A, Post-Pentecost 2 Proper 5 - Genesis 12:1–3, Romans 4:13,18-25 "Dead Promise"

Romans 4: 13,18–25 (ESV) For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.  In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”  He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.  No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,  fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.  That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”  But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone,  but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,  who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. 

Retirement awaits!  You are in the years of your life when you are beginning to take things easy.  Perhaps this is the case because your body is not what it used to be; it’s wearing out!  Or, you are just backing off the gas, enjoying the fruits of the years you worked.

You are comfortable, it’s time to enjoy the twilight of your life.  Your life ahead promises to be one of relaxation and retirement amongst known people – family and friends!

You had plans earlier in life, to do great things.  Perhaps to be a trendsetter.  But now having done what you’ve done, you are just content to be.  The energy you had in your younger days has long since passed!

But God has other plans for you.  In your latter years he makes a promise to you, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1–3 ESV)

You say to God, “What do you mean?  I’m already blessed in my retirement!”  You’ve heard plenty of promises before, many of them broken.  How would you feel getting a command and promise like this? 

To leave the comfort of what you know, the security, the known faces, those you can trust in a community you know!  To enter the discomfort of changing your medical carers, those who know you, your doctor, pharmacist, hairdresser, those at the shop who know what you order, the shops you know where you can get exactly the item you want.  Entering the uncertainty of what you do not know after leaving the blessings of what you do know, does not seem like it would be a blessing.

For Abram to leave his land, his inheritance, from his father, Terah’s house, and known people was a sure sentence of death.  Abram was seventy-five years old when he left his family, having heard the promise of God.  Why would he go?

Let’s look at the promise God makes and to whom it is made.  It appears the only descendant of Abram would be his nephew Lot.  Lot’s father, Haran, had died, so Lot is taken into Abram’s family.  Abram’s wife, Sarai, could not have children.  But despite this he leaves his homeland and inheritance to follow the promise of God.  For all intentions and purposes, Abram is literally a genetic and patriarchal, dead end.

The host of the television show, Hard Quiz, eliminates the lowest scoring contestant, saying to them, “if you get the question wrong, you’re dead to me”, and when they get it wrong are thrown out with the abrupt command, “Out!”

But the promise of God is not to cast out this man, Abram, who was as good as dead,  even though he appeared to be a dead promise.

Just as surprising, Abram also responds to this promise made by God.  Why would he go?  He had everything to lose, since there did not seem to be much going his way!  Why not stay put and preserve what little blessing he had?  There was obviously something greater compelling him to go.

Abram responded to God’s promise some three hundred years after God confused humanity and dispersed them across the world with various languages.  Abram is the archetypal “needle in the haystack”.  He is one of many in the generations after humanity left Babel to fill the earth.  Yet he was a needle as good as dead, with a wife whose baby bearing capacity was also dead.  To be blunt, they were blunt needles, living, dead ends!

All worldly hope in them was dead.  As one would hope to have children, receive an inheritance, and pass it on to offspring, all expectation had died.  But God calls them to a new hope that seems even more hopeless in the eyes of the world, having been called away from the only security they had left, their inheritance and home.

Paul says of Abraham (Abram), “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”  He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s (Sarai’s) womb.  No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,  fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.  That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” (Romans 4: 13,18–25 ESV)

We hear plenty of dead promises from people and politicians and they make us laugh with sarcasm.  So many promises we hear these days are “dead to us” as soon as we hear them.  We’re sceptical, and our hope, at best, is a doubtful hope, with an expectation to be let down.  How do you feel when promises are made that you expect will be broken?

In the Gospel reading today, we hear, “when Jesus came to the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion,  he said, ‘Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him.”  (Matthew 9:23–24 ESV)

We too may laugh in disbelief, or with a hope that the world possesses.  But God’s promises are built on things that are dead to the hope of the world.  Sarai also laughed when God promised to make Abram a father.  But together Sarah and Abraham laughed with joy at the birth of Isaac, God’s promise of life given to a husband and wife, as good as dead!

