipation – to what God had in store for him. How terribly sad!

Perhaps, my friends, if you and I – as a congregation in the early stages of discerning our future from here – if we, perhaps, could catch the vision of Isaiah: the anticipation that God – as promised – is always doing something new for us …

… if we, perhaps, could catch, for just a moment, the yearning of St. Paul – for lives truly anchored in Jesus … and in Jesus alone … with all the really unimportant stuff disgarded …

… then maybe we’ll also be able to celebrate – in the extravagance of Mary – when it comes to living forward in our personal faith … when it comes to living together positively and constructively as a congregation in transition … then maybe Mary’s sense of anticipation will come naturally to us – as a breath of fresh air pointing us positively into God’s future … in whatever shapes and forms that might take.

God grant to your faith and mine this gift of anticipation as we move now toward Palm Sunday … and the Upper Room … and the Garden of Gethsemane … and Calvary … and that empty Easter tomb … and then, from there, into the rest of our lives as the people of God.

In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Now may the peace of God that passes all our human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.

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The Missing Piece of Our Life

Pastor Jim Krauser's sermon, March 30, 2025

Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4-14; John 12:1-8

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross,

you have redeemed the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In this season of the cross, in the season of Lent, in the season of Easter, we are confronted with the harshest realities of our humanity. We are invited to self-examination. We take inventory. We set goals perhaps even establish disciplines.

But it is not sufficient to give up meat or carbs or candy or TV or whatever else to get with the spirit of the season. It isn’t about feeling sorry for our sin. It is about changing or want to change. It is about taking stock, of being self-aware, not of our foolishness, but where kindnees, mercy, and love can be found, and its importance for our well-being.

The first purpose of Lent is for us to understand what the missing piece of our life is, to understand what it means to be godless in our souls. This is what makes Christianity a difficult faith--foolishness to the world. We live in a world and society of revenge. So much of our lives are driven by it. Where there are no enemies, we create them, either in our imagination or in fact. Not only now, but in generations past significant numbers of people have seen immigrants as threats for one reason or another. We pervert the notion of justice with “eye for an eye” punishments. We pay lip service to war and violence as means of last resort, but they are far too often the first option which comes to mind, even when our inclinations are toward defense.

The truth is we need not look abroad to do battle with terrorism. We need not look to the foreigners or aliens among us. We need only look to ourselves. All we have to look for are the bullies in our schools, the bullies in business, the bullies on the roads. All we have to look for are those who put themselves (and perhaps even their own) in front of the next guy. All we have to do is recognize that when we look out for NUMBER ONE (whether nation, family, or self) we have violated the commandment of commandments, the first and most important one. You shall have no other gods. Think about that the next time you see (or are at) some sort of event where people are screaming like lunatics “We’re number one! Yay! Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!” I tell you it is godless propaganda!. That’s all it is. There is only one NUMBER ONE and if we have anything or anyone else as our NUMBER ONE we are godless idolaters, such as the young man in our story. Clearly, he thought he was # 1.

Unfortunately, the young man finds that there is no security or happiness in having what’s his, in laying claim to the world as his oyster. It is not only because his time away from home ends badly that we should judge him. If he had been less foolish with money and had profited and gained for himself lands and flocks, should we really judge him any less harshly? Had he become as wealthy as Elon Musk, wouldn’t he still have wronged and wounded his father and brother? Would it really make a difference if he returned home in a sedan chair, rather than in rags? I don’t think so. Not unless, even in his wealth, he would have been prepared to say 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' What was truly lost was not the money, it was the family he had left behind.

At the same time, I think in our time we need to think about the elder son, for our society is most like him. We are skeptical and scornful of repentance. All too often we understand justice is served by punishment. By making someone else feel as badly or suffer as much (or more) pain than we ourselves feel. This too is godless. And of this second son, we might rightly wonder how he had regarded his home and father?

“…All these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.” Does this sound like a response that arose when he came home that night to find the welcome party in full swing? Or does it sound like a complaint arising out of a long-standing resentment--whether at his absent brother or what he perceives as his unappreciative father or both, perhaps? The elder brother sees the feast his father has ordered as only for the returned brother, not for him also. Why is that? Why can we not find our joy in the joy of others? A celebration is an occasion for all to enjoy.

Finally, we have to wonder if perhaps the brothers were not more alike than different. This elder son has enjoyed a daily banquet at his father’s table, yet it is clear he does not count it as much. He might just as well have been off with his friends. All was his for the asking (demonstrated by the story of the younger son), but still he grumbles. He too is sick to the soul, for he cannot find comfort or joy in the father whose love will not be corrupted or tarnished by possessions, or loyalties, or heartlessness, or waste. It is love which has the strength to conquer all. It it love which is patient and kind. Love which waits, through whatever it takes, to embrace its beloved again. This is the love of God. This is the love of the cross. This is the love of the new creation. Not because the object of our love has changed, but because we still look upon him, her, with love.

This is the challenge of Lent, the challenge of Easter...to regard no one from a human point of view any longer, but rather to look upon them with the reconciled eyes of God. This is what is missing in our lives. This is the emptiness at the bottom of our souls. Without reconciliation, without love we are the walking living dead--our words are false, our songs out of tune, our prophecies delusions, our knowledge confusions, our wisdom foolishness.

In Jesus Christ we are given a new way of seeing the world. We see it, and those in it, through the cross and resurrection. In baptism we are bathed and clothed and welcomed home, at the eucharist we are seated at the feast, and in our daily living we are proclaim reconciliation even if and when it might get us killed or at least die to ourselves.

As a child, our Sunday School liturgy and our Lenten vespers services began with this line from our psalm:

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.” Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin. Too often, I think, we have heard or experienced confession and forgiveness as conditional or transactional. It may be that the son who returned home did too. He didn’t even think that his repentance, his “coming to himself,” his repentance, made him worthy of his sonship.

Did he even dare to think that he could, in time, earn his way back? Too often we think forgiveness has to be earned or deserved. Leave that paradigm to the moneylenders. They only know balances, interest and cold hard cash. But is that how this story unfolds?

The Gospel is about the hope of return, the will to love, and the joy of restoration. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,” so then, this is neither the parable of the prodigal son, nor the two sons, but of the patient loving father. The lesson we learn is embodied chiefly in him.

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Patience, Hope & Grace

Pastor Jim Krauser's sermon, March 23, 2025

Readings: Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world. In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Contrary to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell’s inclinations, one of the most sad and destructive religious ideas is that calamity and disaster are the working of God’s wrath to punish wickedness. It is an ancient lesson and difficult to unlearn. We hear echoes of it in Paul, but I suppose its roots lie in the Noah story and destruction of the earth because of wickedness. But even then there is more than one way of understanding the meaning of the flood.

