Apr 10, 2016
Feed My Sheep
Series: (All)
April 10, 2016. Pastor Keith talks about John 21:1-19. Following his resurrection, Jesus appears to the disciples, who are fishing but not catching anything. He tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, and then they catch fish in abundance. Peter, now recognizing Jesus, jumps into the water to get to him as quickly as possible. We too have the opportunity to jump in and follow Jesus. He calls us too with the water of baptism, and sends us, as he sent Peter, into the world to feed and tend his sheep.
 
*** Transcript ***
 
We begin in the name of the Father, and Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
 
There's almost a sense in the Gospel of John that you can say, "Here we go again." John does well at starting themes early on in the ministry of Jesus, and then picking them up late in the end — and taking them a step further. The scene of the disciples in the boat that night was not the first time that Jesus had been with them when they had been fishing. Very early on in his ministry, you'll remember that the disciples were fishing all night and caught nothing, and Jesus said cast your nets to the other side, and they did and they caught many fish. That was the time when Jesus was first calling the disciples, and it was the moment when Peter first heard the call that he should be a follower of Jesus. So now again, after the resurrection, eight of the disciples are fishing one night. Again they catch nothing. In the early morning they hear this man on the shore say, "Cast your net to the other side." So they do, and the net is full of fish — so much that they had trouble pulling it into the boat. This is the time when John recognizes Jesus. At first they don't quite catch what's going on, but then they realize this is Jesus who's over there on the shore. John says, "It is the Lord!" And Peter jumps in the water as soon as he can, and Jesus has a special conversation with Peter, in a sense re-commissions him as a missionary and caretaker of the church.
 
The little fire that Jesus has on the shoreline reminds us of a previous fire in the Book of John. It was on the night of the trial of Jesus that Peter was close by Jesus, but not feeling very confident as the leaders and the crowds were out to get Jesus. And in the glow of that little fire outside the hall where Jesus was on trial, the maids were there and the men were there who were kind of interested in this trial also. And they identify Peter and say hey, you're one of his disciples aren't you? And Peter denies it. And three times Peter says, "I don't know the man." So now on the lakeshore, where the disciples gather around Jesus, there is a fire. Jesus uses it to cook some fish that they caught. But also Jesus has a conversation with Peter. Three times he asks Peter, "Do you love me?" Three times Peter replies, "Yes Lord, you know that I love you." And Peter re-commits to the Lord. Peter re-commits to such a degree that he is a powerful spokesman for the church and a missionary for the Lord. And as this reading foreshadows, he will die because he is so committed to the Lord. He will be bound. His arms will be outstretched. And Peter dies on a cross himself for the sake of Jesus.
 
The third thing that takes us back to the beginning of John is that there is this abundance that we just talked about with the young people. John is a gospel that proclaims the abundant love and grace of God. And it's presented in the miracles of Jesus that he does in the Book of John. The first miracle we hear about in John, that we talked about earlier this year, was when he and his mother Mary were at a wedding and the hosts run out of wine. Jesus makes wine miraculously and in abundance, with huge jars being filled with wine. This is the first sign that John wants us to know: this man does things with abundance. So now at the end, Jesus is still making miracles in abundance. After catching no fish all night, at the command of Jesus to change the sides of the boat where they throw the net out, they catch so many fish they have difficulty pulling the net back in then. It says it was a hundred and fifty-three we assume large fish. Again, Jesus points to this not as a small thing. They go from zero to so many they can barely pull all the fish into the boat.
 
Jesus says in John, "I came that they might have life and have it abundantly." Jesus shows us that God is not stingy with love. God loves in abundance. Jesus loves in abundance when he reclaims the disciple Peter and commissions him to, "Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep." Jesus also loves in abundance when, with this fire he started, he uses some of the fish that they have caught to cook fish for them and serve it with bread that he has. These are the same people who, on that night when Peter had denied the Lord three times, were also fleeing themselves and hiding and getting as far away from Jesus as they could, because they were fearful. They were hiding on the morning of Easter. A couple of them did go out to look at the tomb, but rushed back where they hid behind closed doors. They had sold Jesus short along the way, not trusting him on that previous occasion. But yet on another occasion when Jesus was going to feed a whole crowd of people and they questioned him then, they said how can you feed so many with so little? This little boy had his lunch with some fish and bread in it. There again was an abundance of fish and bread. The disciples had doubted that Jesus could feed with abundance. Now Jesus is abundant in his forgiveness of them. He cooks the meal for these men who had denied him that night and run away from him and fled and hidden as much as they could. He lets them know that they are back in the fold. Even though they had run away, he receives them back to himself and commissions them to be disciple missionaries to the world. His love, his forgiveness are abundant.
 
This abundant love, this true and abundant forgiveness we see demonstrated in this shore lunch, with the disciples and re-commissioning of Peter, is something that's really a game changer we could say — or better said, a life changer and a vision changer — for those who see the significance of what Jesus means for the world. The world tends towards zero sum thinking, saying there's only so much and we have to share or get by with what we can in the world. The world worries that there isn't enough and that God is out to judge them. And now Jesus comes with this new vision, proclaiming through John that through him we might have life and have it abundantly.
 
When the disciple John puts together that the man who was over there on the shore and said "cast your nets on the other side" is Jesus, he told Peter, "It's the Lord." And so they made haste to get to the shore to be with Jesus. He knew that this was a man who could make abundant fish appear. He was the one who had taught and lived by law. When they saw him it was a literal God sighting.
 
A few years ago, as part of the language we learned with the Missional Church project, one of the words we learned was "God sighting" — how to look for God sightings in the world around us. There's a way to see God at work in the world, how abundant life and love in Jesus can be lived out in different ways. We learned such things as dwelling in the word as a spiritual practice, to be better in tune with the word and with the world, that we might perceive God at work. We did interviews with people in the congregation, outside the congregation, in the community. We see where our acting out this love might be beneficial. We experimented to see how and where this might happen. And I was pleased a couple years ago when I was with the youth on the trip to Hastings, Michigan. The youth group YouthWorks Camps do work in the community, but by night they gather and worship in a youth-friendly kind of way. And some nights they give the kids the opportunity to share their God sightings from the day. And two of our kids that night — Tommy and Taimika — got up before four or five hundred kids and said what their God sightings were during the day. It shows how we can be trained to see how God is at work in the world. John and Peter saw and heard the Lord. We all want to be ready to see God at work and present in our world and in our lives.
 
