C, Post-Pentecost 9, Proper 14 - Luke 12:32-46 "Forgetting the Faith"

Fear and anxiety are markers of faithlessness.  Faithlessness comes about when we forget God and his promises, seeking to work our own way through the wilderness.  Like someone whose car has broken down in the desert, they try to walk to safety, get lost, and die having been overcome by a hopeless situation.

Do you daily remember God as you travel through the wilderness of this existence?  Our modern society blindly blunders into the unknown having put aside the transcendence of God and all the gifts he promises.  Humanity forgets the gifts of God, because it has firstly, turned its back on God, and forgotten him. 

We Christians are no different.  If someone measured how much you remember God the Father in heaven, in every moment of your day, you may or may not be surprised just how much time you spend forgetting God to be absorbed in mesmerising and memorising yourself!

Imagine if after Jesus was crucified, raised, and ascended into heaven, that was the end of the matter.  Two thousand years after the fact, would you or I remember Jesus Christ? 

I put it to you that most of us struggle to remember what happened a week ago.  Can you remember all the names of your ancestors beyond your grandparents?  So why don’t we forget the holy figure of Jesus Christ, hidden from humanity’s sight two thousand years ago?

We receive faith so we do not forget.  The faith we receive is the faithful witness and work of the Holy Spirit.  God the Holy Spirit was sent, to help us be holy, after God the Son ascended into the hidden realm to the right hand of God the Father.  The Spirit was sent and still comes so we remember our humanity has been hampered and he helps us recall and receive the holiness of God’s heavenly kingdom.

While Jesus was resolutely working his way to the cross for us, he reminds us to, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Luke 12:32–34 ESV)

We, the little flock of God, are gathered by the Holy Spirit into church, to where we are called as God carries us in his kingdom towards eternity.  Jesus is our prize purse that does not fail, that not even the thief of all thieves , the devil, can steal.  Nor can moth destroy Jesus’ many gifts!  Jesus promises it’s your Heavenly Father’s pleasure to give you, his kingdom.  Indeed, even so it’s Jesus’ pleasure too.  As we hear, he is “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

 So then why do we fall into fear and anxiety?  Why do we forget this promise of God?  What happens to faith when we forget God?  What happens when I forget the faith given to me? 

Jesus tells us to be ready for his return saying, “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.” (Luke 12:35–37a ESV)

Peter asks, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” (Luke 12:41 ESV) We might ask the same thing too, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?”

Jesus follows on with a parable teaching every hearer what happens when we forget God and are not ready for the return of our transcendent master.  He says, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful.”  (Luke 12:42–46 ESV)

When we forget God, we forget he is master of all things.  Just like the servant in the parable, we forget the true master of our domain and pinch his place.  The servant who forgets God, tries to become God, powerfully abusing God’s other faithful servants.  A foolish servant forgets it’s God’s pleasure to give the kingdom and replace the gift of God with earthy debauched pleasures, like eating and drinking.

It’s here faith has moved from God to the self!  Jesus Christ, the founder, and perfecter, of our faith gets forgotten!  Although we might call on God for an hour a week in worship, maybe a bit more, we burden God with our actions that work against him, making our own kingdoms come.

But making oneself master is fraught with fear and anxiety.  One is constantly looking over the shoulder, in suspicion.  When one forgets God, they suspect every other servant is seeking the same, causing competitive fear and dread! 

Also, deep down there’s knowledge that the true master is returning and will put his household right and remove those who are unrepentantly wrong.  The servant who turns God’s house of holiness into a house of happiness for one’s own ego, rules with fear and anxiety making God’s house a house of horrors for every other servant.  As the old adage goes, “When the cat’s away—or forgotten—the mice will play!”

What makes it even messier is when all forget God is the transcendent master.  The results of this are easily seen everywhere today inside and outside the church.  The mice are at play, playing up in plague proportions.  If you’ve ever experienced the chaos of a mouse plague on a grain farm, you know how devastating it is when the plague is out of control in fear of famine.  The plague can destroy everything!  Humanity is much the same when faith in God is forgotten in favour of fear and human failure at being the master of their own dominion.

