Dec 27, 2021
Saint Stephen, the First Martyr
Series: (All)
December 26, 2021. Today is the Feast of Saint Stephen, and guest preacher Jon Heerboth's sermon is about following Stephen's example and being about the Father's business in feeding the poor, treating the sick, and supporting the marginalized.
 
Readings: Colossians 3:12-17, Luke 2:41-52
 
*** Transcript ***
 
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
 
"Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen, when the snow lay round about deep and crisp and even." Well, that legend was that the king braved bad weather to take alms to a poor man on the second day of Christmas, the festival of Stephen, deacon and martyr. More on Saint Stephen in a bit. But I want to recognize this day on which we remember the first known martyr of the Christian church.
 
In the Gospel of Luke that we heard today, it's been 12 years or so since Mary sang the Magnificat, her song of praise at the time of her impending motherhood. We at Christ Lutheran Church sang it the last four Wednesday nights — and said it responsively as the psalm last Sunday — so we've heard it a lot. Mary sang about God, who had scattered the proud, brought down the powerful from thrones, lifted the lowly, fed the hungry, and sent away the rich. All of this was to fulfill God's covenant with the ancestors.
 
In this story, the reality of parenthood turned out to be different from the joy of the Magnificat. After several days of parental anxiety and panic, the twelve-year-old Jesus was unmoved when they found him. "Don't you know," he asked them — or "Wist ye not," the King James version asked — "that I must be about my Father's business?" That I have to be in my Father's house? That I am involved with my father's stuff? Don't you know that it is necessary for me to do this? The text says they did not understand what he was talking about.
 
We don't always understand either. We confess that Jesus was truly God and truly human. Here we see what our confession actually looked like in the person and divinity of Jesus at age 12.
 
After Passover, the great Jewish celebration of liberation, Jesus separated from his earthly family to tend to his real Father's business. Jesus sat in the temple, asked questions, learned from scholars, who were experts in the Jewish scriptures. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers, according to the text. So the temple scholars were amazed, and Mary and Joseph were astonished, as Jesus let them know that he knew who his real Father was and what God's business was with God's creation.
 
Imagine what it would have been like for his parents to have to raise the Savior of the world. Imagine how they felt when they lost him. God didn't choose a wealthy or powerful family to raise God's son. Jesus was a small town boy from a relatively poor family. I'm sure Mary and Joseph were astonished. What in their lives, or in ours either for that matter, would have been preparation for Jesus?
 
After this, an obedient Jesus went back to Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him, according to Luke. It's fascinating to hear how Jesus, who was fully God, could also be fully human, ask questions, learn from others, and develop wisdom.
 
"Why were you searching for me? Don't, you know..." These were Jesus' first words in the Gospel of Luke. Perhaps Jesus was reminding his mother of the outline of Jesus' mission that she had sung so long before in the Magnificat. At any rate, this is all Luke shares about Jesus' childhood. We don't hear from Jesus again, really, until his first sermon in Nazareth in chapter 4. In that story, Jesus went to his hometown synagogue on the Sabbath and read from Isaiah. Listen to what he said. "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him. And then he said to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." That's what we're doing. The people were amazed again. By the time he finished his entire sermon, the people were so enraged that they tried to kill him by hurling him off a cliff. But he escaped. Jesus is no manger baby anymore. His goals of helping the poor and marginalized, of overthrowing the wealthy and powerful, and offering eternal life to all, eventually led to his death — and then to the resurrection. Mary and Joseph managed to lose Jesus and found him again at his Father's house, doing God's business.
 
We find ourselves here in God's house too, confessing our sins, accepting forgiveness and absolution, receiving Word and Sacrament, and praying for God to use us as tools to accomplish God's will for all creation. Every year, we hear how we lose Jesus in the hubbub of Christmas. But here we are back in God's house on the day after Christmas, worshipping under the open arms of Jesus. We find Jesus when we serve his mission to work for the oppressed and marginalized, and to work for the peace of Christ in our lives, in our congregation, and in our society as a whole. We know that our mission will not be popular among the rich and powerful. We go into the world with a set of values that are in opposition to prevailing views.
 
In Colossians' reading today, Paul tells us how to dress for our job. "Above all," he said, "clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." Today's reading tells us how to live. "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful." That is our mission. We usually think of the word "peace" as a noun. The peace of Christ is really a verb. It's something that we must commit to live and demonstrate and practice every day, the goal toward which we work as people of faith.
 
How are we doing? Several weeks ago in the Sunday Forum, the Horns demonstrated that the countries in which Christianity were doing well were those in which people saw benefits from the work of the church. In other countries in which people look to governments for their social safety nets and care, the church was becoming irrelevant as the years passed. Are we relevant in our own country? Are the poor being fed? Are the sick treated? The marginalized supported? How about God's creation as a whole?
 
When we reach out, we take risks. In our society, many want to believe that anyone can get ahead if they work hard. Are people suffering? "They should clean up their act." Poor? "Get a job, or a better job." Need childcare? "Quit having babies." "I don't want my tax dollars supporting someone who ought to be working as hard as I had to work." Those are all comments I copied out of the Post Dispatch in the past week, on a variety of social issues. And I think those are prevailing views among some people. A lot of people. Not here. "Don't you know?" we might respond. "We must be about our heavenly Father's business." Are we making a difference? Saint Stephen found out the hard way what can happen when Christians make a difference and upset the status quo. When Stephen's work and his wisdom upset the powerful, they trumped up some charges of blasphemy against him, dragged him out of the city, and stoned him to death in front of Saul — or St. Paul, as we call him now. St. Paul, the writer of the book of Colossians, who said that we should clothe ourselves in love. That St. Paul. In Acts 8:1 Luke wrote, "And Saul approved of their killing him."
 
This is the day we think about Jesus, both fully divine and fully human, about Mary, who had to raise this child, about our Father's business that turns the status quo upside down, about the potential dangers we may face when we attempt to become relevant to all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We pray together that Christ Lutheran Church, through our worship in Word and Sacrament and through our outreach to community and Creation, may always be part of doing our Father's business.
 
Let's pray the prayer appointed for today. We give you thanks, O Lord of glory, for the example of Stephen, the first martyr, who looked to heaven and prayed for his persecutors. Grant that we also may pray for our enemies and seek forgiveness for those who hurt us. Through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
 
Amen.
 
*** Keywords ***
 
2021, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, YouTube, video, Jon Heerboth,  Colossians 3:12-17,  Luke 2:41-52
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  • Dec 27, 2021Saint Stephen, the First Martyr
    Dec 27, 2021
    Saint Stephen, the First Martyr
    Series: (All)
    December 26, 2021. Today is the Feast of Saint Stephen, and guest preacher Jon Heerboth's sermon is about following Stephen's example and being about the Father's business in feeding the poor, treating the sick, and supporting the marginalized.
     
    Readings: Colossians 3:12-17, Luke 2:41-52
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
     
    "Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen, when the snow lay round about deep and crisp and even." Well, that legend was that the king braved bad weather to take alms to a poor man on the second day of Christmas, the festival of Stephen, deacon and martyr. More on Saint Stephen in a bit. But I want to recognize this day on which we remember the first known martyr of the Christian church.
     
    In the Gospel of Luke that we heard today, it's been 12 years or so since Mary sang the Magnificat, her song of praise at the time of her impending motherhood. We at Christ Lutheran Church sang it the last four Wednesday nights — and said it responsively as the psalm last Sunday — so we've heard it a lot. Mary sang about God, who had scattered the proud, brought down the powerful from thrones, lifted the lowly, fed the hungry, and sent away the rich. All of this was to fulfill God's covenant with the ancestors.
     
    In this story, the reality of parenthood turned out to be different from the joy of the Magnificat. After several days of parental anxiety and panic, the twelve-year-old Jesus was unmoved when they found him. "Don't you know," he asked them — or "Wist ye not," the King James version asked — "that I must be about my Father's business?" That I have to be in my Father's house? That I am involved with my father's stuff? Don't you know that it is necessary for me to do this? The text says they did not understand what he was talking about.
     
    We don't always understand either. We confess that Jesus was truly God and truly human. Here we see what our confession actually looked like in the person and divinity of Jesus at age 12.
     
    After Passover, the great Jewish celebration of liberation, Jesus separated from his earthly family to tend to his real Father's business. Jesus sat in the temple, asked questions, learned from scholars, who were experts in the Jewish scriptures. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers, according to the text. So the temple scholars were amazed, and Mary and Joseph were astonished, as Jesus let them know that he knew who his real Father was and what God's business was with God's creation.
     
    Imagine what it would have been like for his parents to have to raise the Savior of the world. Imagine how they felt when they lost him. God didn't choose a wealthy or powerful family to raise God's son. Jesus was a small town boy from a relatively poor family. I'm sure Mary and Joseph were astonished. What in their lives, or in ours either for that matter, would have been preparation for Jesus?
     
    After this, an obedient Jesus went back to Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him, according to Luke. It's fascinating to hear how Jesus, who was fully God, could also be fully human, ask questions, learn from others, and develop wisdom.
     