I hear the experiences our members have as they enter into conversations with people they haven't met before, and discover a need and begin to talk with that person more deeply. The relationship develops and it creates a place for God to dwell. Some will enter into deeper conversations with people they've known previously, and good things develop from that. Opportunities become apparent, and the presence of God can be seen and known. A person is open to seeing God in that conversation or in that relationship. We may not see Jesus in the flesh, but we can see the love of Jesus and the presence of God in what transpires. We can see the presence of God in what we do each day.
 
When John told Peter that it was the Lord who was on the shore, Peter put on some clothes as quickly as he could. He leaves the others in the boat behind, and jumps in the water to get to Jesus. Peter knew, when he saw Jesus, that he needed to get to Jesus right away. Peter reminds us that when we see an opportunity to serve with Jesus, we need to jump in too. Our tendency can be to hang back. The tendency can be to strategize too long and think about doing something, and while we're thinking about doing something we lose the opportunity to do it. This doesn't mean we lose all sense about things and just go without thinking. Peter did think to put his clothes on before he went to the shore, so there was some thought before he jumped in. So we want to give some thought too. But it's a reminder that just as Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" and then told him to "Feed my sheep," Jesus forgives us, invites us to a meal with him and into a relationship with him, and expects us to love him and to feed his sheep. Jesus sends us out also with the command and with a promise. Sometimes we don't engage. This lesson is an encouragement for us to jump in where there is an opportunity to see Jesus in the action that we take.
 
Jesus began the ministry with the disciples, and after his death and resurrection he was with them again, and sent them out again before he ascended. Jesus has come and claimed us. He calls us, and with water — the water of baptism — he begins anew with us. He calls us. Just as he called them, he calls us, to come in out of the wet water — the wet water of baptism — and to receive others as he says to us as well, "Feed my sheep. Tend my Lambs." Jesus wants us to be feeders and tenders as well of the people who are around us. And as we come out of the waters of baptism, we are called also to feed and tend. We're called to see opportunities where God may be present, and to jump in and multiply the love of God that's there, so the abundant life of God may be seen and known.
 
We're sustained in that through the bread and through the wine in the meal that Jesus gives us. It may not be on the beach most of the time, but we have this meal with Jesus, with bread and wine. He's present with us. He receives us where we are, forgiven sinners as we are, just as the disciples were that morning. They were forgiven sinners. But he receives them back, and as he sent them out he sends us out from the meal of communion to feed and tend, just as he sent out the disciples. Amen.
 
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
 
*** Keywords ***
 
2016, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Keith Holste, John 21:1-19
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  • Apr 10, 2016Feed My Sheep
    Apr 10, 2016
    Feed My Sheep
    Series: (All)
    April 10, 2016. Pastor Keith talks about John 21:1-19. Following his resurrection, Jesus appears to the disciples, who are fishing but not catching anything. He tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, and then they catch fish in abundance. Peter, now recognizing Jesus, jumps into the water to get to him as quickly as possible. We too have the opportunity to jump in and follow Jesus. He calls us too with the water of baptism, and sends us, as he sent Peter, into the world to feed and tend his sheep.
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    We begin in the name of the Father, and Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
     
    There's almost a sense in the Gospel of John that you can say, "Here we go again." John does well at starting themes early on in the ministry of Jesus, and then picking them up late in the end — and taking them a step further. The scene of the disciples in the boat that night was not the first time that Jesus had been with them when they had been fishing. Very early on in his ministry, you'll remember that the disciples were fishing all night and caught nothing, and Jesus said cast your nets to the other side, and they did and they caught many fish. That was the time when Jesus was first calling the disciples, and it was the moment when Peter first heard the call that he should be a follower of Jesus. So now again, after the resurrection, eight of the disciples are fishing one night. Again they catch nothing. In the early morning they hear this man on the shore say, "Cast your net to the other side." So they do, and the net is full of fish — so much that they had trouble pulling it into the boat. This is the time when John recognizes Jesus. At first they don't quite catch what's going on, but then they realize this is Jesus who's over there on the shore. John says, "It is the Lord!" And Peter jumps in the water as soon as he can, and Jesus has a special conversation with Peter, in a sense re-commissions him as a missionary and caretaker of the church.
     
    The little fire that Jesus has on the shoreline reminds us of a previous fire in the Book of John. It was on the night of the trial of Jesus that Peter was close by Jesus, but not feeling very confident as the leaders and the crowds were out to get Jesus. And in the glow of that little fire outside the hall where Jesus was on trial, the maids were there and the men were there who were kind of interested in this trial also. And they identify Peter and say hey, you're one of his disciples aren't you? And Peter denies it. And three times Peter says, "I don't know the man." So now on the lakeshore, where the disciples gather around Jesus, there is a fire. Jesus uses it to cook some fish that they caught. But also Jesus has a conversation with Peter. Three times he asks Peter, "Do you love me?" Three times Peter replies, "Yes Lord, you know that I love you." And Peter re-commits to the Lord. Peter re-commits to such a degree that he is a powerful spokesman for the church and a missionary for the Lord. And as this reading foreshadows, he will die because he is so committed to the Lord. He will be bound. His arms will be outstretched. And Peter dies on a cross himself for the sake of Jesus.
     