The Holy Spirit never strays away to play.  He calls, gathers, enlightens and makes us holy with the written word of God in Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.  As we travel through the wilderness of this world, the Holy Spirit mobilises the church to move in Christ.  Just as Moses and the Israelites moved in the wilderness only when the holy pillars of cloud and fire moved, we move and stop in faith given by the Holy Spirit, keeping us in the holy protective confines and convocations of Christ, so we are constantly remembering and returning to the means of grace. 

Allowing the Holy Spirit to work his work of making us holy, removes fear and anxiety for the future. He keeps us in the faith, so we stay dressed ready for action and keep our lamps burning. 

These actions are like the Israelites who ate the Passover, ready to roll into the wilderness at a moment’s notice, towards the land of milk and honey.  We remain ready for action,  ready to repent, forgive, and live—trusting in God as we are moved by the will of God.

The Holy Spirit also keeps the lamp burning, with the good oil of God’s word.  Without his word the Holy Spirit has nothing with which to keep us in Christ.  The church without the word—each of us without the word—forgets God, gets lost, and flounders in hopelessness. 

But abiding under the word of God, keeps us burning as the body of Christ.  The Holy Spirit keeps us moving through the wilderness of this world.  The Holy Spirit throughout history has done the same with many others, who in faith, did not forget God.  With them the Spirit gives us understanding to stand under him who is unseen, remembering the promise of God with determined Christ-like hope despite the hopelessness of all other things.  Amen.   

C, Post-Pentecost 5, Proper 10 - Amos 7:7-17 "Dread"

Amos 7:7–17 (ESV) This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.” Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, “ ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’ ” And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. “You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’ Therefore thus says the Lord: “ ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’ ”

Picture yourself in Amos’s sandals.  You’re a sheep farmer and an orchardist and God calls you from your land into a different land.  Then God places before you visions and asks, “What do you see?”  You report what you see, then God calls you to proclaim his Word to others without fear or favour!

What you’re called to say, has occurred through the disobedience of the people, the priests, and the king to whom you’ve been sent.  God calls you to tell them, “God has dropped a dividing line between himself and you.  No longer will God be found in your places of worship, and your holy sanctuaries will lay in waste!”

In Amos’s time, God dropped his plumb line, saying, “Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.” (Amos 7:11 ESV)

It was God’s “line in the sand” set to cause dread amongst those who heard its proclamation.  Like Amos, having seen God’s vision and then told to tell others what God says, would you obediently report what you’re called to say?  It is a dreadful message to tell!  Who would you dread more; God or those to whom God calls you to proclaim the prophecy?

But it doesn’t end there.  This farmer come prophet from Judah is confronted by the priest of Bethel, Amaziah, who’s reported your prophecy to the king of Israel, and then tells him to get out of Bethel, go home, and prophecy there.  Imagine if God commissioned you to tell the priest, “Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land. ” (Amos 7:17 ESV)

Would you dread telling this to the priest, or more so would you dread God, if you didn’t do what you were told to teach?

Like fear, dread has a positive and negative sense.  Today it’s mainly used negatively.  Dread and fear in a positive sense can lead a person in awe of someone to do great things. Like Amos, the prophets, our Lord Jesus Christ, his apostles and martyrs!  Or negatively, dread and fear can be quite awful, inciting panic and terror in those who refuse being rescued, by the likes of the prophets or the apostles, therefore remaining condemned guilty before God.

Two avenues of dread stand before Amos. Dread in reporting God’s Word to God’s people and how they would react to him.  Or not reporting God’s Word to his people and dreading how God would react with him, if he didn’t report what he was called to see and say!

This was the third vision God showed Amos, after stern prophecies were spoken against God’s people and king in Israel.  But it wasn’t to be the last vision or prophecy. 

The first two visions were firstly, locusts devouring at the end of the growing season.  And then secondly, judgement by fire which was to consume everything in the land.  But both times Amos interceded, and God relented.

Twice Amos says “O Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” (Amos 7:2,5 ESV) And twice, “The Lord relented concerning this: saying, ‘It shall not be’, and ‘this also shall not be.’” (Amos 7:3,6 ESV)

God’s people tested God, and Amos was sent by God to reveal God’s action against his people acting disobediently, the priests of God acting defiantly, and God’s king acting contrarily against God as a rebellious authority.