    "Why were you searching for me? Don't, you know..." These were Jesus' first words in the Gospel of Luke. Perhaps Jesus was reminding his mother of the outline of Jesus' mission that she had sung so long before in the Magnificat. At any rate, this is all Luke shares about Jesus' childhood. We don't hear from Jesus again, really, until his first sermon in Nazareth in chapter 4. In that story, Jesus went to his hometown synagogue on the Sabbath and read from Isaiah. Listen to what he said. "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him. And then he said to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." That's what we're doing. The people were amazed again. By the time he finished his entire sermon, the people were so enraged that they tried to kill him by hurling him off a cliff. But he escaped. Jesus is no manger baby anymore. His goals of helping the poor and marginalized, of overthrowing the wealthy and powerful, and offering eternal life to all, eventually led to his death — and then to the resurrection. Mary and Joseph managed to lose Jesus and found him again at his Father's house, doing God's business.
     
    We find ourselves here in God's house too, confessing our sins, accepting forgiveness and absolution, receiving Word and Sacrament, and praying for God to use us as tools to accomplish God's will for all creation. Every year, we hear how we lose Jesus in the hubbub of Christmas. But here we are back in God's house on the day after Christmas, worshipping under the open arms of Jesus. We find Jesus when we serve his mission to work for the oppressed and marginalized, and to work for the peace of Christ in our lives, in our congregation, and in our society as a whole. We know that our mission will not be popular among the rich and powerful. We go into the world with a set of values that are in opposition to prevailing views.
     
    In Colossians' reading today, Paul tells us how to dress for our job. "Above all," he said, "clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." Today's reading tells us how to live. "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful." That is our mission. We usually think of the word "peace" as a noun. The peace of Christ is really a verb. It's something that we must commit to live and demonstrate and practice every day, the goal toward which we work as people of faith.
     
    How are we doing? Several weeks ago in the Sunday Forum, the Horns demonstrated that the countries in which Christianity were doing well were those in which people saw benefits from the work of the church. In other countries in which people look to governments for their social safety nets and care, the church was becoming irrelevant as the years passed. Are we relevant in our own country? Are the poor being fed? Are the sick treated? The marginalized supported? How about God's creation as a whole?
     
    When we reach out, we take risks. In our society, many want to believe that anyone can get ahead if they work hard. Are people suffering? "They should clean up their act." Poor? "Get a job, or a better job." Need childcare? "Quit having babies." "I don't want my tax dollars supporting someone who ought to be working as hard as I had to work." Those are all comments I copied out of the Post Dispatch in the past week, on a variety of social issues. And I think those are prevailing views among some people. A lot of people. Not here. "Don't you know?" we might respond. "We must be about our heavenly Father's business." Are we making a difference? Saint Stephen found out the hard way what can happen when Christians make a difference and upset the status quo. When Stephen's work and his wisdom upset the powerful, they trumped up some charges of blasphemy against him, dragged him out of the city, and stoned him to death in front of Saul — or St. Paul, as we call him now. St. Paul, the writer of the book of Colossians, who said that we should clothe ourselves in love. That St. Paul. In Acts 8:1 Luke wrote, "And Saul approved of their killing him."
     
    This is the day we think about Jesus, both fully divine and fully human, about Mary, who had to raise this child, about our Father's business that turns the status quo upside down, about the potential dangers we may face when we attempt to become relevant to all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We pray together that Christ Lutheran Church, through our worship in Word and Sacrament and through our outreach to community and Creation, may always be part of doing our Father's business.
     
    Let's pray the prayer appointed for today. We give you thanks, O Lord of glory, for the example of Stephen, the first martyr, who looked to heaven and prayed for his persecutors. Grant that we also may pray for our enemies and seek forgiveness for those who hurt us. Through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
     
    Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2021, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, YouTube, video, Jon Heerboth,  Colossians 3:12-17,  Luke 2:41-52
  • Oct 24, 2021Sozo
    Oct 24, 2021
    Sozo
    Series: (All)
    October 24, 2021. Jon Heerboth preaches today on Jesus healing the blind man in Mark 10, the Greek word "sozo," and how we can be tempted to try and find our place in the story.
     
    Reading: Mark 10:46-52
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    "Come bring your burdens to God. Come bring your burdens to God. Come bring your burdens to God, for Jesus will never say no." That's a little hymn from the new "All Creation Sings" worship supplement that we've been looking at a little bit around here. It's from South Africa. As the earth spins on its axis every Sunday, people all around the world are reading the gospel lesson, getting together to worship and praise God, and ask God for healing and for faith to survive. It's nice to know that we join in with people all over the world as our time comes on Sunday mornings. It makes us feel like we are part of a much larger enterprise than just Christ Lutheran Church. It's fun to think about that.
     
    These words again from the gospel reading: then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said to him, "Rabbouni, my teacher, let me see again." Jesus said to him, "Go, your faith has made you well." Immediately the blind man regained his sight and followed him on the way.
     
    I enjoy watching movies. I wouldn't call myself a movie buff or an expert on film by a long shot, but I can get wrapped up in a movie that has a message or an ambiguous ending. It doesn't have to be a "happily ever after" ending. But in one sense, the stories in the Bible, at least a lot of them, are like movies. Some of them have complete endings. Others of them do not. Time and time again, we read of people being healed by Jesus, never to come on these same people again. Bartimaeus, in our gospel lesson today, was a person like that. He's a good example of what I'm talking about here. Jesus healed his blindness, and Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way. That's all we know — nothing more about a new life for him or what he did to serve his healer or his Lord after that.
     
    But maybe that's good. Sometimes happy ending stories can be more troublesome than open-ended ones, because they just don't seem real. That's because you and I know too many people in the community of faith, perhaps even here at Christ Lutheran Church, for whom happiness and living a whole and good life do not represent the end of their stories. The happy ending is elusive. I wonder if happy endings can sometimes make us forget that we need to rely solely upon the grace of God, or that we in the church, in this place, are really living out our lives on this side of the ultimate happy ending — in other words, eternal life in heaven. Perhaps we will see that more clearly as we take a closer look at this story of Jesus healing Bartimaeus.
     
    It's hard to miss the place of today's gospel in the timeline of Jesus' life. Between Mark's recounting of the first time Jesus healed a blind man in Bethsaida in chapter 8, and this story at the end of chapter 10, Jesus predicted his suffering and death three times; Peter confessed that Jesus is Lord; Peter, James, and John went to the mountaintop and saw Jesus transfigured; and then Jesus explained to the rich man — a man the text said Jesus loved — how he might obtain eternal life by selling all he had, giving it to the poor, and coming to follow Jesus. When the rich man heard the cost of being a follower of Jesus, he walked sadly away. Throughout Mark's gospel, Jesus is always looking for followers. But after he explained the potential cost of discipleship, even his own disciples asked how it was possible for anyone to be saved. Jesus explained that for mortals, it is impossible — but not for God. With God, nothing is impossible.
     
    So this story is sandwiched between Jesus' third passion prediction and the start of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The story of blind Bartimaeus actually stands on its own here. So Bartimaeus sits along the side of the way leading from Jericho to Jerusalem. It's about an eight-hour walk through pretty rough country, from well below sea level to well above it. As he gets wind of the fact that Jesus is about to pass by, Bartimaeus cries out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." Bartimaeus seems to know who Jesus is, in a way that the others do not. The crowd tried to hush him, and the disciples ignored him or pretended they didn't even hear him. He was just a wayside blind beggar of no importance. And I'll bet there were many such people along the way. He continued to cry out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." And what does Jesus do? He stands still. The blind man's need and his call for help cause Jesus to stop in his tracks. Only at Jesus' command did his disciples tell the man to come and stand before Jesus. And as Mark tells it, his response was really energetic: he tossed off his cloak, probably jumped up, and almost ran to Jesus. Jesus asked Bartimaeus then, "What do you want me to do for you?" And Bartimaeus said, "Rabbi, teacher, let me see again." And Jesus said, "Go, your faith has made you well." And immediately the man recovered his sight and followed Jesus.
     
    Did you catch the irony? Look at the contrast between the way the disciples treated Jesus as opposed to this blind man. It's clear that Jesus had had a serious communication problem with James and John. They had asked him for special treatment. They could see Jesus only in terms of the value of their culture. They were blind in a spiritual sense — every bit as Bartimaeus was blind, physically. Again, the irony of it all? Jesus is preparing to enter Jerusalem to begin his passion and death as he continues to walk down the road. He's accompanied by a blind man who sees the way of Jesus even though they had never met before. And his seeing disciples, who were with Jesus day after day, they could not see Jesus for what he was. They were blind to everything but their own need. The same was true with the rich man. When Jesus told him he had to sell all of his land, all he had, give the money to the poor and follow him, the man was shocked, and left grieving.
     
    When I was about 11, we got a hand-me-down TV from a neighbor. I will tell you that was a big day. It barely worked, but we thought it was wonderful. And I certainly watched my share. After church and Sunday dinner, I would want to watch TV. But there was nothing on other than TV preachers and faith healers, so I watched them. Many of us probably remember those guys. They put on a pretty good show for the times. One central tenet of their spiel was that the person who needed healing had to have faith. No faith, no healing. Naturally, everyone professed faith sufficient to move mountains, and the healing, the so-called healing, proceeded for better or for worse. Do you remember those guys? They'd come up, couldn't hear too well. The guy would box the ears. Another guy would shove him in the forehead. Down they'd go, presumably healed after they took the casts off after all that. But it was quite a show, very entertaining. And I know that those guys were financially very successful, if that's what you're looking for. But it always left me wondering whether people who were blind or people with other disabilities simply lacked the faith necessary for healing.
     
