B, Post Pentecost 26 Proper 28 - Mark 13 "Final Day Failure to See Failure"

On January sixteen, two thousand and three, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration in the United States of America, launched space shuttle Columbia into a sixteen-day orbit around the earth for an extensive scientific mission.  It never touched down!  In the sixteenth minute before it was due to land, mission control lost contact with the orbiter as it broke up on re-entry over Texas and Louisiana. 

The greatest fears were confirmed as video from the media was broadcast to the US nation, unbeknown to mission control in Houston, who were still trying to reestablish contact with Columbia.

A chunk of foam, not unlike the expander foam you can buy at a hardware store, just twenty-one to twenty-seven inches long by twelve to eighteen inches wide, that’s about half to three-quarters of a metre by thirty to forty-five centimetres.  It broke off the large propellant tank strapped under the shuttle, just eighty or so seconds after launch, smashing into the reinforced carbon-carbon covering the left wing of the orbiter.

There were concerns over the incident by some at NASA, but it was dismissed because it was unbelievable that foam could damage, let alone, destroy reinforced carbon-carbon on the wing of the Columbia.

The scientific mission of Columbia was ended, ironically,  by a scientific impossibility, as some believed.  However, in the aftermath of the disaster, it was shown through experiment that foam could destroy reinforced carbon-carbon, when it’s travelling at high speed.

The fracturing of foam was known to NASA.  Yet people at NASA control still kept sending astronauts into orbit knowing brittle bits of foam were being dislodged.  Some of which earlier had caused damage to one of the Atlantis shuttle’s solid fuel rockets without catastrophe, since these are ejected after launch, not needed for re-entry. 

However, the damage to the Columbia space shuttle orbiter proved fatal on re-entry, due to catastrophic destruction of the left wing’s protection from the foam collision on take-off.  Therefore, without this protection, the super heating that occurs on re-entry, opened the vehicle for destruction, and the crew was lost.

The great pleasure in NASA,  and the accomplishment of a successful mission dissolved into NASA’s and the United States’ realisation of their greatest fears. What they had marvelled over as their greatest achievement brought about their greatest fears, destruction and death!

The disciples marvelled at the stones and the buildings of the Jerusalem temple, to which Jesus replied, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Mark 13:2 ESV)

This was not the first temple but the second.  Solomon’s temple had long been sacked, and in its wake, Herod set about to construct the second temple.  Last week we heard in Solomon’s Psalm one hundred and twenty-seven, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil.” (Psalm 127:1–2a ESV)

However, the Jews didn’t take heed of God’s Word, nor the four hundred years of events that led to Jesus’ coming.  Rather, they vainly trusted in themselves and their deeds, forgetting what led to Israel’s and Judah’s destruction and desolation.  Hear the unbelief of the people when God sought to call their vanity to account through Jeremiah…

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.”  (Jeremiah 7:3-4, 8–11 ESV)

From Mark’s Gospel we hear Jesus prophesy the reality of Jerusalem and its temple in the end times.  After the destruction and desolation, that saw their forefathers exiled to Babylon and beyond, having not remained under the warnings from God in his Word, they continued refusing to listen to Jesus, the Son of God, and sought their own desires causing desolation and destruction.  

In these last days, in which we have been since Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the church continues to test God with its opposition to his Word, and fails to heed its warnings, as it seeks to place its trust in culture and the authority of the mob.

Our General Pastors’ Conference and General Convention of Synod, like NASA, like the Jews, has not listened to God and his Word, nor the advice of previous synods, nor two thousand years of Christ sustaining his church from desolation and destruction. 

At best, what is done has occurred through apathy, as a deception of the “abomination of desolation standing where here ought not be” (Mark 13:14)  That is, evil in the place of Christ, masked as an angel of light, working through mischief to lead the apathetic into a unity of ignorance that’s false and leads to destruction.

At worst, like those who lead others into deception, some are acting with deliberate disobedience before God and his Word, by placing themselves over the Word of God in seeking to conform the church to the catastrophic cultural corruption all around us.   

So, like NASA and the pressure upon it to be popular and positive, the church is led into negatives that lead to the worst.  Without addressing the issue that was the worst, the worst occurred at NASA.  Nothing was learnt from the “sins of the past”.  Nothing was done about the foam breakage issues, until it was too late.