    The third thing that takes us back to the beginning of John is that there is this abundance that we just talked about with the young people. John is a gospel that proclaims the abundant love and grace of God. And it's presented in the miracles of Jesus that he does in the Book of John. The first miracle we hear about in John, that we talked about earlier this year, was when he and his mother Mary were at a wedding and the hosts run out of wine. Jesus makes wine miraculously and in abundance, with huge jars being filled with wine. This is the first sign that John wants us to know: this man does things with abundance. So now at the end, Jesus is still making miracles in abundance. After catching no fish all night, at the command of Jesus to change the sides of the boat where they throw the net out, they catch so many fish they have difficulty pulling the net back in then. It says it was a hundred and fifty-three we assume large fish. Again, Jesus points to this not as a small thing. They go from zero to so many they can barely pull all the fish into the boat.
     
    Jesus says in John, "I came that they might have life and have it abundantly." Jesus shows us that God is not stingy with love. God loves in abundance. Jesus loves in abundance when he reclaims the disciple Peter and commissions him to, "Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep." Jesus also loves in abundance when, with this fire he started, he uses some of the fish that they have caught to cook fish for them and serve it with bread that he has. These are the same people who, on that night when Peter had denied the Lord three times, were also fleeing themselves and hiding and getting as far away from Jesus as they could, because they were fearful. They were hiding on the morning of Easter. A couple of them did go out to look at the tomb, but rushed back where they hid behind closed doors. They had sold Jesus short along the way, not trusting him on that previous occasion. But yet on another occasion when Jesus was going to feed a whole crowd of people and they questioned him then, they said how can you feed so many with so little? This little boy had his lunch with some fish and bread in it. There again was an abundance of fish and bread. The disciples had doubted that Jesus could feed with abundance. Now Jesus is abundant in his forgiveness of them. He cooks the meal for these men who had denied him that night and run away from him and fled and hidden as much as they could. He lets them know that they are back in the fold. Even though they had run away, he receives them back to himself and commissions them to be disciple missionaries to the world. His love, his forgiveness are abundant.
     
    This abundant love, this true and abundant forgiveness we see demonstrated in this shore lunch, with the disciples and re-commissioning of Peter, is something that's really a game changer we could say — or better said, a life changer and a vision changer — for those who see the significance of what Jesus means for the world. The world tends towards zero sum thinking, saying there's only so much and we have to share or get by with what we can in the world. The world worries that there isn't enough and that God is out to judge them. And now Jesus comes with this new vision, proclaiming through John that through him we might have life and have it abundantly.
     
    When the disciple John puts together that the man who was over there on the shore and said "cast your nets on the other side" is Jesus, he told Peter, "It's the Lord." And so they made haste to get to the shore to be with Jesus. He knew that this was a man who could make abundant fish appear. He was the one who had taught and lived by law. When they saw him it was a literal God sighting.
     
    A few years ago, as part of the language we learned with the Missional Church project, one of the words we learned was "God sighting" — how to look for God sightings in the world around us. There's a way to see God at work in the world, how abundant life and love in Jesus can be lived out in different ways. We learned such things as dwelling in the word as a spiritual practice, to be better in tune with the word and with the world, that we might perceive God at work. We did interviews with people in the congregation, outside the congregation, in the community. We see where our acting out this love might be beneficial. We experimented to see how and where this might happen. And I was pleased a couple years ago when I was with the youth on the trip to Hastings, Michigan. The youth group YouthWorks Camps do work in the community, but by night they gather and worship in a youth-friendly kind of way. And some nights they give the kids the opportunity to share their God sightings from the day. And two of our kids that night — Tommy and Taimika — got up before four or five hundred kids and said what their God sightings were during the day. It shows how we can be trained to see how God is at work in the world. John and Peter saw and heard the Lord. We all want to be ready to see God at work and present in our world and in our lives.
     
    I hear the experiences our members have as they enter into conversations with people they haven't met before, and discover a need and begin to talk with that person more deeply. The relationship develops and it creates a place for God to dwell. Some will enter into deeper conversations with people they've known previously, and good things develop from that. Opportunities become apparent, and the presence of God can be seen and known. A person is open to seeing God in that conversation or in that relationship. We may not see Jesus in the flesh, but we can see the love of Jesus and the presence of God in what transpires. We can see the presence of God in what we do each day.
     
    When John told Peter that it was the Lord who was on the shore, Peter put on some clothes as quickly as he could. He leaves the others in the boat behind, and jumps in the water to get to Jesus. Peter knew, when he saw Jesus, that he needed to get to Jesus right away. Peter reminds us that when we see an opportunity to serve with Jesus, we need to jump in too. Our tendency can be to hang back. The tendency can be to strategize too long and think about doing something, and while we're thinking about doing something we lose the opportunity to do it. This doesn't mean we lose all sense about things and just go without thinking. Peter did think to put his clothes on before he went to the shore, so there was some thought before he jumped in. So we want to give some thought too. But it's a reminder that just as Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" and then told him to "Feed my sheep," Jesus forgives us, invites us to a meal with him and into a relationship with him, and expects us to love him and to feed his sheep. Jesus sends us out also with the command and with a promise. Sometimes we don't engage. This lesson is an encouragement for us to jump in where there is an opportunity to see Jesus in the action that we take.
     
    Jesus began the ministry with the disciples, and after his death and resurrection he was with them again, and sent them out again before he ascended. Jesus has come and claimed us. He calls us, and with water — the water of baptism — he begins anew with us. He calls us. Just as he called them, he calls us, to come in out of the wet water — the wet water of baptism — and to receive others as he says to us as well, "Feed my sheep. Tend my Lambs." Jesus wants us to be feeders and tenders as well of the people who are around us. And as we come out of the waters of baptism, we are called also to feed and tend. We're called to see opportunities where God may be present, and to jump in and multiply the love of God that's there, so the abundant life of God may be seen and known.
     
    We're sustained in that through the bread and through the wine in the meal that Jesus gives us. It may not be on the beach most of the time, but we have this meal with Jesus, with bread and wine. He's present with us. He receives us where we are, forgiven sinners as we are, just as the disciples were that morning. They were forgiven sinners. But he receives them back, and as he sent them out he sends us out from the meal of communion to feed and tend, just as he sent out the disciples. Amen.
     
    Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2016, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Keith Holste, John 21:1-19
  • Apr 3, 2016Just Live Out Your Faith
    Apr 3, 2016
    Just Live Out Your Faith
    Series: (All)
    April 3, 2016. In John 20:24-31, Jesus says to “doubting Thomas” blessed are they who do not see, and yet believe. For us, it doesn’t always feel very blessed not to be able to see Jesus and yet to believe, even as more and more skeptics pull away from the church or don’t believe in God at all. In her sermon today, Pastor Penny talks about how important trust is in believing — even more important than seeing. Maybe God puts people in our lives we can trust, people who believe that their faith is vital and live-giving, so that even when we don’t have Jesus to look at, we don’t have to be distracted by beliefs that serve only our own purposes and which may not be life-giving, but we can have the life that God wants for us and for the world. And by the power of the Holy Spirit we can become the people others trust, we can be witnesses, and by just living out our faith, someday others may see that Christ brings life to the world.
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
     
    I have to confess that there's a part of this gospel that always has bothered me and maybe, until lately, it's really made me angry. And it's where Jesus tells the disciples that "blessed are those who haven't seen me and still believe." Because that's where we are, isn't it? We didn't see Jesus after the resurrection in bodily form. And so we believe in a God we can't see. We believe in a resurrection that we haven't experienced. We believe in the power of sacraments that we can't explain. Meanwhile, all around us, there are more and more skeptics about the church. More people have pulled away from the church. And there's a vocal, if not growing, group of people that call themselves atheists, that don't believe in God at all. So, it doesn't feel very blessed to be here without the opportunity to see Jesus and yet to believe.
     
    Well we say seeing is believing. But that's not really true, is it. You know, if we watch a magician do a card trick or pull a coin out from behind the ear, we see that. We don't believe that it's really happening. There is something more important than seeing that makes us believe, and that's being able to trust. And in fact when Jesus told Thomas, "Thomas, don't doubt me," that's the way we have the translation that we read. In the Greek it's, "Thomas, don't not trust me." — in other words: trust me Thomas. When we don't trust, even if we see, we won't believe. A case in point are the people that gave so much trouble to Jesus — the leaders, the religious leaders who saw him heal a blind man, who saw that Lazarus had been brought back to life, but who would not allow themselves to believe that Jesus' actions were from God. Because their trust was really not in God as much as in themselves. They trusted their own way of living that they believed would bring them closer to God. They trusted their own political savvy. They had determined that it was better for Jesus to die and prevent a riot by his followers that would bring the Roman troops down on them. And so Jesus stood right before them, God in the flesh, and they should have recognized his words and his actions as Godly. But they wouldn't let themselves trust, and so they didn't believe.
     
    Now it's true that we have not been blessed with the ability to see Jesus walking around, though I'm sure some of you have had visions. And they count for a lot. But God has done something more important for our faith. The Holy Spirit has put people in our lives we can trust. And those people have shown us that they believe their faith is vital and life-giving. You know, we teach our children, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." But really (and you've heard this before) it should say "but Mommy told me so" or "Grandpa taught me." Because we first learned the faith from people we care about, often people we love, and that's why we believe it. Some of you probably have hymnals or catechisms or Bibles written in a language that you don't speak or know very little of, that have been handed on to you from great-great-grandparents that came here with not very many things to this country. But they brought the symbols of their faith. They brought the word to delve into, because it was a life-giving source of strength. And it still is. I know Keith was helping clean out an apartment where some summer laborers from Mexico had lived, and they had gone back to Mexico for the season. And there's a poster with the Ten Commandments in Spanish, and some other Christian literature in their tongue, because they were coming to a country where (especially in our area) people didn't speak Spanish. It was their source and their rock.
     
    So we have been given people that have found the faith to be life-giving and have found the community of faith to be life-giving. We know that when relatives or friends lose a loved one, we see them turning to the community of faith for a listening ear, for prayers, for support, to hear again the promise of the resurrection.
     
    So we don't have Jesus to look at. But maybe this is the blessing. I'm still not sure about that passage, but maybe this is the blessing: we are not distracted by trying to understand "Oh did I see that, or didn't I see that?" It's not all on us. It's much easier, I think, to embrace the life of a person you love, and to watch through their lives how they find their faith to be life-giving, and to believe because of it. It is life-giving for us and for the world, and sometimes that means that we need to give up some of the beliefs that get in the way that are not life-giving.
     
    I don't know if any of you have seen "Zootopia" but it's a really fun movie, Disney's latest animated movie. And of course, it's about animals, Zootopia. And so the main character is Judy Hopps. She's a rabbit, and she had a dream to do something no rabbit had ever done before, and that was to be part of the law enforcement, to be a police officer. But it would require her to leave the safe little town that all the rabbits lived in and go to Zootopia, which was a city full of different kinds of animals, including the animal her parents most feared, which was a fox. And so they begged her not to go. Finally they relented because she was so adamant, and sent her off with three different fox-fighting weapons in her arsenal. Well Judy gets to Zootopia, and sure enough the first character that she begins to have a relationship with is a fox. And at first she's a little shy, but she soon understands that underneath that street-savvy demeanor is somebody who has become a really loyal and good friend. But her prejudices that she learned as a child bubbled up again later on in the movie when Judy, now a police officer in high standing, is making an announcement to the public explaining why some predatory animals — including that would be foxes — have suddenly gone violent when they hadn't before, and she chalked it up to their evil nature. Of course when her friend the fox heard that, really he was cut to the heart.
     
    Like the Jewish leaders in Jesus' day, we are so prone to having beliefs that serve our own purposes, and they're not serving God's. If they seem to make us feel safer, if they promote whatever ambitious idea we have, they're so easy to hang onto. But they can be so divisive, between our friends, between other people in the world. And we push God away. God wants life for us and for the world, and the two do go together.
     