    In today's lesson, Jesus told Bartimaeus that his faith had made him well. But I think we can give that philosophy a resounding no. I think that that "making him well" is an unfortunate translation of what happened to Bartimaeus. In Greek, the word is "sozo." I printed and put it here for your edification: sozo. Bartimaeus was sozoed by Jesus. That word can mean "heal" all right, but it also means "saved." When Jesus was talking about how hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom, the disciples asked: then who can be saved? Sozoed was the word they used. In Mark chapter 13, he who endured till the end will be saved, sozoed. In Mark 16 the one who believes and is baptized will be saved. Sozoed. Here Jesus called Bartimaeus and told him that his faith had saved him, sozoed him. Jesus saved Bartimaeus because he recognized Bartimaeus' faith, and Jesus called him. Jesus also saw his physical need and had compassion on him. He saw the uniqueness in Bartimaeus that required a special act of grace, and he gave him that grace. By his death and resurrection, Jesus does the same for us. Bartimaeus did not regain sight because of some amount of faith that he showed or anything that he did. The healing, like his and our salvation, was purely a gift of God.
     
    It's tempting to try to find our place in this story. Here we could easily imagine ourselves in the crowd around Jesus, annoyed by the needs of some of the people in our communities. I'm even tempted to suggest that we sit next to Bartimaeus and cry out for healing ourselves. Or maybe it would be better for us to sit with the gospel writer Mark and get involved in the ongoing struggle of trying with the disciples to fully understand the teaching of Jesus and the heartbreaking experience of watching his walk to the cross. Maybe that would be good. Maybe it would help us understand how we at times see others and their needs without truly seeing them as valued parts of God's creation. In other words, we allow our own concerns about ourselves to blind us to one another's needs.
     
    This miracle starts with a social outcast sitting alongside the way, and ends with a new disciple following Jesus on the way to the cross. When Jesus looked for followers, he never looked around to find the most upstanding and presentable people to tell others about him. That should be a comfort to us all. Mark includes Gentiles, Pharisees, tax collectors, sinners and now Bartimaeus, because disabilities marginalize people, too.
     
    Believe it or not, there's a happy ending to this gospel story. A blind beggar is called. He's made a model of faith and he's given sight. And then he became a follower. That's also what happens to us. God's action of love in Christ's death and resurrection calls us to faith, sozos us here at the font, gives us sight, and makes us his disciples. This new vision gives us the capacity to see others and their needs. Freed from concern about eternity, we can live out our vocations to care for all of God's creation and all of God's creatures, so that all may find Christ in their lives too. Meeting our Lord, as did Bartimaeus, changes our limited vision, opens our eyes, and starts us off following in Jesus' way.
     
    So, who among us can truly see? Who among us needs a miracle? And who among us is able to pray appropriately for that miracle to take place? Those of us still living on this side of the happily ever after follow Jesus on his and not our way. In our hymn today, we will pray for health for ourselves and our friends. We will also sing that we understand that it is sin and the brokenness of the world that is at the root of all of our collective pain. And we pray that the spiritual oneness of our Christian community will spread from us here at Christ Lutheran Church, to reach all of humankind.
     
    In the name of the father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2021, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, YouTube, video, Jon Heerboth, Mark 10:46-52, sozo
  • Mar 10, 2021Telling the Truth When it Matters
    Mar 10, 2021
    Telling the Truth When it Matters
    Series: (All)
    March 10, 2021. In tonight's testimonial, Jon Heerboth reflects on telling the truth. He relates the story of a young student who confessed the truth of his actions after 60 years of carrying the guilt around with him, and contrasts it with the story of Jesus cleansing the temple, telling the truth as he saw it and facing the consequences immediately.
     
    Readings: Mark 11:15-19, 1 Corinthians 1:22-25
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    Aren't we lucky to hear this same, wonderful story about Jesus cleansing the temple twice in one week? We had the lesson from John on Sunday, and my favorite version of this story from Mark tonight. So crisp, and Mark always leaves you wanting a little more.
     
    But tonight I want to talk to you about Frieda Peck. Frieda Peck was a legend in the school district I served for the last ten years prior to my retirement. She was a high school teacher for many years, and then became the high school principal in our small town, when the high school was the center of community life. Ms. Peck, according to her former students — all of whom were in their 70s and 80s — was an intimidating woman. They knew when she spoke, she meant business.
     
    In 1956 Ms. Peck disciplined a boy, who came back that night and threw a brick through the principal’s window. (It was one of those that was reinforced with metal wire. We used to see that back then.) He was angry about some discipline action and took it out on the school. He was too scared of the consequences to ever bring himself to fess up.
     
    In 2015 I received a letter from him in my office, and a $50 check. The young man — who was now an old man — was dying, and he wanted to confess and make good on the damage he did almost sixty years before. He carried that guilt around with him all his life. This sort of thing happened to me several times in my career as a school administrator. As people neared the end, they wanted to make something that had been wrong in the past into something that was right for them.
     
    So at the point of death, the man felt compelled to tell the truth and somehow to make this right. I guess he felt better about himself, but that truth didn’t matter anymore. I asked around. No one had seen him in the decades after high school. In 1956 he was angry, and then he was afraid when he realized what he had done. He couldn’t face up to the truth, and it affected his life to the point of his death. But according to his obituary he was a good and faithful family man, who regularly volunteered to visit and minister his faith to people who were in prison. The lapse in behavior from his school days did not keep him from having a good life.
     
    Jesus, on the other hand, faced the truth immediately when he walked through the temple grounds in the gospel for today. At that time people believed that goods and wealth were finite, so that one person’s gain was another person’s loss. Calling the temple square a "den of robbers," where thieves stored their stolen goods that others might have had, was a harsh condemnation. Jesus called it like he saw it. I can imagine the disciples with him at the time. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Wait a minute,” they might say. “Lighten up, man. You’re going to get us all killed.” But Jesus was willing to face the immediate consequences of telling the truth as he saw it.
     
    The business of the temple was to enrich the traders, the priests, the Romans — at the expense of the poorer people. “Don’t you know,” Jesus said, “This is supposed to be a house of prayer for all the nations?” A place of prayer for all nations. That’s the truth he was willing to risk death to pronounce. Jesus calls our church to confront the truth of our own mission, to proclaim the suffering, the death, and the resurrection of Christ.
     
    You’ll recall, I'm sure, the lesson from last Sunday from 1 Corinthians: For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
     
    Who was scared of Jesus’ truth? It was the people he spoke against — the temple bigwigs. Jesus had his listeners spellbound, the text said. He paid the price for it later when they crucified him. But his teaching and truth-telling left the people spellbound, and the leaders were terrified of that.
     
    One of Ms. Peck’s former students told me that he spent four years terrified of the woman. And then, on their senior class trip to Chicago, she took them all dancing and they had the time of their lives. Sometimes the truth is tough to discern when we don’t have the wisdom to separate our fears from truth. Let’s grasp our truth: that Jesus suffered, died, and rose so that together we are free to confess our sins, embrace our forgiveness, and be people of prayer and service to all the nations.
     
    Thanks be to God.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2021, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, testimonial, podcast, transcript, YouTube, video, Jonathan (Jon) Heerboth, Mark 11:15-19, 1 Corinthians 1:22-25
  • Oct 4, 2020Tenants in God’s Vineyard
    Oct 4, 2020
    Tenants in God’s Vineyard
    Series: (All)
    October 4, 2020. The parable of the wicked tenants is a powerful story that contains the entire gospel message. In his sermon today, guest preacher Jon Heerboth delves into the meaning of this reading, and what God expects of us.
     
    Readings: Isaiah 5:1-7, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    Well, that's quite a parable. Sometimes it is hard to interpret the parables. "Why did you always talk in parables?" we ask Jesus, along with his disciples. The disciples were right there with Jesus and struggled to understand what he was talking about. What chance do we have?
     
    The parable in today's gospel is easier to interpret than many, but its meaning is difficult to accept. Jesus is in Jerusalem. It's a couple of days after Palm Sunday. The people welcomed him with loud hosannas. It's been a long time since the light first shined on Jesus' listeners in Galilee. Many miles have been walked, many words have been spoken, and many wonders done. Jesus has been through the towns and cities of Galilee. He's been in the synagogues teaching and proclaiming, talking about the kingdom of heaven. He has healed every kind of disease and affliction, he's been in Gentile territory, and he's been in Judea.
     
    It's been a long time, many miles walked, many words spoken, many wonders done. Everyone has heard about him or gone to see him. Now Jesus arrives at the temple in Jerusalem, and he puts them on notice. He ran off the people who were selling. He turned over the tables of the money changers and the seats of the dove sellers. He said they were turning a house of prayer into a den of robbers. And then he went back to healing the sick and lame and restoring sight to the blind.
     