We can see the flood as punishment for sin or cleansing from sin. We can see it as only a judgment upon sinners or we can see it as an expression of God’s regret in his creation, of wanting to draw a line under the evil. What should drive us of course is the hope God expresses in creation by the sign of the ark, preserving a remnant a “sourdough starter” to reset, reboot, restart creation afresh.

There is a fine line, that we ought always maintain, between damnation and the death and destruction wrought by sin. This is what Paul is trying to get at (I hope). In scripture, as the idea of damnation is developed and revealed it is a matter of final and ultimate judgment, not temporal or immediate circumstances. We cannot and should not draw conclusions about the spiritual destiny of anyone, certainly not by looking simply at the circumstances of their wretchedness in life—such as the Galileans or the Jerusalemites spoken of in the Gospel. And we certainly cannot make a pronouncement of saintliness of others because they are wildly prosperous or powerful in life, or because they die quietly in their beds.

What is clear is that judgment is not left to us. And that’s a good thing, because we so often lack empathy, compassion, forgiveness, mercy or even patience. Even if we never would speak that withering barb from the lips of Maude “God will get you for that”; we feel it, or think it, or darkest of all, pray it. Pronouncing damnation is our greatest temptation, because when we do so it is subconsciously (or often consciously) a declaration of our own righteousness (if only by degrees). It is the prayer of the hypocrite on the street corner: I thank God that I am not like that sinner! Judgment sets us over and against one another. It usurping the prerogative of the one who will come and separate the sheep from the goats.

How often is it manifested around us? Most plainly in our blood lust, our desire for an eye for an eye. Revenge and retaliation are not only the purview of gangland violence, they occupy the thoughts of people from the most ordinary citizens to those in the seats of highest power. How often is this given voice as the paramount of moral reasoning? But revenge and retaliation is more likely to multiply sin carrying it over from generation to generation. When revenge and retaliation fill our hearts, we are no different than our enemies, whoever they are. What other lesson can we take from the admonition “do not return evil for evil”? One noted Christian ethicist writes: “Human beings are at the root of all evil. …Violence perpetuates evil by continuing the chain of evil causes and effects, condemning humanity to the vicious circle of continuing hate and destruction.”

Of the simplistic judgment that pain and suffering are to be discerned in random events Jesus is dismissive. He will not allow such judgments to be applied narrowly and specifically where there is no direct cause and effect, action and consequence conclusion about sin to be drawn. The tragedies and calamities in life, whether violence, bloodshed, war are not to be assigned to God as acts of punishment, but are the acts and effects of the evil that WE humans do to each other. Yes, indeed, they are the consequences of sin; they are the inevitable working of corruption in humanity. They are not God’s acts; they are our own—individually and often corporately.

But! God does not give up on us. Though God’s Law reaches its effective limits when we close our ears and turn our backs to it; the Gospel proclaims God does not close his ears or turn his back on us. (More on this next week.) Even today as Jesus laments over Jerusalem, this is confirmed.

When the ancient prophets proclaimed an impending crisis, it was as a consequence of the people’s national sin, whether idolatry, greed, oppression of the poor, or misbegotten power alliances. But these were always intended as inducements to repentance, not only personal but corporate even national. The call to repentance was meant to unite the people in a common judgment and a common redemption. WE HAVE SINNED. WE ARE SINNERS. WE BROUGHT THIS UPON OURSELVES. Jesus turns the question about the local calamities from pointing fingers at the victims, to calling all to recognize that the chief consequence of sin, that the day of repentance is now. In the section just before this, Jesus had been teaching his listeners about turning from cares of the day, to caring about ultimate things. It was one of those occasions when he solemnly said “You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Judgments turn us against one another—everyone for him/herself; repentance calls us all into the same lifeboat.

In chapter 12, Jesus began this discourse saying, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat, nor about your body…” But then he talked about being watchful, faithful servants, about the unexpected return of the servant’s master, about divisions and upheavals, and making peace with your accuser (whether human or divine). No wonder these awful stories of death raised questions among his hearers. His “sermon” about anxiety had not found its mark.

Jesus concludes with this little story about the fig tree. Sometimes I think we overthink the story, making God the Father the owner, and Jesus as the gardener, but I think that over-personalizes it. I prefer to cast the vineyard owner as the voice of the Law, and the gardener as the voice of the Gospel. The Law finds a fruitless faithless tree and declares it all but dead; but the Gospel proclaims patience, nurture, an infusion of hope and grace. The Law can only produce or analyze the form—the tree itself, only the Gospel can produce the hope of the seed bearing, life bearing fruit, only the gospel can pronounce it good. In this tiny parable is the full ministry of the Word.

Sometimes we think that repentance is only a creature of the law, but it has a two-fold purpose. The first aspect of the call to repentance is to die to ourselves. But the second aspect of the call to repentance is to live to God. This is the center of our baptismal life: renouncing our sin and confessing our faith; dying (daily) to self and rising with Christ; existing as individuals before God and being united to the body of Christ.

In the parable of the fig tree the time periods are figurative. I know some flowers don’t bloom the first year, and fruit trees take two to three years to mature. But we are not talking botany here but part of the parable’s message. What is called for is an indulgence: patience. What is this year that the gardener speaks of? Given the hope in the gardener’s prescription should we not think of that year Jesus proclaimed at the synagogue in Nazareth, the year of the Lord’s favor? What is mercy if not patience? What is repentance if not to begin again? What is steadfast love if not forgiveness?

The words from Isaiah are those proclaimed to those who had suffered calamity and exile. God has not rejected his people; he does not break his covenant. They are his people. He is their God. So it is for Israel, God’s first-called. So it is for humanity itself. God is faithful.

“Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world. In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

________________________

Justification by Grace Alone Through Faith Alone

The Rev. Jim Krauser's sermon, March 16, 2025

Readings: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35

“And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

This observation about Abram (soon to be Abraham) is not really only about the current situation in his saga. It is a statement about Abram fundamental relationship with God. He has left the land of his birth and traveled far from home, been involved in a variety of “adventures” and tight spots. But his wealth has increased mightily. But what does this mean if it all ends with him?

In this observation about Abram (soon to be Abraham) we have the foundation of the teaching of Justification by Grace alone through Faith alone. Abram has won a victory in battle and claimed no spoils for himself. The word of Lord comes to him to speak of a reward far greater than war booty. Abram asks of God, “What will you give me?” noting that he is childless. For Abram, already wealthy, this is the only reward that will last, all other things are transitory and pass away. The reward Abram asks for is nothing he can secure for himself, nothing which can be gained from others. Life can only come from God. In response the Lord takes him out into the night and shows him the star-filled sky for a sign. “So shall your descendants be.”