The plumb line prophecy was the third vision Amos saw, but it was the first of three in which God did not relent.  The first two were set to cause a godly dread and fear to turn God’s people in repentance back to him.  Now the third, fourth, and fifth prophecies were announced through Amos to reveal God’s opposition and cause them dread as they remembered what they defiantly didn’t do.

God showed Amos the fourth vision, and then God says, “‘Amos, what do you see?’ And Amos said, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them. The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,’ declares the Lord God. ‘So many dead bodies!’ ‘They are thrown everywhere!’ ‘Silence!’” (Amos 8:2–3 ESV)

God promises to no longer forgive his people, he will not pass by or over them in judgement. No longer heeding his Word, God would withdraw from the orchard and no longer grace them with his presence.  God’s own people will be separated from him, left to themselves as dead rotten fruit.  There is unanswerable silence, in God’s deadly absence. 

God reveals continuing dread in what they’ve sought for themselves, saying, “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord God, ‘when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.’” (Amos 8:11 ESV)

To this the Psalmist adds, “I said, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.’ Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!” (Psalm 82:6–8 ESV)

God inherits the nations through death.  In fear and dread people return in repentance to God, through the daily death of self and its pride, or they await dreadful expectations in a death without the Word of the Lord to save them.

This is played out in the fifth vision of Amos where he sees God standing beside the altar saying, “Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape.  All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’” (Amos 9:1,10 ESV)

God did not put the plumb line amongst his enemy.  No!  These were his own chosen people, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Amos was called by God, to leave his farm in Judah, to followed God north into Israel, to see the visions of God, and to tell them to the people of God.  Did he dread doing this?  To this Amos testifies, “For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:7–8 ESV)

God had sent a shepherd, to shepherd Israel, to warn them by sending famine in one place and not another.  Yet, over and over again, God’s people did not dread God’s judgement, causing him to declare, over and over again, “yet you did not return to me.” (Amos 4:6,8,9,10,11 ESV) “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” (Amos 4:12 ESV)

God prophecies through Amos, pointing forward to Jesus Christ as the resurrection of David’s rule that’s fallen, saying, “In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them… I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God.”  (Amos 9:11,14a,15 ESV)

In our church and society today, many believe, “disaster will not overtake or meet us.”  The use of fear and dread are looked down upon as “not loving our neighbour”.  Yet God is still showing his faithful plumb line, a line in the sand in his Son Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit continues to open God’s Word to us; in the hope we receive Christ from our neighbours and share Christ with our neighbours.

When the silence of death comes, God will inherit the earth.  When we silence God’s Word of warning and believe “disaster will not overtake or meet us”, we should expect to dread, a death in the domain of darkness and the silencing of our sin.  Yet when we turn and trust in God, who will judge all things, then fear and dread leads us to the cross, to cover our sins with Jesus atoning blood for forgiveness, eternal light and life.  

Killing the prophets, re-crucifying Christ, not allowing the Holy Spirit to make us righteous in God’s Word, is still a current warning to all humanity, including you, regardless of how unpopular it is.  The writer of Hebrews reminds God’s people in Christ of his plumb line, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:26, 29 ESV)

The saints of God are still being physically and spiritually martyred for their faithfulness.  Where we are shown to be the killers of God, God’s Word and his people, may the dread of this, lead you and me to repentance from the domain of darkness.   So, having been transferred into the kingdom of God’s eternal light, we live in the assurance of God’s forgiveness of our sins. Amen.

Let us pray! Thanks be to God, who still sends out disciples and saints to share God’s Word with their neighbours.  Thank you for pastors who put aside the dread of proclaiming the truth of your Word, so we, your disciples, can be taught and encouraged to proclaim your message of life without fear or favour, without dread or distraction.  Thank you that the death of Jesus Christ saves from the greater dread and fear of eternal death. Amen. 

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.

C, Ascension of our Lord - Luke 24:49 "Clothed with Power from on High"

Luke 24:49 (ESV) “And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Forty days after the Resurrection, the Apostles see Jesus ascend.  One minute he is seen, the next he is hidden. 

It might be easy to picture that Jesus is gone.  But he was not gone, just hidden.

The Apostles’ minds had been opened so they understood the Old Testament Scriptures, they would go on to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And it would be written down for all generations to hear and see that Jesus is still present in faith but hidden from sight.