    In the gospel lesson, the leaders of the temple came to challenge Jesus. They were the wealthy, the religious elite of their day. They depended on the money spent at the temple to maintain their power. You have to hand it to the chief priests and the elders: when Jesus told them the parable about the bad tenants, they got it. They understood right away that Jesus was talking about them. Jesus showed them the truth, that they were looking after themselves and their own wealth rather than tending to the needs of God's people. Jesus held a mirror to them, and they did not like it. They wanted to arrest him, but didn't want to offend the crowds he drew, who thought Jesus was a prophet.
     
    This parable is a powerful story that contains the entire gospel message. God's people — the vineyard — were producing fruit, but the tenants were not returning any of that fruit to God. God sent prophets, but they were rejected. Jesus is the son of the landlord who came to reclaim what rightfully belongs to his father, but his mission was violently received by the father's own tenants, the very religious leaders who were confronting Jesus on the temple grounds. Jesus told them that the stone that the builders rejected would become the cornerstone. That would be the Lord's doing, and would be amazing. Jesus also told them that the kingdom of God would be taken away from them and given to the people who produce the fruits of the kingdom.
     
    We're going to retell that whole gospel story in the Apostle's Creed in a few minutes. That's the centerpiece of our faith. To reclaim the fruits that rightfully belong to the Father, the Son sets out to restore the world to its divinely created order. Jesus' own ministry revealed what that would look like: the sick made well, sinners forgiven and restored, the poor cared for, so that the people would praise God. Jesus was here to bring wholeness to a broken world and to give us a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. He showed us what God wanted creation to look like.
     
    It would be easy to read this parable and turn our eyes to our pastors, our bishops, and the churchwide leaders. Like the high priests in Jesus' time, they are God's tenants in the institutional church, and should make sure the landlord is receiving the fruits of their labor. Let's not leave the entire job to the church leaders though.
     
    When we lived in the country some years ago, our neighbors were all farmers. They were all tenants whose farming had expanded far beyond their original fields. They rented almost any productive parcel of ground they could find. They farmed the land and returned to the landlord cash rent, or a share of the crop — or both, depending upon their agreement. The farmers I knew, and they were very successful indeed, worked hard to keep their landlords happy. They cared for the land. The most conscientious cut the weeds in the ditches to keep the fence lines looking neat. One farmer I know made a point to travel around the country to visit his landlords in person during the winter. If the landlords were unhappy they would rent to another, and the farmer would lose production.
     
    We are all like tenants, aren't we? God has given our congregation and ourselves vineyards to tend. We have our personal lives and families. We have our professional lives. We have our friendships and other relationships. We have our faith and our worship together. Our landlord expects us to produce and share the harvests from every aspect of our lives. When we read again the words of verse 43, "The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who produces the fruits of the kingdom," we know that our landlord will hold us to account.
     
    In the lesson from Isaiah, the prophet was speaking for God to Israel asking, "What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done?" The vineyard was Israel and Judah. God's people were his pleasant planting. That vineyard produced only wild, sour fruit. What was the sweet fruit that God expected? God demanded justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry of oppression from the poor of the day. The prophet tried to hold the leaders accountable. What more was there for God to do? Nothing? Then God would tear the vineyard down and stop the rainfall, and God's people would soon be gone.
     
    Well what are the sweet fruits of God's vineyard? What is God looking for from us? Fortunately, Matthew doesn't make us guess. If we walk back Jesus' many steps to the beginning of his ministry in Galilee, we can listen again to the words from the Sermon on the Mount. Who bears the fruit? "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The mourners, the meek who inherit the earth, those who hunger for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers who will be called the children of God, the persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, those who are reviled and persecuted and falsely accused for Jesus' sake. Remember, they did the same thing to the prophets who came before.
     
    If we are committed to a church that bears fruit, we ought to be feeding the poor — not giving cover to the rich. We ought to be concerned about preserving the land God gave us, in terms of the earth and climate change. We ought to be concerned with treating all of God's creatures equally, and not give support to those who have made it their business to be divisive, within the church and in our society as a whole. We don't want to stand behind Jesus and wag an accusatory finger at his opponents. We should put ourselves in the shoes of the high priests and the elders, and allow ourselves to be confronted by what Jesus has to say. When we step back from the lesson and examine ourselves, we can find bits and pieces of the rebellious and self-serving tenants.
     
    Our charge is to render unto God what is God's. For anyone called by God to a particular ministry, namely all of us, there is temptation to claim ownership of that ministry and to confuse service with entitlement. When we feel a sense of entitlement, we close ourselves off to what Jesus is doing in the world. We are no longer serving Jesus, but are protecting ourselves from him.
     
    Paul wrote about his own sense of entitlement. He said if there was anyone who had reason to be confident, he had more. He listed his pedigree, his compliance with the law, his status as a Pharisee. As a conscientious Pharisee he was a zealous persecutor of the church. He was totally without blame. Paul says all of that is rubbish. It counts for nothing before God. He lost everything he thought mattered, because he learned that righteousness before God can only come from the work of Jesus Christ. Like Paul, we learn that all of the stuff we think we own and in which we trust is rubbish. Everything that matters is God's. As tenants in God's vineyard, we can say with Paul, "But this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."
     
    Let us pray for God to bless us all, but to extend a hand of particular care to our pastor and professional staff at Christ, so that they may continue to remind us that we are all tenants in vineyards that are the Lord's.
     
    Thanks be to God.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2020, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, YouTube, video, Jon Heerboth, Isaiah 5:1-7, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46
  • Feb 2, 2020Live the Beatitudes
    Feb 2, 2020
    Live the Beatitudes
    Series: (All)
    February 2, 2020. The Beatitudes are the way of the cross. Jon Heerboth preaches today on how Jesus lived them perfectly, and how if we are to follow Christ they must become our way too.
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    Last winter I had to make a trip to a hospital emergency department in the middle of the night. The waiting room was full of sick people and injured people. Everybody needed help. Some were incapacitated by chronic illness. Some had no obvious illness, but were clearly in misery. And none could wait until morning for healing or for care. That waiting room experience reminds me of the crowds that followed Jesus around the Sea of Galilee. In Matthew 4 he had just called his first four disciples. They were fishermen, people I think of as business people. They were capable of catching fish with their nets or with their boats. They could make a living and sell the fish in their communities. They probably had enough to eat most days, and they did alright for themselves and their families. And they probably paid taxes to the Romans like everybody else. Well, these small-town men were used to a quiet life, I bet, and they might have found the crowds following Jesus to be overwhelming. Jesus taught in the synagogues and it says he cured every disease and sickness among the people, according to Matthew. You can imagine the excitement throughout the region. They brought him all the sick: those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them, according to verse 24.
     
    Those of us in the waiting area of the emergency room, we were not a pleasant or appealing group of people. I wonder if Jesus' new disciples were put off by the crowds: their misery, their dependence upon others, their insistence on being healed, the stench of sickness, the impatience of those at the back of the line. Like healthy people walking through an emergency room, perhaps the disciples felt superior to the crowd. Did they recoil from the sick and from their caregivers? Maybe Jesus saw how the disciples reacted. We know he took them up the mountain where he sat down to teach. He didn't preach. Jesus taught them his values, like parents telling their children what is important to them and how they want their children to get through life. For Matthew, Jesus was the teacher of all righteousness. Jesus laid out a course for them to follow. Like any good teacher, Jesus connected the disciples with ideas that were larger than their own life experiences. The Sermon on the Mount was the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, in the book of Matthew. Jesus used the Beatitudes to teach the disciples how they should think about others as they live their lives, and to show them that being a disciple is to be the consummate student.
     
    Matthew, right at the outset of the stories of Jesus' ministries, demands that our first act of discipleship is to recognize Jesus as our teacher. Many of us have been taught or have learned to get ahead by acquiring power, strength, position, awards, or wealth. We think that if we are rich we can have what we want. If we have power we can take what we want. If we are clever or insistent we can argue our way to get what we want. Winning brings us respect. Beauty and outward appearance can make us desirable. Does this sound familiar? Is this how we get through our lives? Have you ever been to a ball game where people waved signs that said, "We're Number Two?" Of course not. Everyone knows we are number one. That's the attitude that fills the headlines in magazines, the television, the social media, and our own lives. We seek our fortunes, as they say. They're our life coaches and public relations firms. We look out for number one, because if we do not, who will? That's what we hear. That's what we've been told. That's the myth of success that constantly surrounds us.
     
    The words of Jesus from the mountain fly in the face of that myth. Jesus offers us a different pathway through life, a path of blessings that he has cleared for us. As God's people, we can find our way through life, but not through power, strength, accomplishment, or possession. As followers of Jesus, it is not enough to focus only on our lives or our little corners of the world. It is not enough to try to reform our politics or our economic systems. We don't navigate the Christian life by overcoming other people. We follow our true course in life by overcoming ourselves. What does that look like? Let's look at the Beatitudes:
     
    Blessed are the poor in spirit. If we open our hearts to Jesus, we acknowledge our weakness and need, and we are able to see the weakness and need of others. We understand that our riches did not come from our own effort, but from God's gift of an eternal kingdom that Jesus proclaimed to his first followers and to us. God blessed us with salvation so that we can be a blessing to others.
     
    Blessed are those who mourn. In our world of endless violence, in times of loss or crisis within our families, in nostalgia for loved ones long gone, we realize that our only comfort comes from God. In the worst of our times, our hope is in the risen Christ, even when we are not feeling his comfort and peace.
     