Abraham (the father of a multitude) believes God. Notice the difference between that way of putting it and how we commonly speak of faith. People today speak of believing in God…it’s what all the common surveys of religious opinion ask. Meaning do you think that there is such an eternal being. But it is a vague question and when responded to often an answer just as vague. It says nothing about which (g)God, of whom there are many. I’ve heard some use an elevator as an illustration of the element of trust involved. “Believing there is an elevator is one thing, getting in it is another matter.” And that’s pretty clever, and to the adolescent me who heard it for the first time, even impressive. But that still is a “third person” expression. Perhaps it is just a figure of speech, but how much different would it be for even us if, as we recite the creed said, “I believe God, the Father, he Almighty…. I believe Jesus Christ, God’s only son our Lord…I believe the Holy Spirit….” To express it this way captures an element of relationship that is only touched upon when we say we believe in which is more abstract than concrete. There is a conversation here. Abram believes the one who has spoken to him. It is what Martin Buber termed “the I-Thou relationship.”

It is the concrete, the direct, that provides a real foundation for the faith of Abram. The “believing” at issue here is not about being convinced of a truth, but of being filled with trust, which holds the other as its object. Abraham acts and lives out what he God has promised him and called him to be and do.

When Paul writes the Philippians, he warns them against those who have the belly as their god. That it is themselves and their desires that rule them. They are enemies of the Cross of Christ because its kind of self-denial is antithetical to their self-serving nature.

Last week Jesus was literally confronted with the suggestion that he too should serve his belly, and here he is faced with it again, in the sense of his physical well-being. He should run to escape Herod. But Jesus is resolute. He believes he has work to do, a mission. He believes what God is doing through him. He believes Jerusalem is his destiny. In the story of John’s beheading the picture of Herod is plainly one whose god is the belly. Luxurious and gluttonous in his feasting, drunk with power if not wine. But in the end, weak, vainly over-promising and manipulated by his wife and step-daughter. And though we sometimes hear “fox” and think of a sly and crafty character, I think it’s more likely Jesus dismisses him as a nuisance predator…the fox that steals from the hen house. But Jesus contrasts himself as the mother hen who would protect the brood.

The problem is that the brood does not believe as Abram. They do not recognize their mother. He says, that it is his desire to gather the people of Jerusalem up, to hold them, comfort them and love them, but they were not willing. And in their unwillingness, though they have the house (the Temple), but not the one who chooses to make his name to dwell there. They look to the coop, but not the warm wings of the hen.

Nevertheless, Jesus will not be turned aside from Jerusalem or his mission. For he believes. In the end, in the cross he believes for the city and for the world. He will go to Jerusalem, and he will be greeted with the words “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” In these words, faith meets faith. It is a statement not about believing or of belief in the abstract. It is a continuation of the dialog underlying the story of Jesus. It is the response to the declaration at the Baptism and the Transfiguration “This is my Son, the Beloved..” It is the hymn of the crowds on Palm Sunday (we are always looking ahead in Lent). And it becomes the on-going song of the church each week as we await his arrival in the real presence, an I-Thou encounter. We do not come to have our bellies filled, but rather our hearts.

The psalmist says “ One thing I ask of the LORD; one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life; to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek God in the temple.” Here we, like Abr’am, with Abr’am, believe God, and we gather to celebrate a foretaste of the feast to come, the ultimate fulfillment of God’s enduring promise of life everlasting, where we enjoy that “one thing” we seek.

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you; because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

________________________

"Save Us in the Time of Trial and Deliver Us from Evil"

The Rev. Jim Krauser's Sermon, March 9, 2025

Readings: Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross

you have redeemed the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I’ve long been an advocate for the “modern” version of the Our Father. Most often here in New England I find the “traditional” version still dominates. I can express some sympathy because I kvetch enough myself about the tinkering with the hymn texts.

Old dogs and new tricks and all of that, but when it comes to the Lord’s Prayer, I’m sold. I regret it kept “hallowed”.

Let’s face it that word rarely passes our lips in any other context. So just as we abandoned trespass and trespasses, hallowed could just as well have been retired. And just because we learned it the other way so many years ago is no excuse. I learned the newer one as an adult. It is only a few lines, and if you pray it every day, you’ll learn it easily enough. Most of all we should learn it for our children so that they might better understand this most important prayer. But I bring the Our Father up today because of perhaps was the most necessary and helpful change, and that is in the sixth petition.

One of the stumbling blocks that has now been recast is “And lead us not into temptation,” which we now know as “Save us in the time of trial.” If avoids awkward questions in confirmation and even sometimes in Adult Ed. Classes. “Lead us not into” I’ve often had to explain, really needs to be understood as “Lead us out of” or perhaps “away from” temptation, or at the very least it needs to be seen as a parallel to the next petition “deliver us from evil.” The newer text spares us the rather worrisome question “Why would God lead us into temptation?” Luther seems to have gotten this question too, and so the Small Catechism address this question head-on: “God tempts no one to sin, but we pray in this petition that God may so guard and preserve us that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into unbelief, despair, and other great and shameful sins, but that, although we may be so tempted, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.”

Today’s gospel reading and the scriptures more broadly assign the description of Tempter to the wicked one, to the diabalos, the devil also known as Satan. We notice that it is an engagement concerning God’s Word. First of all, the Word proclaimed at Jesus’ baptism (a word we heard reaffirmed in the Transfiguration story last week), “You are my Son, the Beloved.” The devil challenges this twice. “If you are the Son of God….” Each time, Jesus parries with an affirmation of the Word of God.

Now a word about a distinction between a trial or test and temptations.

We do see in the Bible several instances of where God is said to test his people. The story of Abraham and Isaac comes to mind. It is a severe test, some would say a horrific one. But tests, as they are in school, always about being asked to prove ourselves, to affirm what we have learned and learning what we’ve not we can improve knowledge and mastery of a subject. No teachers want their students to fail (shame on those who form badly worded or trick questions!). In Job, God permits another severe test of Job by Satan because God is confident in Job! And Job holds to God’s Word. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Perhaps that belongs in our Ash Wednesday liturgy, as our response to receiving the ashes! We come to Lent for a kind of testing of our trust in the word of God and to see where we need tutorials and remedial help. Most important of all we’re on our honor to assign our own grades.

We also come to Lent to examine our temptations. Those things draw us from God, as the renunciations in our Baptism and Affirmation of Baptism say. And though there may be external things that excite and even entice us, in the end they speak to our inner selves, our inner natures, our hungers, if you will. In the end a temptation is nothing more than our own inner nagging self saying “Go for it” be it something bad or good. Though most often the former. We don’t usually think of a temptation as leading to good, in fact the word has a feeling of failure attached to it. “I was tempted to give a large donation to the American Cancer Society.” Who says that? We think of temptations as appeals to our darker sides, to our selfish selves.