Our faith is built on the death of Jesus Christ.  It looked for all intentions and purposes, a dead promise!   However, he became nothing to make our nothingness something.  He, who did not know sin and death, became sin and death, to give us salvation and life.  Dead to God we were made something through Jesus’ death.

Jesus did not sacrifice like a priest sacrificing an animal under the Law, but through his mercy and steadfast love became the sacrifice for sin, that makes us something.  He does this when, like Abram ,we are as good as dead, or should be dead to God.

Jesus says, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13 ESV) 

A righteous person might make a sacrifice, but a sinner cannot even enter God’s presence to make a sacrifice, they are dead to him.  Someone dead can only be made alive by a love that becomes the sacrifice.  You have received the mercy of God’s sacrifice on the cross.  You have been made alive by the Holy Spirit in the steadfast loving mercy of Jesus Christ.  

The Holy Spirit leads you to step out in faith!  It may not be something as geographically displacing as Abram’s call, or as life changing as leaving family.  It may be seemingly something small in your life, but something that God is calling you to, that will make you as good as dead in the eyes of those around you.  But when the world says, “you’re dead to me”, this will be the Holy Spirit’s affirmation that you're alive in Jesus Christ. 

Like Abram, why would you go?  Why would you follow Jesus Christ?  Or more to the point, “why wouldn’t you?”  Especially if the Holy Spirit is moving you in God’s Word, to do the works of faith that glorify God.  To pass on the steadfast love and mercy, to sinners who like you need to be made something by the blood of Jesus!

When the Holy Spirit works, in, through, and with, the Word of God, he moves with steadfast love and mercy, bringing sinners to the knowledge and blessing of God the Father in Jesus Christ.  He brings what should be dead to God, to life!  The Spirit enlivens the will of God within, to the glory of God.

These works are not sacrifices done with a hope of getting something.  But rather the Holy Spirit enables us to do works of mercy and steadfast love, passing on the blessing of faith, just as Abraham was a blessing to many other nations as the father of faith.  Through us the Holy Spirit will encourage the hope of God over the hope of the world, which really is hopelessness!

If Jesus died for your sin, and was raised so you too are raised, making what was nothing before God something, why wouldn’t you want to follow him in faith, and share this blessing as well?  Amen.

A, Lent 4 - John 9:5, Ephesians 5:6–14,18c,21 "God's Light and His Power"

John 9:5 (ESV) “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Ephesians 5:14b ESV)   

How?  How does one, who sleeps with the dead, rise?  Is this an impossible proposition?  A human cannot raise themselves!  But with God, all things are possible!

Jesus comes to a man born blind in the precincts of a synagogue.  One could imagine the blind man wondering how he might exist with his blindness.  He has to live off the charity of those coming and going to hear the Rabbis teach.  There was no way this fellow would ever expect to enter the synagogue physically or spiritually, because of his blindness and the religious stigma he bore for being blind. 

The disciples testify to the reality of their blindness and lifeless thinking by questioning Jesus about the sinfulness of either the man or his parents causing his blindness.

“He obviously did something really bad to deserve this!” 

“What do you expect when his parents are the way they are!”

These may or may not have been the thoughts of the disciples, who didn’t suffer with the same physical blindness.  Yet these very same thoughts, easily come from our hearts when we’re faced with the same kind of situation. 

God calls us to judge with a right judgement.  But this is judgement made with all the blindness of self-righteousness, without seeing ourselves in the Light of God.

Just as Samuel looked with blindness at Jesse’s sons, and the disciples at the blind man, we look with blindness too.  We need to hear what God says to Samuel, “For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”  (1 Samuel 16:7b ESV)

Why is it we do not see as God sees?  And how can we look, as God looks?  

Jesus says, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:5 ESV)

We need the “Light of God”, “the Light of the World”.  The light of God is Jesus Christ, and the power of this illuminating Light in our lives is the Holy Spirit.