    Blessed are the meek. If we think about it, we will realize that in the end we have no real power at all. We cannot take the Earth. We understand that God has given us all we have and all we need. In our meekness then, we respond with thankful stewardship, gratitude, and generosity toward others.
     
    Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. God calls us to be God's own people, knowing that only God's gift of grace through faith can ever satisfy us.
     
    Blessed are the merciful. Mercy is the gift that we can give to other people, because we know the mercy that God has shown us through Jesus Christ.
     
    Blessed are the pure in heart. We can only see God when we admit we need God.
     
    Blessed are the peacemakers. We may not be able to fix all the problems of the world, but we can make peace in our own lives, in our families, and among our friends. We make peace through forgiveness, patience, and understanding. When we make peace, we set aside our human instinct for revenge. We follow Christ. Christ makes his people a new creation, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Christ reconciled the world without counting our sins against us. We are free to do the same for others.
     
    Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Jesus warned his listeners, as Jesus warns us in Matthew, that the world stands in opposition to his words. People with power, people who oppress others, people who seek wealth above all, will not give up without a fight. Opposition may not only come from the outside, but sometimes the worst persecution might come from voices within us -- voices that speak to us of unworthiness and shame. But we know that our places in the kingdom of God are secure. We can endure with the blessings of God. We overcome ourselves by living the Beatitudes, day after day, year after year, for a lifetime.
     
    The Beatitudes -- in fact, the entire Sermon on the Mount -- these words are not an advice column in the newspaper, some TV preacher spouting a gospel of prosperity. They are not hints for happy living. These words came from the heart of the great teacher, Jesus. These words reflect God's values and teach us what life is like in the kingdom of God. If we live by the Beatitudes, our lives and longings will come to be like Jesus' life and longings for his people. It is the opposite of what we often like to do, our attempts to twist God's will to fit our own longings. Meek? That's not me. That's not our world. That doesn't even sound like the church sometimes. I can look at the Beatitudes and say that they reflect everything that I am not. God, however, focuses on what we can be as the people of God. These ideas seem weak and foolish when we read the tabloid covers in the checkout lines, or see the people who ride in private jets. But to those who follow Jesus, the Beatitudes are the power of God. In 1 Corinthians, it says "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong."
     
    The Beatitudes are the way of the cross. Jesus lived the Beatitudes perfectly, and the result was his crucifixion. If we find our lives in the Beatitudes, we will follow them to Jesus on the cross. Now we've all worked very hard to be successful in our lives. But eventually we all find ourselves in the emergency room. We need help from others. We face a crisis in our families. We lose a job. We're out of money. A bank wants to foreclose. A loved one is ill. We are very ill. Perhaps we must deal with abuse or addiction or a broken relationship. These are the events of life when the self-sufficiency we prize so much gives way to weakness. We begin to see ourselves as poor in spirit. In our despair, we awaken to the pain of the entire world, and we cannot help but mourn. We think less about ourselves then, and become more merciful to others. We remember our offertory prayer, that all we have comes from God. In our depths, there is nowhere to turn but to the face of Jesus. The more we think of God, the more we seek the righteousness we have in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We want to seek peace. We want to be reconciled with God and our neighbor. Regardless of our circumstances, as Matthew wrote, we should rejoice and be glad, for our reward is great in heaven. Jesus already paid the price for our sins and weaknesses. Matthew wrote that the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount came from all over. There would have been Jews and Gentiles alike, all living in Roman-occupied territory. They were looking for healing or seeking relief from the problems of their day. Jesus didn't ask anything of them. He simply healed them, and then tried to explain to his disciples what he was up to.
     
    When I was in college, well before we could scan people's brains, we defined learning as "changed behavior." Jesus calls us to change our thinking and the way we live our lives. We have the good news. We are blessed. Our blessing is not for the sake of some pie-in-the-sky reward after we die. We are blessed so that we can make it through the tough times of our lives here on earth. We are free to put aside our self-seeking in favor of giving ourselves over to God and to our neighbor. We are free to set aside our tribalism, our blindness to the suffering of others, and our own fears in favor of love. We know that we can do that, because we understand that we have already received the blessings of God and we are the people of God. In a few minutes, together with God's people here and everywhere and in every time, we're going to gather at the Lord's table. We will be refreshed in our faith and our fellowship. We may follow the model of Jesus and live the Beatitudes as our response to God's blessings in our lives. The Beatitudes were Jesus' way. And if we are to follow Christ, they must become our way.
     
    Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2020, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Jon Heerboth, Matthew 4:24, Matthew 5:1-12, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Corinthians 1:27
  • Dec 29, 2019All Kinds of Refugees, All Kinds of Herods
    Dec 29, 2019
    All Kinds of Refugees, All Kinds of Herods
    Series: (All)
    December 29, 2019. What is it like to be a refugee? God told Joseph in a dream to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt to escape from Herod. What if they had found the border closed when they arrived? In his sermon today, Jon Heerboth tells us that the Herods of this world haven't changed over the millennia. And like Joseph, we must act to respond to God's plan.
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    In my whole life, I never had a dream in which I woke up with the idea that I was told to take my family and flee in the middle of the night. But I do remember a night, in November of 1954 in Tokyo, when my father and mother snatched all three of us out of our beds and ran out into the night. The earth shook for a long time, and it shook hard. It was a terrible disaster for a lot of people there, but our parents kept us safely away from anything that might fall on us. To this day, I carry that fear with me in my head -- that the earthquake is the natural disaster that I most fear. When I look back on that it feels like a dream, but it wasn't. It really happened. Just to be sure, I checked before I related this event, because it was so powerful. A lot of people did die that night. But if I had some kind of warning in a dream, I wonder if I would heed it. If I was warned, would I have stayed home on the snowy morning a car slid into me on the way to work? I don't know. In 2005 I awoke in the middle of the night, zapped awake by a dream I couldn't remember, with the sure knowledge that I had to get up and decide to take a different job. And I saw that as some kind of direction and I took it.
     
    Most of us can think of times when a warning would be a great help. We'd love a warning that our slight pain isn't really indigestion, but something needing immediate action. It may be trivial, but I would like a warning as simple as some foreknowledge of a failing car battery. I would certainly pay attention to that. Unfortunately, that's just not how things usually work. As we go through life we make our choices, we pay attention to our instincts and our experiences, we profess our faith of course, and place our trust and hope in God. But most of the time, we are very much on our own.
     
    In today's lesson Joseph received a very strong, very direct warning, and specific instructions about what he should do to keep his family safe. Joseph's dreams seemed much more intense than my own dreams are. An angel came to him in his dream and told him to flee, to clear out, to get away as quickly as the family could go. The angel also told him why: that Herod was looking for him and would kill him. Joseph got specific directions about where he should go, and that he should stay in Egypt until the angel told him otherwise. Now, if I had a dream that vivid, would I heed it? Would I take my family in the middle of night and head for the border? I would like to think so. But Joseph was tuned in and receptive to the angels' words, and he acted quickly to save his wife and her son Jesus. But safe arrival in Egypt didn't stop the violence back in Bethlehem. When Herod could not find Jesus he ordered his people to kill all the boys, two and younger, in and around Bethlehem. Many scholars believe Herod suffered from depression and paranoia. According to the historian Josephus, Herod killed his favorite wife, his brother-in-law, three of his sons, 300 of his top military officers, and many others. Herod was so brutal and killed so many people that the murder of the children around Bethlehem seemed trivial, and is not even recorded in history. Herod was a violent man and would not ignore the baby the Magi came to honor as a king. He would have been enraged when he discovered that the Magi dismissed his order to come back and report to him. So, he took action himself to protect his power and his throne.
     
    Matthew's story of the flight to Egypt reminds us of when Pharaoh ordered the death of male Hebrew infants in Exodus 1. Pharaoh ordered the midwives to kill boy babies, and when that didn't work he ordered the Egyptians to throw the Israelite boys into the Nile. In today's gospel lesson, righteous Judeans must flee to Egypt to escape Herod's massacre in their own land. People like Herod and the pharaohs before him were powerful rulers who destroyed anyone they saw as a threat to their power. Walter Brueggemann, the noted Bible scholar and former professor at Eden Seminary, wrote about attempts to figure out which pharaoh might have been responsible for murdering the Hebrew babies in the Exodus story. He finally determined that it didn't matter which one. He wrote, "When you've seen one pharaoh, you've seen them all. They all act the same way in their greedy, uncaring, violent, self-sufficiency." Herod was that kind of man too, and he was out to get Jesus. God acted through Joseph to save the child from certain death, so that God's plan could move toward fulfillment. Jesus was in danger, God spoke to Joseph through an angel, and Joseph took action.
     
    The Herods and the Pharaohs of this world haven't changed over the millennia. They continue in their greed, their lack of care for people around them, and their instinct to oppress and even to kill. Their only concern would be to quash any threat to their power. In the gospel for today, God's command was, "Flee to Egypt." What do you see in your mind's eye when you hear that command? I can picture Joseph snatching Jesus from sleep and telling Mary to quickly gather their things. I see them fleeing through the darkness of night, looking over their shoulders to be certain they were not followed. With each moment, they were a little farther from the known and the familiar, and closer to a land they did not know. Their one thought, their only priority, would be to protect their child and keep him safe.
     