Today it’s hard to know what the Apostles would have felt seeing Jesus ascend.  They lived with the joy of his resurrection, but after the resurrection Jesus was present in a different way than when he walked and lived with them for three years on earth.  They knew all would be different.

We too face change.  Things are different today from yesterday, and tomorrow we can expect change too. 

Our environment changes constantly, as we also change.  Our knowledge changes with age, and so does our health.  People around us change, and expectations change too.

Keeping focus on God in the midst of change is challenging.  What can we learn from the disciples who witnessed the greatest change that God brought about since the beginning of creation?

Saint Paul speaks to the Ephesians about what they can expect from God in this change he has brought about, saying, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,  so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.  In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 1:11–13 ESV)

Paul includes himself with those who were the first to hope in Christ, proclaiming an inheritance and predestination having heard the Gospel and believed.

From this we can learn that the Apostles’ hope was complete trust in God, despite his ascension.  Paul goes on to pass on this hope, saying, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” (Ephesians 1:18 NIV84)

In our lives of change and aging we are easily distracted from the hope to which he has called you!  As death of routine, rituals, and perceived reality rolls on, the eye is drawn from faith, hope, and love to fear, death, and self-preservation of fleeting pleasures.

But the those who first witnessed Jesus ascend from their sight into heaven, went on to love many, live in faith, and be steadfast in hope despite being martyred for the Gospel.  How?

Their inheritance was the inheritance of the cross.  They knew what happened to Jesus would happen to them.  Faith would carry them to their death and hope would deliver them through it into the resurrection to eternal life.

And this inheritance was a seen destination prior to its reception.  They were pre-destined. They knew where they were going before they went there.  They knew Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life.  Finding the way had absolutely nothing to do with their knowledge of good or evil.

It was quite the opposite actually!  They did not find a way!  In fact, they were told to wait!  These weaklings who had deserted the cross, with minds opened to their weakness and God’s power at the cross, did as they were told by Jesus just before he ascended.

Jesus says, “behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49 ESV) 

And so, they waited and then they were clothed with power from on high, as the Holy Spirit led them from Pentecost to the ends of the earth.  And you too as the Holy Spirit leads us to the end of this earth!

As things seem to change for the worse in our world.  Be clothed with the Holy Spirit!

Let him clothe you with faith, hope and love.

Let him clothe you with Jesus Christ, granting you a continual climate change within, tempering the tempest of a tumultuous heart, that’s tempted to lose faith in God, and place it back in fleeting pleasures that lead to hopelessness and coldness of heart.

Let the Holy Spirit lead you and bind you to the cross of your salvation, knowing fear will be replaced with faith, death will be overcome in hope, and the death of selfish pleasures will be replaced with steadfast love.

Jesus will come the same way he left.  This is promised in his word.

In the blink of an eye all will be overcome.  Clothed with the Holy Spirit we will see the bridegroom arrive.  And finally, the clothes of faith, hope, and love that covered our unchangeable sinfulness, will be uncovered to reveal the unchanging, eternal, naked glory of Jesus Christ, recreated in all of us.  Amen.  

B, Reformation Sunday - Psalm 46 & John 8: 31-36 "Fear and Love God"

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,  and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”  Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.  The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  (John 8:31-36 ESV)

How is it that we who are slaves of sin, find ourselves in the house of God, knowing and trusting we are free?

Is it because we have proven ourselves to have satisfactorily loved God?  No, not at all!

Is it because there is a divine spark within us that is capable of making a decision for Christ?  No, it’s not!

Is it because we have always been free and are not really slaves? Nope!

Is it because it is done by someone else who knows we are slaves of sin, who knows the divine spark was put out by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and who knows the freedoms we look to would cause us shame if they were unhidden? Yes, it is!

We are free because of Jesus, the Son of God, and God alone.  If the Son sets us free, we are free indeed.

Freedom for Christians allows us to have fear in God.  Having fear in God can be understood in a positive and negative sense.  As Christians, we fear God knowing our sin does not please him, and because of our sin, all of us deserve his wrath.

As we are told in Hebrews, “‘The Lord will judge his people.’  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:30b–31 ESV)

And Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.  But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:4–5 ESV)

Paradoxically, we also have a fear that fills us with awe! So much so, we are willing to throw ourselves down before him, seeking his mercy in spite of the reality we deserve his condemnation.