The greatest fear in front of us in God’s church, is that we become lost to our baptismal salvation, like the crew and vehicle of Columbia.  In ignorance, we trust in the word of others, rather than God’s Word, and tempt finding ourselves on the wrong side of God’s judgement.  

We can lose control and burn up so close to salvation, through apathy and deception, or active wilful disobedience.

Don’t let what others say, “is a harmless little piece of foam”, when it can destroy your baptismal faith!  Don’t allow your faith to become a piece of foam that destroys you.  Don’t let that which is meant to protect you become dislodged so that it destroys you!  If you think this can’t happen to you, I invite you to open God’s Word and allow the Holy Spirit to show you that it can, and has, to God’s chosen people, who had “the temple of the Lord”, that ultimately, he allowed to be destroyed in 70AD.

Speaking of NASA and the disaster, a shuttle chief engineer said, “I feel ashamed!  So, who’s guilty? I’m not just going to say the program managers are. We’re all guilty. If you don’t speak up for your own system and you’re victims of this environment, we’re guilty too!” (Rodney Rocha – NASA Shuttle Chief Engineer, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

How do we galvanise ourselves against our greatest fear, eternal death and destruction?  On judgement day it’s no good saying to God, “I believed in Pastor Heath!  I believed in the bishops!  I believed in the LCANZ!  I believed in what I felt, in what “I” thought about God.  We have to believe “the Word of God”!  To open it!  Read it!  Pray for understanding, worked in you by the Holy Spirit, so you stand in submission under Jesus Christ and his Word!  God calls you to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13 ESV)

Jesus says to you who desire to fear and love God, who fear eternal death over earthly death, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.” (Mark 13:5–6 ESV)

The seemingly harmless pleasures, “the pieces of foam”, within each of us, within our congregation, parish, district, and synod, can destroy us and bring eternal desolation.  Therefore, be strengthened in the Word of God to be on guard against your sinful self; the evil within.  Be strengthened against the cultures of chaos working through others; the evil from without!   Be strengthened against the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not be; that is, the devil, the evil one, inside and outside the church!

Since Christ ascended into heaven, the commonwealth of God’s holy church has always been tempted into becoming common by losing the holiness of its wealth.  Two thousand years into the end times, some have lost sight of what makes us holy, that sets us apart from the world, as God’s children, as his commonwealth. 

This commonwealth community of God is a republic of repentance.  Our eternal wealth is built on the knowledge of our failures having been forgiven.  The Holy Spirit leads us as a republic of repentant sinners constantly being forgiven in Jesus Christ.  The fragility that fractures this faith, is your human spirited apathy or wilful disobedience to participate in the Holy Spirit’s republic of repentance. We’re being made one as the Holy Spirit works common repentance, reviving us as God’s renewed public property, a holy commonwealth in Christ.

Your fear of failure needs you to understand your weakness and ability to fail!  If you don’t, you will place your faith in yourself; the very thing that causes your failure.  Failure to repent, to know you need to repent, is catastrophic!  

An accident investigator of the Columbia tragedy said, “This was a known failure. But I think failure to imagine being wrong, the failure to imagine the consequences of failure, are catastrophic.  And I think it’s this whole notion of the failure, to imagine failure.” (Patrick Goodman – Accident Investigator, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

Like NASA, the Jews failed to recognise their failure to follow God’s Law and their failure by trusting in the temple the Lord gave them, rather than his Word.  When we fail to recognise our failure and the forgiveness offered because of our failure, and place faith in what fails us, we become like those who believe in the temple, rather than God who gave the temple.  And like those who believed a cheap piece of foam couldn’t harm reinforced carbon-carbon.

The only safe ship that will deliver you through the atmosphere of failure and death into eternity, is the eternally enduring coverings of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh!  Amen.

A, Post-Pentecost 12 Proper 15 - Romans 11:29-32, Matthew 15:10-28 "Mercy for Sinners"

Text     Romans 11:29–32 (ESV)

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.  For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience,  so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.  For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Sermon

Can a person measure their faith?  How do I know whether I’ve got great faith, or fragile or unstable faith?  Really, should one seek to measure faith?

In Romans 10:17 we hear that faith comes from hearing the gospel preached. 