    I hear this story in a new way these days. This is a time of mass migration around the world. Large numbers of people are subject to persecution for their race or ethnicity, their nationality, their opposition to a ruler, their religion or sect, or their perceived difference. In some places people are on the run from war. In others, from murderous gangs. Many endure poverty. If we believe the news stories, the slaughter of the innocents continues around the world today with no let-up. People risk everything to flee to their Egypts, to what they hope will be someplace in which they can live safely and find people who will welcome and accept them.
     
    What if Joseph had found the border to Egypt closed when they arrived? What if the border was blocked by a wall, or if they had been turned back? What story would we be telling today? What if guards had taken the two-year-old Jesus from his family and placed Mary and Joseph in prison? Would there be any good news for you or me, for the refugees of the world? You may remember the tragic photograph of a two-year-old child and her father after they drowned in the Rio Grande last summer. They were fleeing El Salvador for safety and economic opportunity. When they arrived at the US border and asked for asylum, they were turned away because of a policy called metering. They decided to try to make it across the Rio Grande, bypassing the ports of entry. First, the father carried the child across and set her on the bank. When he returned to help his wife, the little girl threw herself in the water. Her father tried to rescue her but they both drowned in the river. I can feel the parents' fear for their child's safety, and their panic when she threw herself in the river. We can all feel the mother's desolation at the death of her husband and daughter Valeria, just like the timeless verse from Jeremiah in today's lesson: "Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be consoled because they are no more." This story was in the news for a week or so. Mainly, I suspect, because of the strikingly sad photograph of the drowned refugees. The victims and the grieving mother have faded from the news and from our memories. They are just one story in the endless stream of refugees that pass briefly across our awareness.
     
    I cannot explain why the child Jesus found refuge and the children of Bethlehem did not. I don't know why one child is safe and another drowns in a river, or is lost from a raft at sea, only to be quickly forgotten. Matthew made it clear that the murder of the children was not the will of God. It was the result of Herod protecting his power. It was not because God loved Jesus more than God loved a drowned refugee like Valeria. It is not because Jesus was God's son and Valeria was just another Salvadoran refugee. If that is what we think, then we have missed the point of Christmas. We would be denying that the word became flesh, human flesh, vulnerable flesh subject to murder or neglect from tyrants, just like Valeria's flesh and just like yours and like mine. The angel did warn Joseph though, and he took action and Jesus was saved from Herod's violence, and later saved again from Herod's successor Archelaus. Jesus wound up in Nazareth, a place so humble that no one would think of looking there for a king.
     
    If you have ever left what was known and familiar to you, and traveled to the unknown and unfamiliar, if you ever knew your life was at risk and you had to make a change, or if your survival depended on crossing a border to a strange land, you know what it is like to be a refugee. Maybe your life has been disrupted and you needed a safe place to get away. Maybe you've known that it was no longer safe or good for you to stay where you were, or to stay the way you were. Perhaps you realized your life, your mental health, your economic welfare, or even your children were at risk. Some of us may be refugees from a miserable Christmastime, or fleeing from grief, sorrow, or fear of loss. If you've ever experienced these, or a thousand other experiences like these, then you know something of what it is like to be a refugee.
     
    Herod was not just a king who lived 2,000 years ago. Herod lives on today. In every era, Herod has the power to corrupt, to abuse, to disrupt, to destroy. Herod is the one who will strike down any threat to the tyrant's power. Herod is the one who creates the refugees and then ignores them or persecutes them. Herod is the one who will turn the refugee away. There are all kinds of refugees, and all kinds of Herods.
     
    I suspect that there are many people all over the world who have heard and responded to a nighttime call to flee their situations. There are two actions in today's gospel story: God delivers, but Joseph decides. That is the story of faith and our lives. Like the fragile holy family, our lives are held in the providential care of God. Deliverance is God's responsibility, not ours. Yet, like Joseph, we must decide how to respond to what we perceive to be the plan of God. We have to act. But that's seldom easy, and we will make wrong decisions. We will need to experience again and again in the Eucharist, the promise of God from the beginning. We decide, but God delivers. God, who was so determined to save us that God sent Jesus, God's very own son. Jesus was human flesh like us. Jesus suffered -- like all people suffer -- felt pain, hunger, and fear. God used Joseph to care for Jesus when he was helpless and vulnerable, so that he could live out his life and bring us to salvation.
     
    So here we are on Sunday morning in God's house, our sanctuary, our Egypt. Here is where we are safe among our sisters and brothers. God talks to us here through God's word, just like God talked to Joseph through the angels. Here is where we gather as refugees before God's holy table, fed with the word and sacrament, reassured of God's salvation through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. When Joseph received direction from God, he followed the angels' instructions. We too are all God's children. We can't remain here in our sanctuary either. We must leave Egypt to return to our daily lives, with the strength to carry out God's plan for us. We pray for God's mercy and protection for everyone, and then we take action. We go into our communities to help feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and provide protection for the weak and vulnerable, so that God may work God's plan through us. God delivers, but we decide. We are the ones who must take action. Amen.
     
    Let's pray again the prayer for the day: O Lord God, you know that we cannot place our trust in our own powers. As you protected the infant Jesus, so defend us and all the needy from harm in adversity, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit and God, now and forever. Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2019, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Jon Heerboth, Matthew 2:13-23, Exodus 1, Jeremiah 31:15
  • May 5, 2019What’s Next
    May 5, 2019
    What’s Next
    Series: (All)
    May 5, 2019. After Jesus' disciples witnessed his ministry, arrest, trial, execution, and resurrection, they went home and went fishing. What were they supposed to do next? Jon Heerboth preaches from John and Acts on how Jesus got the disciples' attention and ours, and tells us what he needs us to do next.
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    On Easter Sunday here, we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ with many hallelujahs, we sang our favorite Easter hymns, and we felt that our world was full of new life — new life in Christ as well as the new life of springtime. But today is the third Sunday after Easter. It's still Easter, but this Sunday feels a lot different than the week before last, doesn't it? There may not be a "Hallelujah Chorus" today. And I think that's the only singing you're going to get from a choir. But we will still be talking about the resurrected Christ and finding God's will for us, as we wait in the meantime between the First Coming and the Second Coming of Jesus. Last Sunday we heard how Jesus appeared to the disciples, and Thomas was there the second time. And he saw the holes, he felt his palm, he saw the wound in the side and said, "My Lord and my God." And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are those who," like you and me, like all of us, "have not seen and yet have come to believe." And then after that, John wrote that book so that its readers would come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing would have life in his name. And then that was the end of the book of John in chapter 20. Well, it would have ended anyway, except that there's an epilogue —  one more thing added to the book. And that is today's gospel lesson. Now, the purpose of an epilogue is to treat unfinished business. And most of it, according to the Gospel of John, revolved around Peter. There was unresolved tension with Peter and Jesus, and the other disciples, and there was a lot of confusion among them about what they were supposed to do next.
     
    They had witnessed the risen Lord. And they, like us, were experts in the teachings of Jesus. And they, like us, had received the great commandment to love one another. And yet, the disciples seem like they were all dressed up with no place to go. Moreover, Peter was still agonizing over his treacherous denial, while his master was being interrogated and humiliated by the high priest of the Jewish Supreme Court. So it looks like, after hiding out in Jerusalem for a while, Peter and some of the others went home to Galilee. Maybe they thought they would be safer there. Maybe they were out of money, or were tired of waiting for something to happen. But at any rate, they went home. So the disciples witnessed the ministry, arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus. They found out about the resurrection. They met the risen Christ twice before in this gospel. The disciples had all the evidence they need to confirm that Jesus had died and risen from the dead. And how did they respond to these monumental events? They went fishing.
     
    They went fishing. Now, this wasn't some weekend camping trip or a little vacation after a rough patch at work. They went fishing because that's who they were: fishermen. They went home to Galilee, and picked up where they left off when they left to follow Jesus. Galilee was home at least to four of them: James, John, Peter, and Andrew. Jesus called them from their lives in the boats and called them to go fish for people. They followed Jesus, from Galilee to Jerusalem. They listened to Jesus teach, and watched him heal the sick and work miracles. They were with Jesus at the Last Supper. They were around when he was arrested and crucified, and witnessed the resurrection. After all that, they returned home. They picked up their lives where they left them off months or years before, and then they went back to work. There was no one to tell them what else they should be doing.
     
    In a way, we were like that after Easter Sunday. We celebrated, worshipped, had breakfast, and went back to our daily lives. But today's gospel lesson is set on the beach. When the people came home, I'll bet they endured ridicule from their neighbors. "Look who's back: the grand adventurers, the glorious revolutionaries. The idealists out to change the world have decided to come home after all. We always knew that their silly scheme would amount to nothing." Ever live in a small town? That's how they talk. "Love your neighbor." Who thought that was a good plan? Adding insult to injury was the fact that the disciples seemed to have lost their old touch. They had been out fishing all night and had caught absolutely nothing. When the sun began to rise, the man on the shore said, "Children. You have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No."
     