Notice here the Holy Spirit is the power of the Light!  He has to be, since Jesus is still in the world, but hidden by his ascension to the right hand of God.  God the Father and God the Son are present, since they are greater than time and space.  In fact, time and space exist in God’s eternal hands!

In the peace of our Heavenly Father’s presence, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I encourage you to be convinced in the Word made Flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, who says to you, “I am the Light of the World.”

But the problem remains.  How, if we are blind, can we see this light?  If we are blind, out in the cold, stumbling around in death, is it by sheer accident that we feel its warmth and enter into the light?

No!  It’s here we need to hear the word of God from Saint Paul’s letter to the Ephesians chapter five.  Hear from verse six, a couple of verses before the start of the lectionary reading for today.

“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.  Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’ …be filled with the Spirit, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:6–14,18c,21 ESV)

If someone tells you, you must find Jesus or have more faith, realise these as empty words. Like the disciples judging the blind man, Samuel looking for a King of Israel, or you and I projecting our blind judgement on sinners (as opposed to us), we first need the power of the Holy Spirit to illuminate us, so we can see ourselves in the mirror of God’s Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. 

The illumination of the Holy Spirit makes us children of the light.  All the fruit of this light is found in Jesus Christ.  He is the only one who is good, and right, and true! 

Therefore, because our baptism is a Holy Baptism, because our communion around the body and blood of Jesus is a Holy Communion, and because the Holy Word of God has its fulness in the holy risen Son of God, we are forgiven and fed with the power of God in the Holy Spirit. 

As a result, we can discern what is pleasing to the Lord.  The works of darkness can then be exposed.  The first work of darkness exposed by the Holy Spirit is the darkness within.  This darkness is your apathy towards hearing God and allowing the Holy Spirit to reenergise you with his power.  Over against continuing in your own power to judge good and evil. 

Allowing the Holy Spirit to power your judgement will immediately enable you to see your sin.  Do not be frightened of this!  The fear that arises within you, is the same fear Adam and Eve felt in the Garden.  The devil seeks to do the same to you as he did to them by separating you from God’s peace through your sin and sinfulness!   

However, you now have the power of the Holy Spirit illuminating Jesus Christ, so trust in what you have received.  The knowledge of Jesus Christ always wins out over a knowledge of good and evil.  The Holy Spirit empowers you in the knowledge of Jesus Christ!

It seems Paul makes a statement of contradiction, saying, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.” (Ephesians 5:11-12 ESV)

Do we expose, or do we not speak about the works of darkness?  It all depends on how we talk about these works and whose they are!  Exposure through confession, brings all into the Light of Christ, giving sight to those once blind.  Whereas, speaking about them boastfully or as gossip, plunges us into darkness, and exposes our blindness. 

So, we take no part in unfruitful works by exposing our own works of darkness in confession.  This is the Holy Spirit removing the blindness.  Similarly, praying with others in their confession, intervening on their behalf also brings them into the Light of God. 

When we walk in the light of God, we allow God the Holy Spirit to use us in leading others out of death into life.  This is submission to one another out of reverence for Jesus Christ.

It may seem shameful to talk to others about the struggles we have with our sinfulness.  But if it is spoken of, in the power of the Holy Spirit,  the power and shame of secrecy is dispersed by the Light of Jesus Christ.

Some might charge us as being boastful about our sin or trying to justify it.  But in reality, “coming out” to others as a forgiven sinner, by the power of the Holy Spirit, requires one to sacrifice their pride and be exposed as weak and in need of divine help. 

No one boasts over the sin one needs forgiven; over the sinful nature we know condemns us to death.  Rather we cry, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!” 

So, in God’s Light and in the power of the Light we boast, having been forgiven, and not our sinful nature or the sin that comes from it!

Just as it was not the will of God, that the man at the synagogue was born blind because of someone’s sin, it is not the will of God that you continue under the condemnation of sin either. 