Today we have heard in the Gospel (Matthew 15:10-28) Jesus finds himself in two places and receives two very different faith responses as he, the Word made flesh, moves, teaches, and preaches amongst the people of his day.

In fact, when confronted by Christ and his Word, the reality of God in my presence quickly reveals just who I am as well as what I think, do, and feel. 

Usually one of two things happen, sometimes both things happen at the same time.  Either I become proud, arrogant, and conceited, or I become crushed and confused, and sometimes even both, somehow at the same time.

Indeed, even in the bible readings we have heard this morning, my mind races and makes me feel certain things and makes me want to do certain things too. 

The first thing that jumps to mind in the readings is from the second half of the Gospel reading.  I see the way Jesus approaches a Gentile, a Canaanite woman who has heard the word and approaches Jesus with faith.  I struggle with the fact that Jesus does three things before the woman that for me, seems a bit harsh.  He ignores her, then refuses to speak to her, saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”  And finally, when he does speak to her, he calls her “a dog”.

Two things happen in me as I hear God’s word, I question and then doubt.  Surely Jesus is a God of love; why does he do this?  I am tempted into doubting God’s word and seek to alter it to suit me, making it a little less offensive.  And once this happens then the threat of either conceited arrogance or crushing confusion hangs over my head.

It seemingly appears that his Word is not completely true as far as my thoughts and feelings are concerned.  It seems if I were to evaluate my faith at this moment, I might be in danger of not finding any!  Or would I?  Or perhaps, instead of faith, I realise disobedience is working within me!

Then I think about the first half of the Gospel reading.  Those wretched Pharisees: what right have they got to be offended at my God?  If I was there, I wouldn’t doubt Jesus for a minute; I am so much better than them! 

But just when I become proud of my pharisaic ways over the Pharisees, Jesus’ Word rings in my ear, ‘Are you so dull?’  He tells me the things that come out of my mouth and heart are the things that make me unclean; evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. 

Then depending on the day, I respond with pride, “I don’t do any of those things”, or I justify myself with a big “yeah-but” and change God’s word to suit me, so I mightn’t have to address the things I’m doing in my life, and the things I’m not doing as well. 

Or, on the other hand, at other times I see Jesus lift the bar of the law, that much higher, so there is no way I can jump over it, and utter shame fills my heart, “how can I go near God when I am such a bad sinner?!”

Either way, I have become my own authority on good and evil.  My own goodness renders God unnecessary.  And my inability to be perfectly good makes me unable to work my way out of the death my deeds deserve. 

The point is: you and I are inherently sinful.  Sin is not just what I do, it is who I am!  When presented with a model of Jesus’ life I see that there is no way possible for me to make it to heaven by my own efforts.  In fact, my efforts push me further and further away from God, every time. 

For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.  (Romans 11:32 ESV)

In fact, God hands us over to see our sinfulness so that the gift of Christ is recognized for what it is: the greatest gift anyone has ever received.  God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. 

Even in the midst of so much sin and selfish behaviour God continues to have mercy on us.  My sinful nature, with all its doubt, worry, and pride, is continually being exposed by the light of God. 

The closer we are drawn to the light of God the brighter the stain of our disobedience stands out next to the brilliance of Jesus Christ.  I am not able to wash the disobedience from my clothes.  I need the blood of the lamb to cleanse me once and for all! 

But I also need the Holy Spirit to remind me of it, so I am reassured of my cleansing, as more and more disobedience within comes to light.

It is Jesus who has kept the Sabbath holy, so much so by the will of God the Father, he truly rested in death in the grave on that Holy Sabbath Saturday, between Good Friday, when he died, and Easter Sunday, the day of his glorious resurrection. 

It is Jesus’ perfect modelled-life in me, winning me, leading me, and forgiving me for my disobedience.  It is Jesus’ blood which covers my sinful nature yesterday, today, and tomorrow.   God does not go back on his Word!

In the gifts of baptism, the bread and the wine, and in his Word, these gifts are irrevocable, irreversible, and universal.  You are 100% sinner so God the Son can be 100% your Saviour.   

This is not an invitation to go and sin.   No!  This is a reality impressed upon all of us that before we commit a sin, we are already condemned sinners in being and nature.  Human beings, being human, whose doings fall with the human spirit of Adam within each of us.