    I don't know if any of you read the story in the paper a couple days ago about a man named Johnel Langerston. He moved here from California. He grew up in Oakland, in a tough neighborhood, got involved with drugs, went to prison, and when he got out of prison he made a change in his life. He got involved in business. He soon owned his own marketing business. And a few years ago he decided he wanted a new challenge. And this is a sad thing: he Googled worst places to live, and St. Louis came up. And I did it, and we're on some of the lists. Anyway but he did that, and then he moved his family to the College Hill neighborhood — not an easy neighborhood to live in in St. Louis — and he bought an old UCC Church that wasn't being used. His family lives in the Sunday School area, and he refurbished the gym. And he has an after-school program to encourage the youth in the neighborhood to be serious about their studies. He wants them to make better choices than he did. He wants to see that their lives have life. And his program has a time limit, because a few years ago, before he moved here, he was told that he has an immune disorder and only a few years to live. He's outlived the estimate, but this is what he has chosen to do with the remaining few years of his life: showing us, I think, that to live in a way that gives life to the world is also life-giving to ourselves.
     
    It is not an easy time to be a Christian, not with so many people believing so many different things. But at a workshop recently on the New Atheists, the professor said this. He said, "Don't argue with people who don't believe what you believe. Just live out your faith." And what I believe he was telling us is that as we live in ways that are life-giving to the world, we become those people that they can trust, we become those witnesses, through our lives, through the work of the Holy Spirit, that allow them someday to see that Christ brings life to the world.
     
    Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2016, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, John 20:19-31, Sarcoidosis, Urban Born
  • Mar 27, 2016We Belong
    Mar 27, 2016
    We Belong
    Series: (All)
    March 27, 2016. Pastor Penny talks about Jesus appearing after his resurrection to Mary Magdalene, calling her by name and letting her know that she still belonged, and relates it to the Easter message that reminds us of God's promise and how it can be carried out through us to redeem the world in love.
  • Mar 20, 2016The Passion According to Luke
    Mar 20, 2016
    The Passion According to Luke
    Series: (All)
    March 20, 2016. Pastor Keith discusses the Passion according to Luke versus the story as presented in the other gospels. In Luke, Jesus is all-forgiving and uses his power to heal and save all people, including those who persecuted and betrayed him. In Luke, Jesus offers forgiveness to Judas. The question to us, as to Judas, is will we receive it?
  • Mar 13, 2016Extravagant Devotion
    Mar 13, 2016
    Extravagant Devotion
    Series: (All)
    March 13, 2016. In John 12:1-8, Mary anoints the feet of Jesus with expensive perfumed oil. Pastor Keith preaches on how this extravagant devotion goes beyond a simple action, how the sweet smell of oil filling the room is like the love Jesus has for us, and we in turn have for one another, going out into the world.
  • Mar 6, 2016The Prodigal Son
    Mar 6, 2016
    The Prodigal Son
    Series: (All)
    March 6, 2016. Are we tempted to push our relationship with God aside and trust only in ourselves? In talking about Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) Pastor Penny shows us that we can make the world a place of justice and mercy, passing on a legacy for sons who have been lost, by knowing that God forgives and loves us and by trusting in Him.
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
     
    Last Friday Keith and I went to a very moving presentation at Eden Seminary. There were about a dozen men, all African American, who were recounting how they lost their sons to a violent death. The deaths were different. Sometimes it was gang-related. Sometimes it was related to the police. There was one death that had mysterious circumstances around it. There were men waiting to get court documents to get more details about their son's death. There were other men waiting to get a day in court to talk more about their son's death. And this presentation had two goals. I could tell that they were all waiting for justice. And that was one of the goals, to encourage the African American community and the white community to provide more justice for African Americans. But the other goal was to pass on a legacy for the sons they have lost — because it became very evident, when you heard one testimony after another, how much these men loved their sons, and how hurt they were to lose them.
     
    Jesus told a story, a parable about a man who loved two sons. And they were very different from one another. If we can fill in the details (because this is a story after all) we can maybe imagine that the youngest son was kind of cocky. He didn't really want to get up in the morning and go help on the farm, and he chafed at having to be under his father's supervision. Maybe he was like Joseph and he had these dreams, of getting out on his own and creating his own life and making his own success and being his own boss. So one day, he made an unthinkable request of his father, unthinkable in his culture. He said, Father give me my inheritance. Now that was tantamount to wishing his father dead in his culture. It was a cruel thing. He wasn't thinking about his father's feelings. It was a selfish thing, as we were talking about selfishness. And another unthinkable thing was that the father gave him what he asked! He sold his half of the property and gave his son the money — not maybe a very wise thing, but he loved his son.
     
    Well, we know what happened after that. The son went away, and despite all his great dreams, he ended up frittering away the money, all of the money, all of his father's hard-earned money. And only when he was starving did he have second thoughts about what he had done. And then he hatched a plan to come back and ask to work on his father's farm. What the boy didn't know, because he really wasn't thinking about his father the whole time, was that even after what he had done to his father, his father never stopped loving him. And we know that because when the young man approached from a distance, before a word of apology had come out of his mouth, his father ran to him, had compassion on him, threw his arms around him and kissed him. And I think the cover on the bulletin is very telling. You can imagine this young man just collapsing into his father's arms, his head on his shoulder, maybe bursting into tears — and at that moment, maybe for the first time, realizing what he had almost lost, at that moment realizing for the first time that he had almost lost his most precious possession: the love of his father.
     
    Now there was an older son as well. And he (if we can embellish a little) I think it's safe to say he probably hated to get up and go to work in the field as well, as his younger brother had. He probably chafed under the supervision of his father and wanted to call the shots. But he waited. His tactic was to wait. He knew sooner or later he would inherit half the property and then he would be his own boss. So his role was to be the good son. He bit his tongue instead of saying things that he might. He mumbled under his breath. He wasn't happy, but he waited. In fact, he was probably happy when his younger brother made that cruel statement about his property and taking his money, because he thought finally, my father will see what a brat my little brother was, and we'll be rid of him. But when that brat came back and the father reinstated him as if nothing had happened, the older son was outraged. It was not fair, I'm sure he said. And it wasn't. His father wasn't being fair. He wasn't showing justice. He was going beyond justice to mercy. And then the older son said something I'm sure that hurt the father so deeply. He said, all my life I've been slaving for you. And the father must have thought: is that what it was like, is that what you thought you were doing? I thought we were working together and that everything I had was yours. For the older son couldn't see it, and didn't care and wouldn't celebrate.
     
