Joy in the Telling

Just admit it.  You get a little bit of a thrill out of it.  Someone does something wrong, and you find a little bit of joy in telling them off.  It's okay to admit it.  You're human.  You're going to find joy in pointing out the faults and flaws and sins of others.  Just admit it.

This week, I have been engaged with the prophet Jeremiah.  I've been reading through his words as part of my preparation for Advent.  And throughout the early part of his message, there are some themes that definitely come to the forefront.  God's people had sinned.  They needed the message of repentance spoken to them.  They needed to have the error and sin of their ways pointed out to them.

Now, you might think that Jeremiah would find some joy in that.  After all, in our day and age, you simply have to turn on the TV to see people shouting about the sins and faults of others.  Some do it for attention, others do it simply because they like to see others knocked down a peg or two.  And why should Jeremiah be any different?  He's human like us, right?

The thing is, you almost get this sense that Jeremiah will faithfully point out what God's people have been doing in their sin, but it's with a sense of regret.  It's almost as though Jeremiah doesn't want to do it, and not just because he knows how the people will react.  He doesn't seem to get any joy in telling God's people off.  It doesn't seem to boost his ego or make him seem to be better than they are.

No, Jeremiah hates that he has to speak this message to God's people.  And in that, we find much that would guide us in wisdom.  Jeremiah sees the need for God's people to hear the message of repentance, yet he hates the fact that it has to come to them.  Because he has been set aside by God to do this, it's not like Jeremiah is gaining anything from pointing these matters out.  There really is no joy in the telling.

I've know quite a few people in my life who seemed to take some amount of joy in letting others know about their faults.  I've even seen that in myself from time to time.  And that's where Jeremiah reminds me that I really shouldn't find joy in pointing out people's faults or flaws.  Sure, they may need to hear about it, but not in such a way that it boosts my ego, or makes me seem to be better than they are.

As I think about this matter, it truly strikes me just how humble God looks for His people to be.  Not only in the pattern of our lives, but even in the way that we show others their sin and fault.  Always with an eye toward God's reconciliation and forgiveness, and not in order to make ourselves more than we ought.  Another hard lesson from the Bible!

A "Prophetic" View

One thing we must acknowledge right at the beginning of this post: the Bible is a really large book.  I really feel for the person who doesn't have any experience with the Bible who decides to read it one day, and then starts to do so in typical book fashion.  That is, start at the beginning and work your way through to the end.  Sure, the first part is pretty exciting, as Genesis and even Exodus have some exciting stories.  But then, once you get part way through Exodus, things can really start to bog down on you.  Lists of "do's" and "don'ts" fill the pages, and even the most devoted reader may start to find excuses not to read.

One thing that the size of the Bible has led to is an overlooked view of the books toward the end of the Old Testament, those books known as the prophets.  The things that people find most familiar about them are the little quotations that we come across in the New Testament.  We hear of their foreviews of Jesus, but really don't know much more about them than that they spoke those words.  As for the time in which they lived, or the reason for the words they spoke, or even the general theme of their messages, these are mostly unknown.

I've asked around a bit over the past few weeks about what people know about the prophets, and have found that most people seem to have what I am calling a "romanticized" view of the prophets.  That is, they think that the prophets were wise, well-respected men who spoke as though they had most of their attention on the future in Jesus.  In general, people seem to think that they were liked, almost to the point that the people of their day would be waiting breathlessly for their next words.

That is hardly the case for most of the Old Testament prophets.  To put it bluntly, the life of a prophet, while blessed in the eyes of God, was not an easy one to live.  Most prophets were not liked, and even had attempts on their lives.  Tradition has several of them dying in rather harsh ways, such as Isaiah being sawn in half.  People like Jeremiah were despised, imprisoned, called traitors to the country, and even seen as blasphemous to the people.  They lived on the edge of society, proclaiming God's justice and wrath, as well as God's grace and favor.

For anyone who wants to get an idea of what some of the prophets went through, I would always suggest reading through Jeremiah.  If his story doesn't give you a clearer picture about what it means to speak God's Word to people, then I don't know what will.

Voices on the Edge

Over the past few weeks, I've been giving a lot of thought to our upcoming Advent season.  In our tradition, we typically add Wednesday worship times to our regular Sunday times.  What I have typically done is have two separate themes, one for Sunday and one for Wednesday.  This year is the same.

For Sundays, my plan is to focus on the words that we hear each week from one of the Old Testament prophets.  Just for kicks, I'm going to call my "series", "Voices on the Edge."  I chose this name because that is really what the prophets were.  They were not the well-liked, acceptable people that we so often tend to think they were.  They said things that people didn't want to hear.  They were often despised, and their messages often placed their lives in danger.  They truly were voices on the edge of society.