Even in the midst of our disobedient natures God’s gift of faith will never be withdrawn.  Faith comes from God and leads us to God.  Faith comes from the Word and leads back to his Word.  Faith comes from the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit comes from God the Father and God the Son, and faith leads us to Jesus Christ, God the Son, and through him to our loving Heavenly Father. 

Is there a need to measure faith?  No! God gives us the measure of faith we need, and he never breaks his promise to us.  He gives us his gifts and continually calls us!

When the Word offends you, and you become conceited like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day.  When the Word of God increases the depth of your sin, shedding light on the disobedience of your heart.  When the Word of God shows that you are a foreigner in God’s eyes with no way of being persuaded to follow God’s Law by your own efforts.  Marvel that Jesus himself graces your heart with his blood that makes you righteous.

Be overwhelmed that as a sinner you can be confident in his glorious presence, when you really deserve nothing but death.  Allow the Holy Spirit to kill knowledge of good and evil within and replace it with the knowledge of victory in Jesus’ resurrection from death. 

Pray for the Holy Spirit to raise this great faith within you, knowing that God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable, continually crying out to Jesus, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Amen.

A, Lent 1- Romans 5:19 "Hypo-Hearing"

Romans 5: 19 (ESV) For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

The foundational disobedience event for humanity is the Old Testament reading for today. 

In Genesis two and three, humanity lost its innocence when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s command.  One negative command in the Garden of Eden.  One “no” in a pleasant place of seemingly infinite “yeses”.  Eden literally means “soft, delight, or pleasure.  It was God’s Garden of Pleasure for Adam and Eve!

Living this side of the fall, our eyes are immediately opened, hearing of Eden being a garden of delight and pleasure.  We live with increasing hardship in these days, we seek to recreate, but fail in finding the pleasure to which humanity lost access when they chose to break the one prohibition in creation of innocence and blessing.

In Romans five Saint Paul reflects, “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”  (Romans 5: 19 ESV)

We stand at the start of Lent reflecting on this event today.  And as we do there is temptation to think, “if only Adam and Eve didn’t make that one simple mistake”. But although we have no way of knowing how history would have unfolded if they didn’t, after the fall they, and we, continue to fall and add to the first act of disobedience at the start of time.

Adam and Eve did not make one mistake and then lived without any more sin.  Immediately after the fall and being thrown out of the garden, Adam and Eve continue in their disobedience.

But before we hear about this, we need to understand what this disobedience is, so we can understand ourselves, and the obedience of Jesus which saves us and makes us holy.  Then the Holy Spirit can continue bringing us to, and infilling us with, the holiness of God.

Because we live this side of the fall, our natural tendency is to think obedience is about “doing” the right thing.  Although this is somewhat true, it is only partially true.  Because we are turned in on ourselves, we think, “if I do the right thing, then I am a righteous person”.  But the problem with our doing is in the “I think – I do” logic.

If obedience is about, “ I think, I do”, then most of humanity is obedient.  But what happens when what I think and do is different to what you think and do?  One’s thinking and doing will end up harming someone else’s thinking and doing.

Any parent that’s frustrated with their children, practises obedience teaching every time they lose it with their children. 

If and when one raises their voice at our children we do not usually say, “you are not being obedient, or stop being disobedient”.  Nor does one usually say, “stop doing what you’re doing”. 

No!  One who is frustrated with their children will raise their voice and say, “stop, you’re not listening.  Listen to me!”

Obedience is primarily about listening, and once hearing is heard, then the secondary act of doing can occur! 

This is because obedience occurs in community.  The parent is frustrated with their child or children in the nucleus of a family.  This is God’s original community.  In fact, all community is an extension of the household community of parents and children.  All authority flows from God to humanity through the family unit.  But since the fall, disobedience and loss of innocence also comes to us, not from God, but from Adam and Eve!

Notice it’s Adam who is named as being the one through whom sin came into the world.  Eve took the fruit, but it’s Adam who bore the responsibility for the sin.  Adam did not listen to God and broke the authority invested in him by God.  And in not listening he turned his back on God towards Eve and the serpent, to listen to their distortion of God’s Word, then participated in the act of eating themselves into death.  Community broke down between Adam and God when he listened and acted with Eve.  As a result, his relationship with Eve was also corrupted.