    Now it's important to notice the first verses in our gospel today. They come before the story. "Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling and saying, 'This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.' So he told them this parable." This story is for the scribes and Pharisees. And they were the good sons in their day. Oh, they had a relationship with their Heavenly Father, but they had pushed it to the side and were focusing on their role. Their role was to keep the laws. They believed that would please the Father, and then God would bless the whole nation. But in the process, their focus, their trust was on what they were doing, on being the good sons.
     
    And I wonder sometimes if that isn't our temptation, too. Because we are good people. We are good churchgoers. We are good wives and husbands and mothers and children and fathers and workers and students and citizens, and we have a relationship with God. It's important. But do we push that to one side, and do we focus instead on who we are and what we do? Is that what we trust? I wonder if God is not saying to us this morning: don't be more sure of yourself than you are of me. Don't trust yourself more than you trust me, or you will never really know me, and you will never have the joy I intend you to have, and you will never work side by side with me in the kingdom. The joy I intend you to have. As Pastor Keith mentioned, this is Laetare Sunday in the tradition of the church year, from the Latin word for joy, rejoice. And I have to believe that if we could hear the story of the younger son after he came back, it would be full of joy. I can imagine him waking up and wanting to go to work, being so happy to have a roof over his head and three meals a day. I can imagine him seeing his dad for the first time and really knowing him, noticing how carefully his father treated the hired hands and the slaves. And he had been a hired hand, so it would mean a lot to the young boy, noticing that maybe his father left some of the crop so that the poor could come and glean it. And he had been poor, and it would mean a lot to see that, seeing maybe for the first time that his father was the greatest possession he had: the gift of his father's love, and how eager he was to live out that same lifestyle and legacy.
     
    This is what God offers us today, that we too can collapse into the loving arms of a Heavenly Father, confessing our weaknesses, knowing that we are forgiven, hearing words of love, and hearing our Father say to us: I'm so glad you came back home. Now you can have the joy I intended you to have. Now we can work together to make the world a place of justice and mercy.
     
    Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2016, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, Prodigal Son
  • Feb 28, 2016Little Losses
    Feb 28, 2016
    Little Losses
    Series: (All)
    February 28, 2016. Pastor Penny preaches on Luke 13:1-9, which includes the parable of the fig tree. She says God does not want us to suffer little losses. The cross is not a symbol of punishment, but of God's abundant love, forgiveness, and mercy.
  • Feb 21, 2016Under the Wings of Jesus
    Feb 21, 2016
    Under the Wings of Jesus
    Series: (All)
    February 21, 2016. In Luke 13:31-35 Jesus compares himself to a hen gathering chicks under its wings. Pastor Keith preaches that the reality of Jesus' resurrection keeps hope alive for us when divisions or circumstances seem too hard to solve, and to sustain that hope we come together, like chicks gathered under the wings of Jesus.
  • Feb 14, 2016Temptation
    Feb 14, 2016
    Temptation
    Series: (All)
    February 14, 2016. Pastor Penny's message is about temptation, from Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by the devil in Luke 4:1-13, to how we are sometimes tempted to forget our identity as Christians.
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
     
    A mother was listening to her four-year-old recite the Lord's Prayer and she said, "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us some email." That's how she heard it. And there was a bumper sticker that said, "and lead us not into temptation, because we'll find it for ourselves." And that unfortunately is too true, isn't it? Temptation is the topic of the gospel story today. And I think when we think of temptations, we think of being tempted to have that second piece of cake or another glass of wine, or maybe watch one more TV show or play one more video game, even though we know we have other things to do. But as we hear about Jesus' temptations, we begin to see that there's something much deeper than a piece of cake involved in temptation. And I think that this story of Jesus' temptation is kind of like an onion. We have to sort of peel away the layers to get to the real message, which I believe God has for us today.
     
    The first layer to peel off is what do we do with the devil? Okay, with Satan. I mean the whole story was like a dream, wasn't it? In an instant, Satan showed him all the kingdoms of the world. And so we have to think, who is this Satan? Was it a real person? Was Jesus dreaming this? Was this a way that he personified evil, to explain to his followers this time of testing that he went through? And you know, that makes sense in a lot of ways, because evil sometimes just seems to have a life of its own. We think of all the horrible things that have happened through history when mobs get violent. But it doesn't even take a mob. If you've been at a meeting or at a party, you can see that one or two people can change everything. They can get people turned against someone, criticizing them. And you might walk away from that meeting and think, why did I vote the way I did? I didn't really think that. Or walk away from the party and think, why did I laugh at that? I don't really believe that. So often, evil just seems to have a life of its own. And I think that's often why we personify it and we call it Satan or the devil. Maybe that's what Jesus was doing.
     
    But the most important thing to know about Jesus' temptations is to know what happened just before he was tempted. He was baptized. He was baptized, and the Spirit came into him and he heard the voice of the Father saying, you are my Son whom I really love and am really pleased with. And then that same Spirit led him to the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by Satan. And he didn't eat in those 40 days, so at the end he was very hungry. And that's when I think we're most vulnerable, isn't it, when we are empty -- whether it's physically or spiritually -- when we are empty and hungry for something. So that's when the devil comes and says well then, just change this stone into bread. But you know, I think throughout the wilderness tempting, and in this temptation as well, Jesus must have heard the sound of his Father's voice reverberating in his mind and in his heart: but you are my Son. And so he detected that this wasn't the plan that God had for him and that God, who would take care of his beloved Son, would certainly feed him at the right time. And he said no, I won't do it. And he quoted scripture. And he refused to give in. It seemed as though it was a matter of being tempted by food.
     