In the Gospel we see kind of overlap. These are tests. But the examination is full of misleading and trick questions, i.e. temptations, encouragements to fail. Hunger. Power/Glory. Faith itself is put on the line.

In the first, Jesus is prompted (is that the best word) to use his identity as the Son of God for his own benefit. At the cross we hear the same suggestion in mockery “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” Here and then, Jesus refuses. We might say the same of the second proposition. The phrase “if you are the Son of God” is not there this time, but what is offered him is in fact a denial of that title, claiming it for himself. As Son of God, he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but these are not to be his but through the cross, as the Philippian hymn that we will hear on Palm Sunday proclaims. The devil shows himself here to be a pretender and a usurper; an example, albeit a negative one for those who seek their own glory and power for its own sake. The final scene is on the pinnacle of the temple. It is the most sinister of all, as it would have Jesus, not only die for no purpose, not even a meaningful proof of faith, but in doing so desecrate holy ground. The quoted verses of the Psalm (those that we sang today), are their to strength us our times of trial, not create them. Jesus’ own life, and the life he calls us to in discipleship, may call us to follow the difficult path, and to step out of our boats into the threatening wind and waves, but those are not times of our choosing, but when faith is the essential strength to choose good or evil, come what may.

God’s Word give shape to our lives and our existence, gives guidance and commands for our good. None of these are tests in themselves and they are certainly not give as mousetraps kills us. They are instruction, maybe even wisdom. Rather it is often we who put them to the test under the influence of the tempter.

In each instance it is with trust in the Word that Jesus gives answer and defeats the tempter’s improper, impertinent, and impious suggestions. God is not the problem. God’s Word is sure. It is the anti-Word, perhaps we might even say the antichrist that is the problem.

Before all the cinematic special effects of our day the picture of the horned, red, fork-tailed devil hovering in the air above Jesus in my children’s Bible gave me not a few scares. Some of you probably had that one with its figure hovering in the air above Jesus. Silly. The devil is monstrous, but not a monster. This is not the devil we meet in the Bible. Yes, we’re told “the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” But his means and methods are not to seize us, or tear us limb from limb, but ultimately, as with Eve and Adam in the garden , as with Jesus in the wilderness in today’s gospel, the tempter’s game is to get us to destroy ourselves by destroying our faith in God’s Word and promises…to undermine and corrupt our trust in God…to turn us away from God, even turn us against God so that we demand that God submit himself to our testing or trials. But this is the last thing we must do. At the end of today’s story, Jesus affirmation of not putting God to the test, ends his ordeal. Jesus clings to the Word and the devil turns tail.

We were a church going household but we didn’t have a practice of family devotions. We weren’t given to reciting scripture much. There were two passages which my mother set before us—one on the bathroom mirror and one in the kitchen (I think on the fridge). The first is a statement of pure Gospel from John 5 “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.” It is a foundation for anything and everything we call faith against whatever might challenge or tempt us—the devil, the world or our own flesh. And the other was from our 2nd reading today. “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.” Mom used it to explain the significance and importance of Confirmation to my sister and I. In the Gospel and in Baptism we had been given God’s Word and confirmation was our participation in that word of life, making our public confession with our lips through the creed. It was our test. Proving that what was sown in us had taken root. The Word of God, the promise, the Gospel was the fullness of salvation for us, and the response to whatever temptations and trials the devil (not God) might throw at us. To speak the word of God, to make a confession of God was to make an invocation of God to come to our assistance, to be our strength, and to deliver us from evil, if not in this world, in the hope of the resurrection and the life of the world to come.

There is another saying of Luther that seems apt for today, “So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: “I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!” [Martin Luther, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, trans. and ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College, 2003), 86–87]

With such a confident commitment to the Word or should I say such a commitment of the Word to us, then when tempted by even the devil himself, the prayer “save us in the time of trial and deliver us from evil” is all we need.

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

________________________

Not Just the Summit Moments

The Rev. John Marschhausen's sermon, Transfiguration Sunday, March 2, 2025

Readings: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36

My Friends: In the world of international politics, summit meetings are generally the preferred way for leaders to peacefully iron out their differences. Presidents and Prime Ministers seem to be better able to understand one another … better able to appreciate from where each is coming … when they’re sitting directly across the table from one another, looking one another in the eye.

Well, today, Transfiguration Sunday, gives us a glimpse into a holy summit meeting, if you will; indeed, the ultimate summit. God, the heavenly Father, meets with Jesus, God’s Son, sent into this world by his Father ... and attending Jesus and God is Elijah, the first of God’s great prophets, a man who never died but was taken by God directly into heaven in a fiery chariot ... and Moses, the great Lawgiver of Israel, who experienced a few of his own summits with God: in front of a burning bush … and up on Mt. Sinai, as our First Reading tells us.

In our Gospel, Peter, James and John are privileged to be a part of this holy summit as observers. They hear God the Father clearly say who Jesus is: This is my Son, my Chosen! They also hear God address them … on how they’re to respond to Jesus: listen to him!

As often happens among observers at such high-level meetings, Peter, James and John failed to fully understand everything that was happening. St. Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus about his departure ... about his suffering, death and resurrection in Jerusalem. Peter, however – so overwhelmed by this awesome moment of divine splendor – Peter didn’t want to leave ... like most of us who are usually quite impressed when we’ve been privileged to spend a few moments in the presence of greatness and celebrity. Rather than leave that mountain top for the hard work waiting down in the valley, Peter was hoping they could all just stay there in the glory of the moment.

My friends, the message of Jesus’ Transfiguration ... our purpose for cele-brating this rather odd biblical event every year on the Sunday before Ash Wed-nesday... our purpose is to say to one another, today, that “Yes” ... in many special ways ... God gives his people “mountain-top experiences” ... “epiphanies” ... revelations … glimpses into God’s amazing goodness and love ... but at the same time: if we’re truly “the faithful” people of God… if we’ve been listening to our Lord Jesus – as his Father suggests we should – then we recognize that our “glory” moments … that the mountain-top moments in our faith, when we feel and know God’s closeness and love in special ways … well, if we’ve been listening to God – listening to Jesus – then we know that those moments must be followed by mission moments!

Jesus left his shining glory up there on the mountain and went down into the valley ... to Jerusalem... where he would suffer and die for humanity’s sin. And what was true for Jesus would also true for Peter, James, and John -- although they didn’t know it at the time, ... and it’s still true for us, my friends ... for every one of us and for the Lutheran Church of St. Mark.

Each of us, I’m sure, looks forward to the “mountaintop experiences” of faith ... for those times when we truly know God’s loving presence and power with us.