At this point I delight in telling you one of my favourite quotes from Luther’s Table Talk.  Martin Luther, being a very earthy Middle Ages man, said, “Almost every night when I wake up the devil is there and wants to dispute with me… I instantly chase him away with a fart.” (Luther’s Works 54:78)

Crass, yes!  But it is excellent classic practical theology!  For when you’re breaking wind in the devil’s face one is reversing the authority order of the fall at Eden.  If only Eve had turned her back on the devil, it would have been the holiest and most blessed and pleasant fart known to humanity. 

To turn in the devil’s hearing and blow flatulence in his face would have been a turning to her husband, and he with her, a return to the Lord.  They would have remained in the authority of God’s command, not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Instead, they could have partaken in the many delights of the garden, including the tree of life, and pleased God in doing so.

But they didn’t and as the cliché goes, “the rest is history”, until at the right time in history, God sent Jesus to do what Adam could not do.

Here too the doing is not the primary action but rather it is the listening.  “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”  (Romans 5: 19 ESV)

Disobedience and obedience are not just about hearing or listening, then doing.  Rather Saint Paul and the other Epistle writers speak of literally “hypo-hearing” or “under-hearing” when listening to God.  This is listening in submission to God’s Word, and for us it is the listening of the body, or the church, to the head of the church, which is Jesus Christ.

Disobedience here in Paul’s Epistles is “para-hearing”, “contrary-hearing”, or “proximity-hearing”.  One might not listen properly, only hearing in part, or mishearing.  Or a person might read into what they hear, and act on that, like a Chinese whisper gone wrong.

This is what happened at Eden when God told Adam not to eat of the tree.  Somehow, Eve tells the devil a slightly different command from what God had said to Adam.

Adam was commanded, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16–17 ESV)

To this Eve added, when quizzed by the devil, “but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” (Genesis 3:3 ESV)

When touching it, they did not die.  So, they ate, they knew death, and knew they were disobedient.  Instead of “under-hearing” they “contrary-listened” and became “hyper-hearers” they stood over God’s word, placing the authority of God’s Word below their understanding, their touching, and their tasting.

And what followed was the eternal “oops” once the sweet fruit of knowledge soured in the reality of whom it was that they had not listened.

But they continued in this “oops” by believing their immediate offspring would be the one to crush the serpent underfoot, promoting Cain as a champion man.  Wrongly they believed, and therefore named their second born, Abel, which means “second-rate, vain, or unsatisfactory”. 

We know Cain’s sacrifice to God was second rate, where Abel’s offering received God’s favour, leading to Cain murdering Abel, and being cursed by God.  This occurred as a result of Adam and Eve’s expectation and hyper-hearing of God’s promise.  Seth, however, is the one named as son, from which Jesus Christ is later born.  Incidentally, Abel was the first fallen human to enter the Kingdom of God, and second only to Jesus Christ!

Into our fallen world Jesus was born.  He is the true “Hypo-Hearer” of God.  He does not listen contrary to the Word of God, nor does he place himself over God’s Word, even though he is “the Word made Flesh”.

Jesus Christ was sent from the perfect community of the three-person common-unity, “threefold community or Trinity”, of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

At the start of his ministry, Jesus was baptised, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him.  Have you ever wondered, “why”?  Why does God the Son need God the Holy Spirit to come down on him in his earthly ministry?

There are two primary reasons.  First, God is a community of life and love, God works in community, everything he created is for community. 

Second, for Jesus to be the perfect servant, the true “hypo-hearer”, “under-hearer”, or “Obedient One”, he had to become as we are, as Adam and Eve were.  With the same nature as us.  But one hundred percent without sin. 

Jesus had to come in complete submission, not resting on a hyper-hearing or para-hearing, but weak, and led by the Holy Spirit, showing himself to be like you and me in every way, sin excepted.

Because of the Holy Spirit’s work of leading him to the cross, and his atonement for us on the cross, we now walk in the holy priesthood of all believers, baptised into Jesus’ “hypo-hearing”, or submission. 

And in receiving Jesus and his Word, we also receive the Holy Spirit, to will us, to inspire us, and lead us from the temptation of disobedience to the holiness, righteousness, and pleasures of God our Father in Jesus Christ.  Amen.