The thing that has struck me throughout my time of preparation for this series is just how "on the edge" God's voice really is.  So often we tend to think of God as someone we would want as our best friend.  Many of our hymns and songs paint a picture of God walking alongside us, gentle and caring and not saying anything "mean" to anyone.  And while there are elements of that which contain a degree of truth, the fact is, God also says things that so often seem to push His voice to the edge.

That's one of the interesting things I see in Jesus.  People wanted to be close to Jesus.  So many people liked what He said and what He did.  And yet, it seems that they were turned off by the things He said and did just as much as they liked them.  Jesus would proclaim things like God's compassion and grace, but would also proclaim God's justice and wrath at sin and wrongdoing.  Because of these dual messages, people found themselves drawn to Him while, at the same time, repelled by what He was saying.

That same message is found throughout the prophets.  As we hear the familiar words which come with the Advent and Christmas seasons, it would do us good to be reminded that the words they said weren't exactly loved and accepted by the people of their time.  It is only in retrospect that we can see the importance and impact that their words had on the coming Savior, whose birth we will be celebrating in about a month. 

Those voices on the edge show us God in the various ways that He reveals Himself.  Sometimes they draw us to God, especially as we see His compassion, grace, and promise.  Sometimes they repel us, as we hear about God's justice and the wrath that comes because of our wrongdoing.  And then, sometimes, we find ourselves joining those voices out on the edge, clinging to God and His spokespeople through faith.

Sunday's Message

Yesterday, we celebrated the Last Sunday of the Church year.  Here is the message that was heard at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church yesterday.

We all face the reality that, in life, things wear out.  I’ve had this pair of blue jeans for quite a while, and as you can tell, they are starting to show some signs of wearing out.  That big rip in the knee kind of gives it away.  I’ve also got a few shirts that match up pretty well with it.  When I wear them while I’m working around the house, we always hope that nothing comes up that would require me to run to the store in these, since they aren’t exactly in the best condition.  I’ve worn them long enough and hard enough that they have just started to wear out.

I also notice this fact applies not only to my clothes, but even to my body.  We have times where Rachel will go down to sleep, and we’ll end up delaying our bedtime for one reason or another.  When we do that, what invariably seems to happen is that we get to sleep, and then, about an hour later, Rachel decides that it’s time to wake up for a diaper change and a little refueling for the night.  I’ve noticed that I’m just not as able as I used to be to shake off the weariness and do everything that she needs us to do as easily as I used to.  In some ways, I’ve noticed that my body shows a few signs of some wear and tear on it.

You’ve probably noticed something like this, too.  You get something new, some new clothes, or some new shoes, and then you spend the first part of their life breaking them in.  Then, about the time they start to get comfy, you start to noticed the hems that are losing their stitching, or the shoelaces as they start to get frayed.  Comfort enters in, but shortly after we get to that point of comfort, it’s just not too long before they wear out.

That’s the same kind of picture that Isaiah paints for us in the words we heard from him today.  Toward the end of those few short verses, we have him describing what we know to be the end of the creation we live in.  The heavens vanish like smoke.  The earth wears out like a garment.  All who live within this creation end up dying in a similar fashion.  This world we live in wears out, in a sense.  God created it in the beginning, but since the fall into sin, and the curse that was pronounced upon the land, things have aged.  While we see great cycles of renewal and new birth as the seasons move along, we also see that a lot of creation seems to be wearing out.  It’s as St. Paul describes it in one of his letters.  The whole creation is groaning.  It’s waiting to give way to the new creation, the one that God has promised will come, in which He will make everything new once again.

Things wear out.  The earth wears out.  And all because of a curse.  You and I are pretty familiar with the reason for this curse.  It all came into being because the first man and woman had one basic rule to follow and they didn’t follow it.  But rather than pronounce His curse upon them, God did something unexpected.  He cursed the ground.  It would produce thorns and thistles as the man would work it, but it would also be a creation that would wear out.  Not only did mankind need to be remade into a new creation, so did the very creation.  And throughout the history of God’s people, that day of the death of the old creation and the birth of the new creation came to be known as the Day of the Lord.

You and I now know this Day of the Lord in a slightly different way.  We know it as the day when Jesus fulfills His promise to re-appear, to call all the dead from the grave, and to give eternal life to all who put their faith, hope, and trust in His sacrifice for them.  And on that day, God has given us the promise that He will be making everything new.  The old creation that groans under the burden of the curse will be refined through the fire of God, and a new creation will emerge.  That new creation will be free of the curse, a perfect creation just like the first one that God made so many centuries ago.

But the creation isn’t the only thing that will be made new.  You and I have the promise that we will also be made into a new creation.  The pains and burdens of this world will be burned off, as though by fire, and we also will be refined into a new creation.  Everything that would call for God’s wrath and condemnation will be swallowed up, just as it has been through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Everything in you that would wear out and grow old will die.  The new creation that God makes you to be through the waters of your baptism will arise, free of the stain of the curse, free of sin, and perfect. 