“Then turning toward the woman Jesus said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet.  You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.  Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”  And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” (Luke 7:44–48 ESV)

We can turn our back on God and disregard him with disrespect.  When one does this, one places both negative and positive fear in something other than God. One neither heeds God’s warning nor deems him good enough to lead us.

What we fear is what we face. 

In addition to this, what we love is what we face.

Love too has its positive and negative sense. But it’s slightly different to fear.  We always face what we love, but the motives for facing reveal the positive or negative of love. Love is about what we want, what we desire or seek, or what we worship.  The negative and positive of love can be uncovered only when we ask, “Why we want or worship that which we love!”

When we enter turbulent times temptation to fear and love other things than God also becomes murky and more difficult to discern and recognise. As the ship becomes unsettled, like the disciples, we are tempted to forget Jesus is with us in the boat.  He is still and resting as we’re tempted into panic. (See Mark 4:35-41)

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,  though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. [Selah] (Psalm 46:1–3 ESV)

There is much civil unrest in the world at the moment.  Many hearts are in the mouth threatening to vomit up things that the turbulence tempts us to fear.  Adding to the foaming mess already swirling around us.

Fear of vaccination and fear of un-vaccination are making the sea of society roar and foam, making the mountains of our idols tremble at its swelling. 

Who can make sense in the midst of this mess in which we find ourselves?  There’s  so much venom and violence bubbling away in the hearts of humanity in the majorities and minorities.

When I am confronted with such fear it is easy to be swept up in the surging swell of it all.  I am tempted to add my sin to the sin of others adding mass to the mountains of majorities or minorities.

What mountain of fear are you facing at the moment?

What is your fear causing you to want?

Whatever it is, this is what you love!  This is what you are worshipping.

Like those who sought to silence blind Bartimaeus, as we heard in last week’s Gospel reading, are we not blinded by our superiority of our perception of other’s seemingly inferior fears?  (Mark 10:46-52) 

Yes!  I am just spewing into a sea of churning and foaming chaos.

Now we move onto a new picture painted by the psalmist in Psalm 46

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.  God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.  The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.  The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. [Selah] (Psalm 46:4–7 ESV)

Here we have a picture of tranquillity. It is the same picture of peace amongst the chaos, as Jesus sleeps in the boat while the disciples face their fears in the death and destruction of the churning storm on lake Galilee.

Jesus is with us in his church.  He is with us in his word, and he is bodily with us in the sacrament.  Fear him, not the unvaccinated! Fear him, not the mandate to vaccinate.  The kingdom of God is not concerned about being vaccinated or un-vaccinated. 

The morning will dawn, and God’s hand will be revealed in all of this.  He may choose to reveal what that is in our life, or we might have to wait until the resurrection to know exactly what that is.

But for now, in these days of darkness what is God’s will for us?  What is Jesus’ will for you, in his boat?  To where is the Holy Spirit leading us?

Come, behold the works of the LORD, how he has brought desolations on the earth.  He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.  “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”  The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. [Selah] (Psalm 46:8–11 ESV)

We are called to fear and love God?  We are called to behold the works of the Lord!

But what are the works and will of God?  We are called to be a community gathered under Christ’s love.  By this love the Holy Spirit gathers us in forgiveness. By this love we know we need forgiveness for our faithlessness. By his love we know we are forgiven.

Through his love and faithfulness, we know others need the same forgiveness. And by his love we petition God to help us forgive them as the Father has faithfully forgiven each of us and seeks to still the churning storm within you and me.

Our loving Heavenly Father wants to dissipate your venom, and clean up each person’s vomit, swirling the seas of spewing churning darkness.  He does this by the power of the Holy Spirit calling us to the stillness of Jesus on the cross.  This is the reformation into which God calls you and me daily. 

As we all face the cross, he calls us to know that he is God!  He will be exalted by all people when the curtain of chaos is finally torn in two.  It will reveal the hidden presence of the God of peace. The whole of creation will exalt him for the peace he returns to it, when he finally restores it to its former glory, which he created for us.

He promises us in his Word, he will usher in the eternal era of sabbath rest. This is where all who abide in the work of God’s forgiveness will stand face to face, fear and love God, the Lord of Hosts forever. Amen.

Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for evermore. Amen.