And yet, just as surely, you and I also know that we’re called to Mission – called to work and service, sometimes in ways we’d never imagine and probably would prefer to avoid – called sometimes to sacrifice; to go sometimes in directions we, perhaps, would not choose – and whatever we’re asked to do, called to it in ways that shares with others the Good News of God’s amazing love for all of us in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

These mission moments, my friends, are generated by a deep commitment in our faith to walk in Jesus’ footsteps ... which means to live each day as Jesus did ... not simply longing, with Peter, for those inspiring mountain tops of faith that we remember ... but also going into a future where we’re challenged to let others see what really fuels and motivates our hearts and lives ... going into a future where we’re challenged to offer genuinely helpful and comforting presence for one another ... challenged to give of ourselves for the sake of each other ... challenged to live this message: Yes, we are listening to Jesus!

So, today my friends, thanks be to God for the whole Epiphany Season that now draws to a close. God’s Word has revealed to us once again just who Jesus is - Jesus is God’s Son, God’s Chosen One ... the One to whom God, our heavenly Father, would have us listen!

We also pray today that the Holy Spirit will continue as our guide as we begin a new Season of Lent ... as we walk again with Jesus through the valley ... toward Jerusalem and Calvary where God’s forgiveness and new life is offered to all God’s children … and, at the same time, walking together … walking forward, to wherever Jesus is leading the Lutheran Church of St. Mark.

Yes, we pray that God’s Spirit will be with us during this Lent especially as we listen to Jesus ... and learn from Jesus … learn how to be his faithful disciples however it is that Jesus wants to shape us and our lives and our future: not only in celebrating Jesus’ grace and love for us, but also sharing his grace and love with others by the words we speak and the lives we live. In Jesus’ Name we ask it. Amen.

Now may the peace of God that passes all our human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.

________________________

Friends & Not-Friends

The Rev. Jim Krauser's Sermon, Feb. 23, 2025

Readings: Genesis 45:3-11, 15; Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40;; 1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50; Luke 6:27-38

"Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you."

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

In less than three months I will be, legally, a senior citizen: an old guy. But in one way I’m not old enough. I’m not old enough to remember a time when the Ten Commandments were posted in school rooms, nor when there was formal prayer in schools. And because of that, I have never been able to really get the obsession so many have with either of these.

I know for many it has to do with declaring that there moral absolutes, lines that should not, ought not, must not be crossed. Fair enough. But will merely posting them on the wall have much impact? It is, frankly, silly to think they could. Even synagogues and churches know better.

We rarely post them on the walls and leave it at that. We deal with them in the most ancient sense of law in the Bible; we treat them as instruction. We understand them not as jurisprudence, but as moral formation and as descriptive of the character of righteousness. For us they are a unit of “core curriculum” in the school of faith and life, and as we hear Jesus speak in the Gospels, we learn that these are ultimately bullet points or heading, and that if we regard them simply as should, oughts, or musts, we will misunderstand them or as the zealots who want them posted in schools (or courthouses) abuse them and turn them into cudgels.

Jesus is not teaching dos and don’ts. He doesn’t want us to think in those terms. He wants to teach us about the relationship between righteousness and faith. This is how we approach the “commandments” or God’s “instruction [Torah]’ properly. I could be wrong, but my sense is the proponents of posting the commandments have a desire to “put the fear of God” into children (and I suppose people as well). But if that’s all we want to accomplish we are abusing the commandments and damaging their meaning and intent. It is “secularizing” them, if you will, using them in civil sense (alone). As Lutherans, we do acknowledge and teach that the teaching of the law, of the commandments have societal or public function, we call it the “civil use” of the law. But that is not the complete understanding, God’s instruction is never “a wall” or simply to restrain wickedness or sin. It is to reveal God’s heart to our hearts, to teach faith. To be an Epiphany.

Do you see where I’m going? Perhaps this will help. Do you remember your catechism instruction? It may be a while back (last June was the 50th anniversary of my confirmation). How does our Small Catechism begin the explanation of each of the commandments? Anyone? You’ll find it on pages 1160 and 61 in the ELW. “We are to fear and love God….” Every time. So I put it to you if “love” has no part in how we think about, teach, or understand the commandments, we will never properly understand them or keep them. Now let us look at what Jesus says the crowd, to US who listen, today.

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you."

Love…do good…bless…pray…give. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Why not post these in our schools and courthouses? What do you think?

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES. Put that in every classroom and hallway in our schools—in our courthouses.

IF STRUCK, OFFER THE OTHER CHEEK. Would the local PTA go for that?

Couple it with IF ANYONE TAKES FROM YOU, DO NOT ASK FOR IT AGAIN and you’d put and end to most or all lawsuits.

The “Golden Rule,” as most of us learned to call it, seems to gentle and basic. DO TO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO TO YOU. Who could object?

It’s about simple kindness or civility, isn’t it? It’s even secular sounding out of context. But then it really has no depth, not bite; it’s just a nice platitude. But in context, this context, it is a truly radical idea. Out of context it can be understood transactionally. “You scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours.” But Jesus is not putting it in a context of banal reciprocity, but in the context of righteousness. There is no room for the “lex talionis” eye for eye tradition here. In Matthew’s version that is directly challenged. What was given as a restraint against excessive retribution is now called into question as misguided, because answered evil with evil. ‘Do to others as they do to you’ only perpetuates estrangement and evil—remember the quotation from Paul last week: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

There is a radical simplicity here in Jesus’ words, a binary universe…a world of friends or not-friends (that’s what enemies literally means). This casts our usual understanding of the law, the commandments in a very different light. They are about how we act toward our enemies…our not-friends. Here Jesus even mocks the distinction between friends and not-friends, the “charity begins at home” impulse, or any sense of moral superiority. Though not used in this passage, our catechism provides us with the leveling word that Jesus uses to erase the distinction between friends and not-friends, between us and them: that word is “neighbor,” here simply “others.”

There are a couple of ways that Luke’s version of Jesus’ words differ from how Matthew gives them. One is that in Matthew Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” whereas Luke gives us “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” So we have to ask, did Jesus say two different things, or do these reflect each other? Frankly, Matthew’s way seems out of reach and unattainable, and I think, is often dismissed as too idealistic. As we have heard it today, however, seems much more concrete, and speaks not of how God is in himself, but how God is toward us. A second difference is that in Matthew the Lord’s Prayer is part of this same material, whereas in Luke it is given in a slightly different form several chapters later. But notice that one key line, perhaps the most important line, what I call the apex and heart of the Our Father, remains “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Here now, in these two express-ions, we have not mere reciprocity, here we have no mere transaction, we have the acknowledgement and enactment of a relationship of grace. All of it founded in, grounded in, and made known in Jesus himself. Here a rigid distinction between law and gospel is softened if not dissolved in the transforming power of love.