Because Jesus has come, and because He has given His life and then reclaimed it in His resurrection, you already have that new creation within you.  When God’s Word was spoken over you and the water was poured out upon you, you became a new creation.  Everything that you will be on the Day of the Lord, when Jesus calls you from the grave, is already present there within you.  You are a new creation.  Yes, the complete fulfillment of that promise has not yet come to be.  You will get to experience that on the Day of the Lord, when God makes the whole creation, including you, into a new creation.  It’s present within you, as God’s gift to you, but has not yet come into its full fruition.

But on that Day of the Lord, on the day when the heavens vanish like smoke and the earth is worn out like a garment, you will be made completely into a new creation.  You will receive new, lasting things from the hand of God, because of what Jesus has done for you.  As St. Paul also says it, you will be clothed in a new kind of clothing, that of Christ Jesus Himself.  When Isaiah says that God’s righteousness draws near, and that His salvation is forever, that’s the very thing that you will be clothed with.  And those things will never wear out, just as you are raised into a new kingdom that also will never wear out or vanish like smoke.

That’s the promise of God that we celebrate today in what is so cleverly called the Last Sunday of the Church year.  That creative name means that we are closing out the year as we celebrate it here in God’s kingdom.  Next Sunday we will kick off a new year with the introduction of Advent.  But today, we celebrate the end of our Church year, and as we do, we do it with the reminder of the promise of Jesus, that He will reappear and claim His own in His new creation.

New things.  No longer will we have to be content with things that will eventually wear out, like the knees in a pair of jeans, or like the soles of shoes just about the time they start to get comfortable.  That’s the hope that we look forward to when the Day of the Lord arrives, when our Lord Jesus reappears to be faithful to His promise to you in your baptism, and to raise you up to new life with Him forever.  Every day that we live in this world, we move a day closer to that promise of newness.  With everything that we see wear out in life, we can be reminded that God has made a promise to make everything new.  God’s righteousness and salvation shall come, and they will never come to an end.  And that is what you will be clothed in forever.

Out with the old, and in with the new.  I don’t know if we could come up with a better theme for the Last Sunday of the Church Year.  But it really is an appropriate slogan for today.  Everything old in you will be out, and through Jesus, everything will be made new for you, courtesy of Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection, courtesy of your baptism, and courtesy of the promise that Jesus has made to you, that He will reappear and make all things new.  Amen!  Come quickly, Lord Jesus.  Amen!

Reading the Bible and Being Christian

As a pastor, one of the things that I regularly encourage people to be doing is reading the Bible.  We live in a day and age where access to the Bible is really not that big of an issue.  I've downloaded a few versions on my Kindle, and can pretty much access any translation from the internet.  So it's not that access is an issue as it has been in centuries past, where literacy was low and books were practically non-existent.

But over the past few years, I've given a lot of thought to this issue.  Why do we encourage people to read their Bibles so much?  In part, we really do want people to know what God says.  It's far easier to interact with people in their spiritual needs when they have an idea of what God has really said on the pages of the Bible.  Sure, they may not like what it says, or disagree with what it says, but it's known, and that makes the discussion at least a little bit easier.

However, I have found that this emphasis has also had an unanticipated effect.  On occasion, there have been those who would say that such an emphasis actually served to create a greater sense of guilt, since it wasn't their habit.  And some of these are long standing church people.  As I have encountered that on occasion, it also makes me wonder if an emphasis on reading the Bible is a good thing if it only serves to grow people's guilt.

On top of that, we also face the reality that there are many things in the Bible that are not easily explained, and that the Bible itself is structured in such a way that a straight-through reading likely won't make the most sense to someone who doesn't know it well.  (Plus, it's a big book, which makes it a challenge to read through the whole thing anyway.)  A guide often proves to be a helpful thing, but still fails to paint a complete picture of everything that God says, and often doesn't give answers to the questions that people have as they read through it.

Finally, I wonder if such an emphasis is mostly a modern "problem" that hasn't had to be addressed by God's people over the course of time.  I say it's a modern problem because most of the time between the writing of the Bible and now has been marked by illiteracy.  People knew what they heard read to them during worship times.  Very few individuals had the ability to read, much less access to books or scrolls.  Would we say that those people were "less" Christian because they didn't have the ability to read the Bible?  I would hardly say so.

In my mind, that's why it is appropriate to encourage people to read their Bibles, but to understand that the vast majority of learning God's word is still going to take place in what is read during worship times together, and in the preaching that takes place.  God's Word was given as a spoken word, and only after it was spoken did it become a written word.  The "spoken-ness" of God's Word should always have priority.  That places a great deal of emphasis on what is preached, and so a well-constructed sermon will always be the best vehicle for the Spirit to do His work as God's Word is preached and expanded upon for God's people.  It's not wrong to encourage people to read, but overall, we face the reality that the preached and spoken word will continue to have more far-reaching impact than any amount of encouragement to read on their own.