    I'm sure that the only thing more irritating to professional fisherman than admitting failure, is receiving advice from someone who doesn't know how to fish at all. Jesus told them they should cast their net on the other side of the boat. And when they did, they had a very large catch indeed: a hundred and fifty-three fish. I'm not much of a fisherman, but that is a piece of advice I wish someone had given me along the way. Simply "cast over here instead of over there, because the fish must be somewhere else." They don't say fish are dumb. They hide from the bait. I don't know, but I know that people I know who fish don't like to be reminded of their failure, and I'm sure that this group of disciples were not happy after that night of failure.
     
    Anyway, when they caught the fish, John recognized the man on the shore and said, "It is the Lord!" Impetuous Peter grabbed his clothes and headed into shore quickly. The rest were left to drag the boat and the heavy net to land all by themselves. Jesus said the words anyone would like to hear after an exhausting night: "Come and have breakfast." Jesus provided bread and fish for all of them. While they were sitting around the fire, Jesus approached Peter with their unfinished business. Peter had denied Jesus three times while Jesus was being interrogated. Jesus didn't blame Peter or shame him, and he didn't ask for his repentance. He asked questions. "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" Jesus was referring to loving Jesus more than life as a fisherman, life in the boat, Peter's life before discipleship. Peter said to him, "Yes, Lord. You know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord. You know that I love you." Jesus said, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt and maybe a little irritated when Jesus said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you." And Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep." But that was a powerful moment for Peter — the charcoal fire, three questions. Peter knew that he was making a life-changing commitment to Jesus. Jesus didn't forgive Peter. Peter had to forgive himself and come to terms with what the rest of his life was going to be. Because he was going to have to be what Jesus needed him to be. As difficult as it would be for Peter, he had to accept that he was going to have to be the shepherd from now on, because Jesus wasn't going to be there. And that would be his identity.
     
    When God has business with us, God will find us and will get our attention, and that's what happened to Saul on the road to Damascus. He was a zealous practitioner of Judaism, and was going to bring some of the followers of Jesus to Jerusalem for trial before the Jewish courts there. God had other plans both for Saul and for Ananias, the Christian in Damascus who went to help Saul but didn't want anything to do with him. But God said to Ananias, like he said to so many of us, "Go, for he's an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel." Paul needed to be what Jesus wanted him to be, and Jesus got his attention.
     
    Paul's encounter with Jesus may be one of the most powerful images we have of bending human will to God's will. We don't expect our encounters with God to be as earth-shaking as St. Paul on the road to Damascus. I'm sure we would like all our worship to be as dramatic as the final choruses to Handel's Messiah. We might like our lives to be filled with such overwhelming experiences. Life isn't like that, though. It is not all emotional highs, moments of clear vision and bright light, dramatic experiences, or religious ecstasy. Our reality is simpler and more mundane. There's a clue for us in the disciples' experience. They were going about their ordinary lives, just like we do, and when they least expected him they encountered Christ. It was profound, and yet it was ordinary. Come and have breakfast, Jesus said. These brothers in Christ shared a simple meal after a long night. There were no bolts of light from the sky. No choirs of angels. No heavenly music from the Messiah. There was Easter, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in the ordinary course of a morning. Easter, in the simple passing of fish and bread around the warmth of a charcoal fire. Easter, in breakfast with the risen Jesus.
     
    That was not the end of it for the disciples, just as Easter does not end for us with the benediction on Sunday. Jesus reconciled with Peter following Peter's denials when Jesus was arrested. Jesus did not promise resurrection, celebration, or joy. He promised suffering and martyrdom. Bonhoeffer wrote, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die." Peter was crucified. And Paul, according to legend, was beheaded in Rome. In the Book of John, there is no Last Supper. That story is not there. There are stories, though, of eating and drinking with Jesus — at Cana, with the 5,000 that he fed, and on the shore here with the disciples. When Jesus was there he saw to it that there was food in abundance, wine for all the guests at the wedding in Cana, baskets of leftovers with the 5,000, and enough bread and fish for everyone at breakfast over the charcoal fire. These stories pull together much of what it means to be in relationship with Jesus. The way in which Jesus hosts meals helps us to see the Eucharist that was embedded in Jesus' life, not his death. A little different framework from the Lord's Supper might mean grace in abundance, forgiveness in abundance, salvation in the risen Christ. And that is our Easter, as we come to Christ Lutheran Church on this third Sunday of the Easter season. Jesus is here with bread and wine, offering grace and forgiveness for all of his people everywhere. Like the women at the tomb, we come and see Jesus here. We find God in each other at worship, at the table, and in fellowship. And then we go out into the world.
     
    This is how we live out John 3:16. We understand what Jesus wants us to be. He wants us to be good shepherds when he can no longer be. We have to accept that Jesus could believe in us, and many of our people here respond accordingly. We have many shepherds here. We have people who work to feed the hungry, to find shelter for homeless people, people here who are working to protect God's creation by greening up our congregation and our communities. We have people who reach out to our community, with our facilities and with the word of God on a regular basis. We have people who come to church and volunteer their time as key people, assisting ministers, worship volunteers, people who help with fellowship and the flowers, and people who teach our children. On Sundays, we gather to celebrate the resurrection with joy. It's both empowering for us, and challenging. We are called to go forward in our lives as witnesses of faith, here at Christ and out in the rest of our lives. We know, though, how that witness has led to suffering and even death for so many of Jesus' followers.
     
    We pray for guidance and protection, and we offer our thanks and praise to the Good Shepherd. Amen.
     
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    2019, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Jon Heerboth, Acts 9:1-6, (7-20), John 21:1-19, John 3:16
  • Dec 2, 2018All the Signs Point to Christ
    Dec 2, 2018
    All the Signs Point to Christ
    Series: (All)
    December 2, 2018. Be prepared, for Jesus is coming. Jon Heerboth preaches on this first day of Advent about the preparations we Christians make for the Christmas celebration.
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    Be prepared, for Jesus is coming. It's the first Sunday in Advent, as we've been hearing all morning. And for us it's the beginning of a new church year and the time when we prepare for Christmas, which is our celebration of the first coming of Jesus Christ. When I think about getting ready for Christmas, I think about the little baby Jesus in the manger, the stable, the peaceful quiet night, the choir of angels, the pretty things that make me want to go home and set up my tree and my humble decorations and get out my Christmas Lego. I don't think about things that are mentioned in the lesson today. So we have to be prepared because there are no gentle images in today's gospel lesson. In fact, those images are anything but gentle. They're pretty brutal, and they were pretty brutal in Luke's time as well, when he read them. The people who heard this story from Luke the first time were worried, because the city of Jerusalem had been destroyed and the temple had been sacked, and the walls were pulled down stone by stone. It was a complete disaster.
     
    But today, it's not the helpless infant, but more of that. Images of the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. In the Christmas story, we see almost a paradox. The humble baby Jesus and then in today's gospel, the coming in clouds. Power and might. Glory. Maybe the destruction of the earth. God keeping the rest of his promises. And so we have to be prepared, because as Jesus tells us in Luke, the signs are all around us. Signs in the sun, the moon, the stars. Signs in the news, in shootings, in tragedies. Earthquakes in Alaska. Fires in California. Mayhem everywhere. Corruption. Hunger. And if you look at today's Post Dispatch, homelessness. Signs in the distress in families. Signs in the tragedies caused by a warming planet. What in the world is going on? What's the world coming to, we ask?
     
    Well, what happens to you when you're frightened, when you're pressed down or dismayed? I know sometimes we can't even concentrate because of what Jesus called the "roaring of the sea and the waves," or to us, the many distractions and stresses of our lives in a sinful world. We even have trouble in the month of December just getting ready for the Christmas holiday, which should be a time of peace and joy and families thinking about the first coming of Jesus Christ. It seems like everything can be difficult. In verse 26 today, Jesus said that people will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaking. What is my life coming to? I ask when I'm weighed down by cares and worries. I might walk more slowly. My shoulders sag. I might be burdened by my own actions or behaviors that I wish I could set aside.
     
    Earlier in chapter 21, Luke warned that things will not be easy as the end times approach. They're not going to be easy for Christians, either. Our lives will fall apart, he said. We will face hostility from neighbors, legal problems even, or even conflict within our own families. But for us though -- and this is almost a paradox -- all of these signs, all of these troubles, all of these trials in our lives point to Christ. When these things happen, our redemption is drawing near.
     
    Now, redemption already came to us in the past once and for all, with the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now that redemption is available to us, now and into the future. Even though the world around us may fall apart, that's not a sign of God's absence or lack of concern for us. We are still God's people. We have the promise of God's presence in our midst, even in the middle of all of our problems that we face from day to day.
     
    Now after Jesus listed all the depressing signs in his world, he stopped for a minute and spoke to his listeners in a very pastoral way. God's words, his reassuring promise of salvation, will last and will not fail. He said that while Heaven and Earth will pass away, his promises to us, his assurance that he is with us, God will remain with us always, and his promises will not fail. What the world sees as signs of despair, and heaven knows there are plenty of signs of despair out there, we see as signs of hope, because our redemption is here and now and will come again, Luke says, in power and majesty. Because everything points to Jesus Christ. Now we are all God's children, claimed and named in baptism. We are assured of eternal salvation by faith, in the death and resurrection of Jesus. By God's grace our sins are forgiven. We are redeemed and reconciled before Christ because of what Christ has done for us. This morning here in church we confessed our sins once again and received absolution, God's reassurance that our sins are forgiven. We are redeemed now before God so we can pray "Thy kingdom come" and mean it.
     