But rather, just as Jesus Christ removed his blindness to display the works of God’s light and power,  the Holy Spirit is the power of God, to enlighten you in the forgiveness of God’s Holy Word and Sacraments!  Amen.

Let us pray.

Lord God, Holy Spirit, you are the true and constant support in every need, a Spirit of truth and promise, God’s finger, the water of life, a heavenly fire, which warms cold hearts and ignites them with true love for God.  You have revealed yourself to the apostles with wonderful gifts in a powerful wind and fiery tongues.  We ask you now therefore, to come into our hearts, to strengthen and gladden our ignorant consciences.  Sanctify us with your blessing and be unto us the holy assurance of our redemption and salvation.  Amen.[1]

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[1] Prayer by J. K. Wilhelm Loehe, from Treasury of Daily Prayer, p1111, Concordia Publishing House

C, Post-Pentecost 9 Proper 14 - Luke 12:32,37 Hebrews 11:12 "As Good as Dead"

Luke 12:32, 37 (ESV) “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.  Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.

Hebrews 11:12 (ESV) Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

Abram was a rich man, but he was as good as dead.  He had faith in God, but he wished to propagate his line, encouraged by his wife, Sarai, to take Hagar, her servant, and secure a future through her son, Ishmael.

You might find it interesting that Abram, come Abraham, after being promised by God that he would have his own heir, listens to Sarai, Sarah, has genital union with her servant Hagar, and has a son.  The faith in which Abraham and Sarah act, seems contrary to the faith they were credited with in the letter to the Hebrews.

By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.  Therefore, from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.  (Hebrews 11:11–12 ESV)

A world of hurt follows after Hagar conceived and gives birth to Ishmael.  Ishmael receives the blessing God gave to Abraham, becoming a multitude of peoples, but he does not allow Abraham and Sarah’s faith in themselves see Ishmael as the heir.  Instead, God allows Abraham to cast Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness to seemingly fend for themselves with bread and water that quickly run out.

Hagar and Ishmael too are as good as dead, which appears to be not good at all.  Imagine being Hagar and Ishmael.  What would your faith be like in their situation?  The laughter and joy at the birth of Isaac, I imagine, was not shared by Hagar and Ishmael having been cast out into a certainty of being as good as dead.

The picture God paints for us in his word as being as good as dead, is not as bad in God’s eyes as it is ours!  He allows Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael to reach a point at which they are no longer able to act.  Within each of these characters God kills all faith, hope, and love, exhausting every human act, erasing every idea and all sentiment. 

Not only was Abraham as good as dead, but also, he couldn’t give faith to Sarah, Sarah couldn’t give faith to Hagar, and nor could Hagar give faith to Ishmael.  God is the only one to give faith.  But first he seeks to see in us the complete annihilation and obliteration of looking to the self.  He uses death for good, making us as good as dead.

Talking about death in this way, is counter cultural.  To be made nothing and erased rightly fills us with hopelessness and helplessness.  It may be your response to busy yourself, to try to overcome the feelings of fear associated with this reality.  Worry can drive one to work with a desire to force these feelings out.

On the other hand, becoming nothing and being erased may leave you struck with fear.  So much so you are frozen by fear and are overcome by the poverty of your hopelessness and helplessness.

In a society driven by the pursuit of pleasure it is a strange paradox that we are faced by so much fear and unhappiness.  However, when faith in oneself and the pleasing of oneself no longer pleases, fear and unhappiness must come when our treasure of pleasure is dead.

This death of pleasure occurs inside and outside the church, and it seems a terrible thing, but God allows us to be as good as dead so goodness might come through death.

For you and me, inside the church, we learn a valuable lesson.  We learn about being Christian is not necessarily about doing Christian things. 

In fact, there are many outside Christendom that do many greater things than those inside the church.  In the eyes of the world, philanthropists do good deeds spending millions on selfless works in society.  Humanitarians too, also seem to improve society with the good work they do.  Their love for their fellow human is second to none, outdoing us in the church doing “Christian things”.