We are to fear and love God says the catechism. How many generations have pastors or catechists had to explain that the “fear” spoken of here does not mean servile cowering fear but of the awesome-ness of the God who creates, redeems, and sustains us—of the God who loves us, and to whom we respond in love and faithfulness to that love, that mercy, that forgiveness that we have received. The prophets tells us this message is not meant to be written on tablets of stone or on walls, but on our hearts. Hearts that like that of Joseph do not respond to those who do us wrong in like manner. Hearts that are transformed from perish-able to imperishable from dishonor into glory, from weakness into power. Hearts that reject a distinction between not-friends and friends in faith taught the commandments and by Jesus, that we fear, love and trust God above all things. Then all things are possible.

“[L]ove your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” To them, and us. So far as God is concerned, none of us enemies (not-friends), all of us friends. Amen.

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A Text of Comfort

The Rev. Jim Krauser's Sermon, Feb. 16, 2025

Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26

"Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you."

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

What we have just heard is the beginning of Luke’s version of the great sermon of Jesus. We know it from Matthew as the Sermon on the Mount, we can’t very well call it that here because it is delivered “on a level place.” The differing locales of this same material gives us some insight into how the Evangelists understood Jesus.

For Matthew Jesus was the new Moses giving the law on the mountain; for Luke we have Jesus on the plain--recalling Isaiah’s prophecy (which Luke has already noted). This is the place of “the way of the Lord.”

As in Matthew crowds are beginning to gather around Jesus, but Luke adds the special detail of “from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.” Luke foreshadows the trajectory of Acts that the message of Jesus extends from Judea and Jerusalem in the hill country of the south, to Tyre and Sidon--Gentile cities on the Mediterranean coast in the extreme north (Lebanon). These are words for all the people of all the earth, from the high places, and from the low, met together here on the plain.

Luke organizes the material of Jesus’ story in expressions of reversals, the lifting up of the lowly and the throwing down of the mighty. This is clearly seen today in his version of what we call the Beatitudes. Luke not only keeps the focus narrower (we have four blessing statements rather than nine), but the emphasis is on the concretely marginalized. Notice that here we have not the poor in spirit, but the poor [period]; not the hungry and thirsty for righteousness, but the hungry [period]. Luke also carries the material one step further. They are not in the passive voice but in direct address each time: “Blessed are you….woe to you…” Though we should not jump to conclusion that there are here prescriptions for living. These are not aspirational teachings, but existential declarations. Here we see the perversity, the imbalances that Jeremiah speaks of. Human life is not supposed to be a zero sum reality. Poverty and hunger are not the fault of the poor and the hungry. Wealth and abundance represent abuse when they are hoarded. So Luke shows Jesus painting a picture of justice, not in a punitive sense but in the restoration of the balance of nature, the lowering of the mountains and the filling in of the valleys, producing the “level place” of today’s reading (literally, ‘the place easy on the foot’). The woes are meant to shock us; to illustrate a graceless world. In the end, a mere shift of everything from one group to the other is not a satisfying outcome; there is no redemption in that. It is not the will of God to damn anyone to misery. To hear in Jesus’ words a call to works to do better to achieve God’s favor, is to misunderstand him. Jesus’ appearing (Epiphany!) among us is a statement of where God’s grace is seen and known. Where those who know and trust in God will stand easy.

It is in the final declaration in the blessings as well as the woes, that Jesus moves beyond the circumstantial to the attitudinal. Unlike Matthew’s version the pointedness of persecution is not spoken here, but in the identification of being hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed as the bane of the blessed, we see attitudes that are implicitly proscribed for the blessed. These hostilities are spoken of generally, not because they are false (as if they could be deserved), but simply because they are ungracious and ungodly in themselves, denying the dignity and worth of others. In contrast, the woes are not denouncing “speaking well of others” as if we are duty bound to hold in contempt those who are mean spirited, but pointing to the insincere flattery directed toward the unworthy, and the literal idolizing of the rich, the powerful, those whose positions are esteemed and envied, while those who speak God’s Word, are disregarded.

Luke ties this material also to the healing ministry of Jesus because in healing, Jesus is again re-ordering that which is out-of-order. He is filling in the gaps in lives and in bodies. The mission and work of Messiah is to bring wholeness, to bring shalom. It is this wholeness that the crowds seek. None are to be hated, excluded, reviled or defamed. They come not only for the healings, to address their immediate needs, they come to hear his words, the Word, the good news of God’s reign.

For Paul, this good news is embodied (no pun intended) in the resurrection of Jesus. This is God’s reversal of our fortunes at its ultimate. The ultimate bad luck is trumped. Death is cracked and broken. Resurrection also points to one other truth. It is not the bodies finally which were the problem with our humanity, from which we need to be freed. It is sin, which permeates both body and spirit that needs to be healed. Resurrection is a sign not only of restoration, but of the transformation which is begin in us in baptism. It begins now and is completed in death and resurrection. We are changed from the inside out in ultimate healing.

By baptism, we come daily to the edge of our graves and look in. There we see the hole we dig for ourselves. But even as we stand peer into that blackness we are called forth from death to life. It too will be reversed. We are given the promise that even this tiny little valley will be filled in, and it will be smooth place upon which we will stand and go forth to live in the kingdom of God.

Throughout the generations the Beatitudes have been a text of comfort for many. Matthew’s text is the more familiar, recognizable but probably not quotable, at least in their entirety. Luke’s are shorter but far less familiar, so not exactly at the front of our minds or on our lips with any regularity. I, myself, have to admit I’m at an age (and have been for some time) where committing texts to memory is not easy. We are long past the age when we drill our young in memory work. The shame is that without holding these things in our memories, the comfort they are intended to give is dissipated. Fortunately, Jeremiah declares a beatitude that can serve as a summary and an assurance: “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.” We should hear the Gospel reading with this in mind. This trust is ultimately the goal of Jesus “sermon,” as it was in his declaration in Nazareth and in the encounter with Simon and the great catch last week. This is the vision of the kingdom. Other than the institution of the Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul comes the closest to actually reporting the teaching of Jesus in Romans 12. Paul reminds is that in our new life Christ bridges the existential realities described by Jesus today [and next week].

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord..’ Instead, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” [Romans 12:14-21]

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. Amen.

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Acts of Pure Faith

The Rev. James Krauser's sermon for Feb. 9, 2025

Readings: Isaiah 6:1-13; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

"Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Let us begin with the call of Isaiah. How it relates to the material which precedes it is not entirely clear. This story seems a flash back as it speaks of the death of Uzziah and the next chapter the reign of his grandson Ahaz. We see similarities with the story of Jeremiah last week, though in that case it says the Lord touched his mouth while today, an angel touches his lips with a burning coal meant to answer his protest of unclean lips. Like Jeremiah, Isaiah might be quite young, as his narrative suggests his activity as a prophet may have spanned some 80 years.