Getting back into the swing of things

Just over a week ago, something very significant happened in my life.  My little girl turned 6 months old.  Now, while that is rather remarkable in and of itself, I've also noticed that her 1/2 year old benchmark has brought about a few changes in my life, and that of my wife as well. 

We've both started to get "back" to somewhat of a routine in our house.  For those who know us, you probably know that we both are fairly routine kind of people.  Prior to the little girl, we had our weekly routine, and there wasn't really a lot of straying from it.  This involved work, exercise, making food, cleaning house, doing laundry, and all of those other mundane things.  We had fallen into a system where they were getting done and we knew when and where.

Alas, the little girl brought some fairly major disruptions to that routine.  Rather than Sunday afternoon laundry, it became doing laundry whenever we could get a load in.  Instead of regular exercise, it became "get a run in when you can", even if two or three weeks went by in between.  (By the way, I've checked in at my gym on a couple of occasions over the last six months, and have been embarrassed by how much time has gone by between my visits there.)

I realize that life is always going to have interruptions, and that simply having a little one that turns 6 months old won't bring back what was happening before.  However, I have also realized that my efforts at blogging have been affected.  And that's part of the reason for this post.  My intent is to get back to blogging 5-6 times every week.  Plus, I'm thinking that I will start publishing my sermons on here on Sundays as well, so there may be even as many as 7 per week!

Sometimes interruptions are understandable.  Sometimes they require that we carve out time for those things that are important.  While I won't pretend that blogging is up toward the top (such things as family time, food, work, prayer, Bible reading, and household chores will always be higher than blogging), it is my full intention that I stay faithful to it.  I have found that it helps me clarify my thinking simply by putting my thoughts down on "paper", so to speak.

Of Government and Faith

Today marks an important day in our nation.  Every four years, we have the opportunity to elect the person who is the face of our government.  More frequently, we also get to elect those people who will represent us in our particular areas, both to the federal government and to the local state governments.  In doing this, Christians show their regard for the institution of public governing that God has instituted for our good and well-being.  For this reason, it is good that Christians get out to the polling stations and cast their vote.

However, even as we go out and elect leaders, as Christians we need to keep something in mind.  These are earthly servants, who are going to be self-serving and self-focused sinners even as they work for the good of the people they represent.  Yes, they are going to make choices at times that are more based upon their chances of re-election rather than the good of the whole people of the nation.  Yes, they are going to make choices that are guided by their hearts, and we will not always agree with them.  And yet, God calls us to pray for them, to support them, and to share our thoughts and concerns with them.

One thing that we also need to remember is that the governing of this world IS NOT GOD.  In our day, it truly saddens me to see how many people put their hope for their well-being in those who govern rather than turning to the God who has made all things, and who loves His creation enough to institute the offices of those who govern.  However, no matter how good a leader may be, or how bad, that person, or the whole system, simply cannot provide care and for protection for every person under their authority.

God does do this.  While He does it in great ways, such as the nourishing of the world and the sending of the seasons to grow crops, He also does it through the hands and feet and mouths and generosity of His people.  Truthfully, I find myself disheartened at times by the care for people that the Christian Church has left to the governing authorities.  In many instances, we Christians should be at the forefront of those institutions and programs designed to care for those in need and want.

It sounds so obvious to say it, and yet, it seems like our expectations really do betray our thoughts.  The government is not God, and never will be.  While they fulfill a role that is there at God's behest, they are merely one part of God's work in this world.  So remember that as you head to your polling station and cast your vote.  And may God still show His working in this world through His people as they rely upon God and His presence in their life, in order to show care for others.

Just a few things that are floating around in my head today.

• We observed All Saints Day yesterday.  It's a great reminder that we are part of a fellowship that transcends time and place, that is all connected to our head, Christ Jesus.  We had the opportunity to remember many who have gone before us in faith, and to remember that we are connected to one another in a unique way in Christ.
• I also used the holy day to remind God's people that THEY are also a means of God's presence in this world.  When Christians go out into the world, they do so as an indication that God remains actively at work in the world.  When they gather with one another, they literally bring God's presence with them.  That's a good thing, and so we should, in many respects, "get over" thinking that the call or visit of a fellow Christian is an invasion of our privacy.
• My heart goes out to the people of the East Coast.  So many of them have suffered great loss.
• I'm reminded that we are God's children and that there is a lot of potential in all of us.  In particular, since we are a new creation, that means that God's Spirit actively works in us and through our hands, feet, mouths, wallets, and other ways to do His work in this world.  
• Reflection and prayer and Bible reading are never wastes of time. 

That's what's floating around in my head today.  Maybe tomorrow will be a bit more coherent of a post.