    The second temptation, the devil takes them to see all the kingdoms of the world and says: these are mine. Just worship me and all the authority and glory will belong to you. But again, Jesus had the words of the Father in his head: you are my Son. In you I am well pleased. He knew that God would provide for him, and that at the right time and in the right place he would receive the glory and the authority that he deserved. So he quoted scripture and said no, I won't do it. And it seemed as though it was a matter of being tempted by glory or power.
     
    Finally, the third time the devil gets smart and starts quoting scripture to Jesus, figuring that's the way to do it. He says, why don't you (they're on top of the temple) just jump off of this, because right here in the Psalms it says the angels will catch you and you will be protected. But Jesus knew who he was. He did not need this kind of testing of the Father. He knew the Father would care for him and protect him in the way that was best. And so he said no, quoted scripture, and refused. And there it seemed as though it was a matter of safety that he was being tempted.
     
    Bread, power, safety... are those really what Jesus was being tempted to do, to give things up for those? Or was it something deeper? Because underlying all of these temptations, and all of the temptations that we feel, is the temptation to forget who we are, the temptation not to remember whose we are, because we heard the same voice in a way when we were baptized: you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and blessed with the cross of Christ forever. You are a child of God. These were the promises given to us. And in every temptation we face -- it may be a temptation about power, it may be a temptation about another piece of cake -- but underneath it all is the temptation to forget our own identity as sons and daughters of God. And we're being pressured so much to forget. Advertisers are always telling us what we lack, what we need, we're not prestigious enough or glamorous enough, or healthy enough. And so we should buy the car, the hair product, the medicine to save us, because we're not enough. Or the politicians are always telling us what's wrong with the country, so that we will vote for them and they will be our saviors and change everything. So often the way to undermine our identities is through fear.
     
    I was talking to a pastor who long ago had a call to a very wealthy section of Detroit, and when he came to his first meeting of the council (and this is Missouri Synod so they were all men) he said they sat around the first meeting and they were worried. They were fearful that they wouldn't be able to keep the lights on in the building. And how could they do this? And they were analyzing the budget very thoroughly. Well, this seemed to happen every time they met. So, three months into the call he got up in the pulpit and he -- and his wife was sitting there, and she said I was sinking down when he started talking -- and he said you know, if you want to keep the lights on in this building you just have to tithe. He said we sit at meetings and you talk about nickels and dimes how to keep this $250,000 building going, and you go home to your $400,000 homes. He said just tithe. Well of course there was a meeting right after that, and they said: you can't say that! You can't preach that! And he said yes I can, I'm called by God. That's the truth. Well, eight of the ten leaders of the congregation resigned and threatened to leave. Six of them came back. And with the remaining leaders and families, they were able to build a half million dollar addition to the church within five years -- and then there was another addition after that. It was simply a matter that they forgot who they were. They thought of themselves as business people, trying to keep all the dollars and cents in a row. They forgot that they were chosen people, that they were loved, protected, and that God had died for them. Because that of course is why Jesus was tempted to begin with: because Jesus, who was God, was willing to come and be a person and suffer temptation and be tortured and be killed, so that we would know beyond a doubt how much God loves us, so that we would know that God understands what we're going through and is with us. And Jesus was raised from the dead on Easter so that we would know beyond a doubt that God has the final word, that God's word is stronger than evil, stronger than fear, stronger even than death.
     
    Now, I know that our temptations are a lot more complicated than a piece of cake or a video game, that many of us struggle with balancing work and family and hobbies and health and commitment to the church. And I know that as citizens we struggle to balance giving people jobs and taking care of the environment, caring for the needy, keeping our country safe. But in all of this, in all of this, we need to remember who we are, that our identity does not depend on what we have or what we do, or the decisions we make, or even that we fall on our face and fall into temptation. But finally, our identity rests completely on the fact that we are loved, that we are protected, that we are chosen by God, and that we live in the promise that one day we will live out our identity perfectly as daughters and sons of God.
     
    Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2016, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, Luke 4:1-13, Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
  • Feb 7, 2016Transfiguration
    Feb 7, 2016
    Transfiguration
    Series: (All)
    February 7, 2016. Pastor Penny talks about Luke 9:28-43a, in which Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up to a mountain to pray and is transfigured, and suggests that rather than remaining mired in a tyranny of selfishness, we can disregard our temptations and allow ourselves to get swept up into caring for others.
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
     
    I think we might understand the gospel a little more this morning, a little in a deeper way, if we imagine for a moment what Peter for instance might have been thinking about after these two days of events that we heard about:
     
    These last two days were some of the best and worst of my life. They started so well. Jesus invited me, and James and John, to go up to the mountain while he was praying. And so we followed him up the mountain. And he sat down under a tree and closed his eyes and began praying. And we sat down under another tree and closed our eyes and started to feel sleepy. But something jolted me awake. All of a sudden my eyes were drawn to Jesus, and it was as if light was coming out of the pores of his face. He just glowed. And his clothes glowed. And not only that, but sitting next to him were two people from ancient days. And I don't know how I recognized them, but I knew it was Moses and Elijah. And there they were, talking to him about what he would do in Jerusalem.
     
    It wasn't just that everything glowed. It was that it was a feeling. I was filled with a sense of peace, a sense of joy and anticipation, and I didn't want to lose that moment. So I blundered something and blabbered about, "Well, let me build some shelter for the three of you." And I hadn't even finished my offer when suddenly everything went dark. There was a cloud covering all of us. And I heard a voice -- and it could only have been the voice of God. It was more gentle than I thought it would be, but it was very firm. It said, "This is my son, the Chosen One; listen to him!" Listen to him. Those words kept echoing and suddenly the cloud was gone. The glow was gone. The feeling was gone. The light was gone. And it was just Jesus and the three of us.
     