With Isaiah’s vision of the Lord in the temple, we think of the earlier epiode of Samuel hearing God calling him in the night. And similar to Samuel his initial charge is a severe one.

"And he said, “Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.’

"Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.

"Then I said, 'How long, O Lord?' And he said: 'Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate; until the Lord sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land. Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled.' The holy seed is its stump."

They made me think of God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus. As in the ten plagues, a relentless series of calamities is revealed, but repentance is not to come until the full measure of disaster is upon them. I also think of Jesus’ admonition about his own preaching “let those who have ears to hear, hear.”

This passage fits well with our emphasis on the nature of original sin and our reluctance to make any claims about the response of the human will. Sometimes the idea of a total depravity in the human condition is criticized, and perhaps bears some nuancing. I’ve read a Lutheran pastor defend against the criticism that we’re too negative on this point, he concedes that we shouldn’t speak in an entirely negative fashion, but that we are skeptical about the capacity for human initiated repentance. Of course. Given the amount of cruelty in our world, is it any wonder so many stop up their ears, turn a blind eye, live in denial, make excuses, or become indifferent. I cannot image being faced with the admonition to be relentless in pronouncing judgment. I cannot imagine lasting long in a parish if I did but I often wonder if I pulled too many punches.

Certainly, I was quick to mock certain preacher who used their TV pulpits to claim this calamity, or another was God’s punishment against what they perceived as permissiveness in certain areas. I’m certainly not going to do that now. But I cannot help but be struck by the irony of the formation of a government office to protect “Christian rights” while in another action the legs are being cut out from Christians of virtually every denomination who seek to provide compassionate assistance and service to people at home and abroad without regard to faith, gender, orientation, or nation, at home and abroad. I digress. Too often when we think of a prophet, we focus on the message about the future which is certainly there, yet they are speaking out because of the present, usually against the government’s failures to attend to justice and the care of the people, or at the lack of faith and trust in God by king and people.

What we might say is at stake here is what is sometimes spoken of as “hitting rock bottom” indicating that until all trust in ourselves is abandoned, until all our denials of the effects and consequences of our actions are shattered, we cannot and will not come to trust God completely, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. At the risk of sounding like a medieval mystic, we can find the presence of God only in the absence of all else that competes for our attention, devotion and worship. We might think of it like Churchill’s famous comment on us ‘across the pond’: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried everything else.” Don’t hold back Winston! But I suspect that barb could be leveled at any of us, nations or individuals, ancient or modern. The hindsight of history faults the Munich Agreement in failing to stand up to Hitler. As Lutheran Christians we are ashamed at the church’s yielding to the pressures of nationalism in the Third Reich, just as we are rightly embarrassed at our own sluggishness in standing up against, slavery, Jim Crow and segregation here. It is not that we need to take a position about every issue. But to only preach a comfortable message while ignoring the serious circumstances of our neighbors is a failure to love.

Perhaps this Isaiah text was in the back of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s consciousness when he understood the grip of the idolatry of power, resentment, and self-aggrandizement represented in Hitler’s regime as it took shape, and in 1939 wrote: “Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternatives of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation, and thereby destroying our civilization.” In the end there was only one true ‘final solution’ the nationalist idolatry had to be destroyed, not half-way but utterly. The only meaningful repentance for that sin was to believe in its bankruptcy being revealed in desolation. Had that crossed Isaiah mind as well? Legend says Isaiah died for his troubles; history tells us Bonhoeffer did too.

The great danger today is in thinking that the threat was unique and belongs to some other mutant species of humans, that we do not share the same DNA, the same impulses, the same delusions, whether about those we perceive as aliens or about our own (false) righteousness about so much in which we participate, in which we advocate, in which we tolerate. The impulse to dismiss as ‘woke’ the outrage about instances racial or gender insensitivity makes the point. Unless we are extra-ordinarily (discerning) of course we don’t see it. That’s why we regularly confess those sins of ours that are unknown to us, our own ‘known unknowns.’

When Jesus arrives on the scene in the gospel today, he engages Simon to provide him a platform for teaching the crowds. We have only heard Jesus turn to words of Isaiah, not those that proclaim desolation but those that address declaring the year of the Lord’s favor, a message of good news. We are not told what Jesus taught from the boat that day. But then something extraordinary happens Simon and his companions had labored through the night with nothing to show for it but frustration. In what happens next, the holy stump (the power of faith) is revealed. In the absence of a catch, with only empty nets, empty boats, empty basket for the markets on hand, Jesus calls Simon to an act of pure faith, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Had Jesus been speaking a message that ignited a spark. It is not reason. It is not experience? Call it faith. Call it hope. A word of promise, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Simon’s next utterance is like that of Isaiah, who said “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” In like manner he says, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” But of course, it is to the sinful that righteousness comes, to the broken to whom healing comes, to the dead that life comes. Where there is nothing, when there is nothing, there is still grace. The presence of God in the promise of God in the power of God to give life.

Paul sets faith in the risen Jesus as the ultimate sign and seal of the promise. Jesus had tasted, experienced, suffered the fullness of desolation, death itself. And out of that nothing, as at the first creation, a new creation is born, new life for all who taste, experience and suffer the fullness of desolation. But know this: in the fullness of the Word of God is not in the desolation. It is what the world becomes when love slips through our fingers and everything turns to dust and ashes—and then so do we. Yet the dead cannot profit by this knowledge. It takes an act of grace, an intervention to and for the unworthy and undeserving, to reveal that desolation is not what has to be or what God wills. Into the absence comes the Presence and leads us out of sin and death with the words:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

These are words God speaks to us all when there is nothing left. And then there is this: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” Amen.

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The Rev. James Krauser's sermon for Feb. 2, 2025

Readings: Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 84; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

"Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you."

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Simeon’s words of praise or canticle is one of those texts that is permanently imprinted in my memory. I know it in several versions: choral anthems, hymn paraphrases, or the liturgical settings, from Compline, and from Holy Communion in ELW and LBW…but the one that resonates most is the Anglican Chant version from the Service Book and Hymnal setting on by John Blow. It was always used on communion Sundays and many times in Lent when we would use the Vespers service (singing the same version). It was a simple ten-note melody in E minor. The character of the tune carried the whole of the story. Not only the joy of Simeon’s proclamation, the arrival of salvation, glory and light, but also the troubling words spoken to the mother and father. Luke does not give us the story of Herod’s bloody rage, but today we are told that shadow of the cross will be Jesus’ companion all his days. Until now all has been joy and wonder. Now we are given a glimpse into the fulfillment of the promise which is in this child. He will bring light into the inner darkness of the heart. The thoughts of many will be revealed, to themselves at least, if not more. Some will be turned in repentance, the hearts of others will be hardened in resistance. He will be spoken against. He will be plotted against. He will be accused, denounced, and his death will be demanded. A mother’s heart will break. All of this is revealed today.