Doing Christian things might please some!  But doing Christian things to be seen as a Christian, does not please God.  One needs to prayerfully consider what one’s pleasure actually is, in doing Christian things.  If I do things to feel pleased, am I not pleasing the god of myself?  I am using the things of God to worship myself.  And what happens when the things I do, no longer gives me pleasure?

Being a Christian, calls us to be in the pleasures of death; to be as good as dead.  That sounds strange.  It sounds like an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.  How can there be pleasure in death?  Death is about annihilation, becoming nothing, obliteration, or being erased from existence. 

Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  (Luke 12:34 ESV)  Where your treasure is, there is your pleasure.  If your pleasure is doing Christian things, then your treasure is the doing of the deeds. 

However, when we are as good as dead, our pleasure cannot come from doing anything.  But,  when we are as good as dead, our existence or having our being must come from God and this pleases him because he is the only one who can truly do it.

In our Lutheran Confessions it says… But before people are enlightened, converted, reborn, renewed, and drawn back to God by the Holy Spirit, they cannot in and of themselves, out of their own natural powers, begin, effect, or accomplish anything in spiritual matters for their own conversion or rebirth, any more than a stone or block of wood or piece of clay can.  [Isaiah 45:9; 64:8; Jeremiah 18:6; Romans 9:19–24]

For although they can control their bodies and can listen to the gospel and think about it to a certain extent and even speak of it (as Pharisees and hypocrites do), they regard it as foolishness and cannot believe it.  They behave in this case worse than a block of wood, for they are rebellious against God’s will and hostile to it, wherever the Holy Spirit does not exercise his powers in them and ignite and effect faith and other God-pleasing virtues and obedience in them.[1]

It pleases God when he finds us ready.  We are made ready by the Holy Spirit, and he readies us in the Word of God and the Sacraments.  The Holy Spirit places us in the cycle of faith, breathing life into that which is as good as dead. 

In fact, he must make us ready for the coming of the Bridegroom by making us dead.  God finds us as nothing, so he can give us everything and make us something, a Christian being, working and moving in the being of Christ, doing the things of God as the Holy Spirit wills us.  For “In him we live and move and have our being”.  (Acts 17:28 ESV)

Jesus tells us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 ESV)

We see in war movies, when one is injured on the battlefield and cannot escape the enemy patrol, looking to finish off those who are still alive, some survive by playing dead, so the killers pass by giving the injured a chance to escape. 

Opposite to this is the Christian who is ready for the Father’s good pleasure.  He needs us not to play alive, as if we do not need his help and can save ourselves.  We don’t need to play dead either, our reality is that we are as good as dead.  It pleases God when we know and trust this in his word and make ourselves ready for his coming, because “our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 124:8 ESV)

When we ready ourselves in the knowledge as being as good as dead, it pleases God to rescue us from the “no man’s land” of suffering and sin.  Jesus tells us what he does for us, “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.  Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.” (Luke 12:37 ESV)

Faith that pleases God, is a faith that places its pleasure in the death of self, the death of desire and sin as well as the death of do-gooder righteousness.   A faith that pleases God is a faith that treasures Jesus Christ and his service to us in the forgiveness of sin, giving life to sinners. 

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  (Romans 6:3 ESV)

It is better, to be awake and ready to the reality of being as good as dead, than to be so busy pleasing and saving the self that one shuts out Christ, knocking at the door of one’s heart!

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, as Jesus comes and knocks on the door of our hearts, may he find us ready, enter, and serves us with the bread of faith, hope, and love, in his word and in his body and blood.  Send you Holy Spirit to work the death of faith, hope, and love in the things of this world, our sin, and our sinful being, so he might continually serve us with your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, that each of us may remain in the goodness and treasure of his death.  Amen.

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[1] Kolb, R., Wengert, T. J., & Arand, C. P. (2000).  The Book of Concord: the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, 2:24 (pp. 548–549).  Fortress Press.