    But you can imagine that the next day, as we came down from that mountain, I was thinking through that experience again and again. What did God mean, "Listen to him?" What an amazing time that had been. But we got down to the foot of the mountain and everything changed. There was this big crowd of people, and a young man threw himself on the ground, screaming and foaming at the mouth. And his father rushed up to Jesus and fell down on his knees and begged Jesus to take the demon out of his son. And he said I asked, I begged your disciples to do it, but they couldn't. And then the worst thing happened. Jesus got angry. He looked at all of us and he said, "You faithless and perverse generation. How much longer must I live here and remain with you?" And then he healed the young man. You can see why it was the best and the worst of days for me, from the heights to the depths. And I was left with two questions. First of all, what was I supposed to listen to? And secondly, why did Jesus get so angry?
     
    Well, I think both of those questions -- if Peter would have had them, and if we do happen to have them after hearing the gospel -- both of them can be partly answered by the words that come before the story of the Transfiguration. We heard some of those words in the gospel. Before this all happened, Jesus made his first prediction: that he would die. And he would say that to the disciples two more times. And every time, they did not want to hear it. They did not hear it. They blocked it out or they couldn't hear it, we don't know. But they could not understand. And he followed up this first prediction with these difficult words to hear for all of us. He said: if you want to follow me, you have to pick up your cross and deny yourself. If you want to find your life, you have to lose it. Well no wonder God had to say, "Listen." These are not words any of us want to hear. And that's why Jesus was so angry: because people didn't understand. Even the disciples were going to be fighting over who was the greatest in just a few moments after this Transfiguration account. Deny yourselves? We don't want to hear those words. That is not the way we like to operate. We might deny other people of things they need in order to get what we need, but we're not inclined to deny ourselves.
     
    We certainly see that with the political campaigns. Everyone wants the candidate who will give them what they want, and not really thinking about the country. And they often demonize people who don't agree with them. We see that in the way we protect our belongings, our possessions. "Not in my back yard," right? There might be a great program suggested for the city or for the state or the country. But if it affects my savings, if it diminishes my property value? Not in my backyard. We don't want to hear those words, and they are very hard for us to understand. And yet that is exactly why Jesus came: to free us from this tyranny of our selfishness. He denied himself. He gave up his life. He was raised from the dead so that he would not only show us how to be different, but empower us to be different.
     
    There is another way to translate the word "deny." There's another word that we can use, and that word is "disregard." And maybe that helps us to understand a little more what Jesus is saying here. Because I think we know how to disregard ourselves at times. You might be involved in a game and you're so into it that you don't realize you haven't eaten for hours. If you are only hungry when you've finished with the game, you've been able to disregard your appetite all that time because you got swept up in something bigger. Or maybe you feel aches and pains as you walk into the movie theater, or as you plop down in front of the TV, but once you get involved in that story you forget, you disregard your aches and pains. Or maybe there's a new adventure that you're starting on and you're a little scared about it. But in the excitement of it, you begin to forget your fear. We know how to disregard our feelings, our fears, our hunger, our pain when we get swept up into something bigger than us. And that is exactly what Jesus is telling us here. He's not saying deny yourself of everything. He is saying: let me help you get swept up in caring for others, to the point where you disregard your pain or your time or your feelings or your money.
     
    Sometimes we see people do this with broad strokes. We had a speaker here from the Concordance Academy of couple months ago. Maybe you read about Danny Ludeman. He was an executive for Wells Fargo, and he has just founded a ten million dollar agency to help ex-offenders return to society and have good lives and not return to crime. This came out of something with Lutheran roots called Project COPE. And when I listened to this interview with Danny, the interviewer said, "How did you get involved in this cause, to put your time and your money into this? Did you have relatives who spent some time in prison? Or why did you care about this cause?" And he said it started with a letter that the person from Project COPE wrote me, and I started looking at the statistics and I was amazed at the size of this problem. But he said that's not really why I got involved. I got involved because I started talking to the population, talking to ex-offenders, talking to their mothers and fathers and their children. And he said, I was overwhelmed with how many barriers society throws in front of these people that prevent them from leading good lives again. He said, I just had this compassion for this group of people and I had to do something.
     
    We don't have to start a million dollar organization to be swept up with compassion or get involved in the needs of others. I know so many of you are already involved. And we get involved in small ways daily. Maybe we disregard our fatigue at the end of a day when a friend calls with a problem, and we're on the phone for a couple hours. And we do it because we're involved in that life. We disregard ourselves. Or maybe you might resist the temptation to take the last two loaves of your favorite bread from the bakery shelf. And you might think well, maybe somebody else likes it as much as I do, and you leave that last loaf. Or maybe you drive past the parking place that is closest to the store, thinking someone else needs it more.
     
    Follow me, Jesus says, let me get you swept up into the needs of others, the concerns of others, so that you lose yourself. You lose your life, but you find a rich, rewarding, fulfilling life full of joy doing my work. So we have to imagine, what is it? Who is it that have needs that our compassion can ease? What are those causes out there that God is putting in front of us, that we might throw ourselves into, get swept up in? Well clearly, this goes against our human nature and we can't do this on our own. So Jesus has given us gifts. He has given us his word. He's given us his holy meal. He's given us baptism. He's given us his spirit and he's given us each other. And that is what we find when we come on Sunday morning. We find his word, his holy meal, his spirit, and one another.
     
    I read about a young couple who, when they couldn't both go to church because maybe one of their children was sick, they would each take a mental audit of the week that had gone before for them, and the week ahead, to decide who needed to go to church more. And they said it very simply. They said this: They said for us, worship is what makes sense of our lives. It is that pickup that we need. It's that connection with God that allows us to go out into our world the next week. Follow me, Jesus says. And it's not easy and we will never do it perfectly, not this side of heaven. This earth will not be perfect until Jesus returns. But as we follow, we do it having the joy of knowing that we are living for others and living for the Savior who loves us enough to die for us. And that is true living.
     
    Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2016, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, Luke 9:28-43a