The parents bring their son for dedication according to the Law. It is to fulfill all righteousness (and the promise made to Simeon) that they come. But it is not really necessary. This child is holy in himself, from his beginning; there is nothing that will happen at the Temple that will add holiness to him. Jesus’ mission was already written in eternity, foretold and declared by angels…Gabriel who announced him to Mary, the throng who proclaimed him to the shepherds. We hear the word once again today: this child will be the one who saves, the savior, salvation itself. It is as good as done. Simeon can now go to his rest. He has seen his salvation.

But isn’t Good Friday is a long way off? Not just a matter of weeks but years. But Simeon speaks today with the righteousness of faith. He had been promised he would see the Christ before his own death. In his words today he anticipates the scene where John seeing Jesus proclaims him “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” How this is revealed to him we cannot know. The text says he was filled with the Holy Spirit and it was the Spirit who revealed Jesus to John. But in this meeting Simeon’s mission is over. He does not need to see more. He believes the promise and that is what faith is. He has kept faith in his waiting and now he has identified the light which was coming into the world, for all peoples.

We are in a similar position to Simeon but perhaps we have it even better. We too have the promise of revelation. We too are promised we will see the Lord’s Christ. We have no idea of how many years Simeon had been at the Temple waiting, hoping, and waiting some more. But we have an even greater promise. We do not go home empty-handed and unfulfilled. Every time we come to the house of the Lord, he is here. Every time we gather, we hear his voice, hear his word. Every time our hearts turn to him, we are washed, forgiven, and fed. He is here in Word and Sacrament.

Luther once wrote: It is a great gift that the divine mercy is again kindling for us this light of the Word, in order that we may know where God must be sought and truly found: not at Rome, not in the farthest parts of Spain, but in Baptism, in the words of the Gospel, in the use of the Keys, and indeed also with any brother who with me confesses and believes in the Son of God. These are the epiphanies or appearances that are common to all Christians.

We come here because the light of his presence is always burning in Word, Water, Bread and Wine. The candles that burn are but a reminder of the true light, the one who baptizes with the Spirit and with fire. Unlike Simeon we do not leave the child behind, his days were at an end, but we are called to take his light within us into the world and bring it before all peoples. At the end of the Supper we too say that we can now go in peace, but not to rest…to serve: to share the light, to call to the light, to be the light.

Irenaeus of Lyons put it like this: “He became what we are so that we might become what He is.” And so we go in peace, a light for revelation to the nations and for glory to your God’s people, having seen, heard and received God’s salvation manifested before us.

Let us pray. Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

The One Who Saves, The Savior, Salvation Itself

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Our Own Today

The Rev. John Marschhausen's Sermon, January 26, 2025

Readings: Nehemiah 8:1-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31; Luke 4:14-21

My Friends: Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to actually sit at Jesus’ feet … to listen to him as he tells a parable, or teaches a lesson, or preaches a sermon? Over the centuries, countless Christians have wished that we could have been there. St. Luke tells us that the eyes of everyone in Jesus’ hometown synagogue were “fixed on him” as he spoke that day in Nazareth.

Today’s Gospel, my friends, was one of those rare moments in the biblical story when things are relatively clear and unambiguous: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus says. He could not have said it much more plainly: “I’m the One … the One promised in these well-known words of the great prophet Isaiah.”

Well, my friends, since such clear and simple language is really hard to come by in our world today … especially in the realm of religion and faith … one hates to miss these biblical moments when the message is so clear.

Not to worry! – because St. Paul isn’t about to let us to miss this message. As Paul reminds us in this morning’s reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians: Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. With his strong emphasis both on the NOW, and the you … Paul is telling us – you and me – this Good News: that we – you and I - have been given our day at Jesus’ feet. Yes, my friends, you and I have been given our own “today” with Jesus … as we – you and I – see all of God’s promises fulfilled for us in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen!

We have been given our own “today” as God’s saving grace was poured into our lives by the washing of Holy Baptism …

We have been given our own “today” as Jesus invites us – today and everyday day – to sit at his feet as we listen to the Scriptures …

We have been given our own “today” as Jesus invites us – you and me – to regularly gather together around his table.

And, my friends, as we hear Jesus proclaim to us, “I am the One,” we’re also hearing Jesus call us to share this clear and saving message with our world today … by the witness of our words and our actions.

Yes, my friends, we need not wonder what it would be like to sit at Jesus’ feet … because by God … at work in Word and Sacraments … we haven’t missed a thing! We also need not wonder what it means today to call ourselves Jesus’ disciples … to say that we’re numbered among Jesus’ followers … because we know exactly what our job description is – you and I are called and equipped to walk in Jesus’ footsteps! … every bit as much as Peter and Paul.

So, Now, how are we doing? … we who are the Body of Christ today … and individually members of it? … we who are St. Mark?

This is a very important question, my friends … a very important question for us to ask ourselves on this first Sunday of our new status as a congregation in transition – as a congregation asking God for guidance and wisdom while we begin the process of discerning our future … after 140 years of congregational history, sitting at Jesus’ feet and learning from him and then stepping out in Jesus’ name for the sake of the people of our community … and from Glastonbury, literally, to the far corners of the earth.

Yes, “How are we doing?” is a very important question for us because – for all our history and tradition – today is not about the past and what has been. No, today is about the future and where we and God together intend to go! My friends, God has blessed us – you and me … the Lutheran Church of St. Mark – blessed us with all the resources we need; God has given us all the abilities and talents we need; God is working with us through our New England Synod to walk with us into the future; and most importantly, God has promised that our God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – will be with us every step of the way.

Today, my friends, is a time for us to give thanks to God for the faith we have shared with one another all these years … for the gifts and abilities, the resources and opportunities, God has given us as the Lutheran Church of St. Mark to truly move forward as the Body of Christ, united both in our faith and in our commitment to mission and ministry.

As we all have sat at Jesus’ feet and learned from him …

as we brought our children to Jesus for Holy Baptism and gathered as a family around Jesus’ table for him to feed us …

Sooo … Jesus promises today that his Spirit will be at work in us – so that in and through us, God will still be fulfilling those promises of Isaiah –

we will be bringing good news to the poor …

we will be proclaiming release to the captives, and new sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed …

we will be a living witness and ministry – in whatever form God has for us!

And … we will be God’s proclamation that this is indeed a year of the Lord’s favor!

God grant, of course, that we continue to listen to, to learn from, and to follow his Word, as the people of St. Mark have done for 140 years … God grant, too, that we continue to grow together this year in trusting Jesus – our Lord and Savior …

and God grant that we continue to be wholeheartedly committed to our call to work together – now – today –

as Jesus’ presence – as Jesus’ living Body – in today’s world, for the sake of all those who need our care and service.

In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.