    In Advent, we remember God's coming in history, God's presence among us now, and we prepare for Jesus' return in majesty at the end of time. We pay attention to so much more than just the birth of Jesus. But how do we prepare for Christmas with the deep sense that God's work is still unfinished? There are still promises that we expect God to keep, so we have a sense of longing inside of us for the ultimate redemption and fulfillment of all God's promises that we encounter in the Bible. And we pray for him to come and fulfill those promises.
     
    We Christians prepare for Christmas in lots of ways. We go ahead and decorate our homes, light up the street even, go shopping for gifts, and we celebrate like everybody else. But we are also nonconformist. Our preparations, and you can see them here -- the blue paraments, the color of hope we say, we can come to church and see that. We can attend Advent services, the Holden Evening Prayer -- that beautiful, short reminder of God's promises to us. We can read daily Advent devotions. We come and practice for the cantata once a week, sometimes twice a week -- which I would recommend to anyone. (You know, the choir pays for advertising, so...) So we decorate the church, and we do what we have to do to remember God's promises to us. Our goal as Christians is to find God in our preparations for the Christmas celebration. We have to be able to see the coming of Christ, even though we have cares, burdens, fears, and sins -- even though it's often very hard to see God's work in the morning paper. We have to remember that for us, all of the signs point to Christ.
     
    In the reading from Thessalonians this morning, Paul explained to his readers what it means to be waiting for the Lord's return. Now, he wrote directly to the Christians at Thessalonica. He also speaks to his brothers and sisters at Christ Lutheran Church in Webster Groves. In verse 12 and 13 he hoped that the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Here at Christ, we will prepare by being a distinctive and loving community while we await the Lord's return. We will pursue holiness by obedience to God's wishes, and through everyday discipleship within our community and out in our daily lives. So, we prepare for this upcoming event, the final turning point in Christians' experience: the second and final coming of Christ. So we may go shopping for Christmas gifts. Let us also find God this Advent season by attending church.
     
    We find God by hearing the word. We find God in the bread and in the wine. We find God in our prayers for one another and for the people of the world at large. We will surely find God in each other, in our sisters and brothers who wish us God's peace every Sunday. In verse 28 of our text today, Jesus says that when the signs of his second coming appear, we should stand up and raise our heads because redemption is drawing near.
     
    Here at Christ Lutheran Church, when we raise our heads and look up (you can do that now, raise your heads and look up) who do you see? You see the face of Christ over this incredibly beautiful altar. So we encounter Christ here the same way we should be encountering Christ everywhere, a constant reminder of God's promise of salvation and God's love for all people. Most important, we have to remember that Jesus, who died and rose, is still here with us and will return again at the end.
     
    Now before we end, I ran across something. My dad died about six-and-a-half years ago, and he was quite a scholar. He loved languages and spent a lot of his time studying. And he left a pile of books. Ordinarily you would just pass them on or get rid of them, but I don't think he wanted us to do that because in the books, he left notes. He left his old textbooks. He had cartoons of his professors that he drew. He left little notes here and there. Even in the pages of the book there would be little nuggets. But when I was preparing for this, I took his relatively new Greek New Testament and I opened the front cover, and as he would do there was a paragraph and so I ran into it. I hadn't seen it before, and it was in Latin. Of course. He knew that would drive me crazy. So I got his old lexicon out -- it's literally almost 200 years old -- and started trying to translate it. And then I realized my translation was no good, but I recognized what he had written. And it was the prayer for the first Sunday in Advent. And next to it, he wrote, "This prayer is the gateway to Eden for people who study the word of God." And I just thought we should end today by repeating this little prayer that we've already said. I like the little different translation of it better than what we said earlier. So let's pray together the words of the prayer for the day:
     
    Stir up your power, O Lord, and come. Rescue and protect us from the threatening perils of our sins by your might. For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.
     
    The hymn for the day is 246, "Hark! A Thrilling Voice is Sounding!" Take a look as you sing. Concentrate on verse 4, the words of comfort:
     
    When next he comes in glory
    And the world is wrapped in fear,
    He will shield us with his mercy
    And with Words of Love draw near.
     
    And so we rise, if we're able, for the hymn.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2018, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Jon Heerboth
  • Sep 30, 2018Stumbling Blocks
    Sep 30, 2018
    Stumbling Blocks
    Series: (All)
    September 30, 2018. Jon Heerboth preaches on Philippians 1:18. We may have many points of view about our best way forward here at Christ Lutheran. Our agreement though should be just like Paul said. "What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice."
     
    *** Transcript ***
     
    If I were in a classroom instead of in a church today, I would say that we're going to have a brief review here before we start the lesson for today. Last week we heard Jesus explain that he would be put to death, and three days later he would rise again. But the disciples didn't know what he was talking about. They didn't understand him and they were afraid to ask, so instead they were arguing about who of them was the greatest. Jesus sat them down and explained that whoever wanted to be first must be last of all and servant of all, and then he picked up a small child and held the child in his arms and said that whoever welcomed the child welcomed Jesus, and the one who sent Jesus.
     
    Now, in today's gospel Jesus is still holding the child. He still has the child in his arms while he's talking with his disciples. But John interrupted Jesus to report that some other healer had been casting out demons in the name of Jesus. The disciples went and told him to stop it because he was not one of them. "You can't use Jesus' name unless you're one of us," they said. Now you can imagine the disciples gathering around Jesus closely to hear what he had to say about this. Jesus began to speak, but he could see that they weren't getting it. He had to make his point three times. "Do not stop him, for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able to soon afterwards speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward." Jesus had to work hard to make that point to the disciples, but it's a point that we need to hear as well.
     
    We are used to hearing phrases like, "If you're not for me you're against me." Pro or con. X or not x. No middle ground. The problem is that this kind of thinking excludes so many people, and Jesus turns it on its head: "Whoever is not against us is for us." Just the opposite of the way we often think. With these words, Jesus moves us from excluding people to being inclusive, from suspicion to welcome, from left out to invited in. The love of Jesus and the power of God can cut through this "friend or foe" thinking, so that we can welcome almost everyone into our fold.
     
    My dad related his experience years ago, before Lutherans were talking about working together as church bodies. It was 1949, just four years after the end of World War II, when my parents arrived in Sapporo, Japan to begin their careers as missionaries. Shortly after they arrived, Dad and his good friend Paul were invited to a prayer group of Japanese Christians. Dad said they really wanted to attend the meeting, but they were troubled and a little worried because none of the attendees was Lutheran, and they were not permitted to pray with people of other denominations. Dad and Paul decided that they would attend the prayer meeting, but they were worried that a very strict colleague might create a problem for them by reporting to the mission board in St. Louis. So, Dad and Paul went and they were introduced to a group of Japanese Christians. Dad said that each one introduced himself with a name and his former Christian denomination. "I am of Baptist antecedent." "I am of Methodist antecedent." "I am of Roman Catholic antecedent," and so forth. Before World War II these Japanese Christians stayed with their denominational groups, but when the war started it turned out the secret police didn't ask their denomination. They all got locked up together for the duration of the war. "When they came for us, they came because we were Christian." Denomination became irrelevant to them. What mattered was that they all followed Jesus. The two missionaries learned what mattered and what didn't.
     
    Now, we worship here among like-minded Christians for the most part. We know we have a lot of work here to do at Christ and in the world at large. We would like to grow as a congregation. Our congregational leaders and our members have been looking at this growth from several directions. The monthly newsletters and weekly announcements remind us of how often we tie in with other Christians in our area and throughout the world. There are many opportunities here to work together for others and to bring others to Christ. Our doors are open and we hope they are welcoming. In addition, we have been thinking about how to improve our outreach by maintaining and improving our facilities.
     
    Now the last thing we want to do is what Jesus warned us against in today's gospel. We want to be open to all, and we do not want to place any stumbling blocks in the path of one of these little ones who believe. Now Jesus was speaking directly of a young child he was still holding in his arms during all of this, but you could substitute the child with anyone who feels like he doesn't quite belong, any one of low social standing, anyone who's felt like an outsider instead of an insider, anyone who is different and feels different and feels like they don't belong with the rest of us. Jesus is talking about doing things that make other people feel unworthy, like somehow they are not good enough or their differences are somehow too great to receive salvation through their faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus has harsh words for them: a millstone, a big one, pulled by a donkey, tied around the neck, tossed into the sea for those who leave stumbling blocks.
     
    Now it's really easy to read through this and skip over those passages about millstones cutting off hands, feet, tearing out eyes, and just say that Jesus was exaggerating and move on. But if we do that we, miss the central point, that we don't want to be the cause of anyone stumbling in faith. Jesus was still holding that small child. He was absolutely serious about stumbling blocks and coming judgment.
     
    Do we want to hear the truth, that we could be the cause of someone tripping up in their discipleship, that we could be the cause of someone stumbling in his or her faith, that we could be the cause of someone questioning whether or not he or she is truly a critical and viable member of God's kingdom. And we would rather blame someone else, or just conduct safe and secure demonstrations of faith, than take accountability for the ways in which we might have prevented others from living into their fullness as disciples, their fullness as children of God. We would like to assume that putting stumbling blocks in the ways of others is just a temporary misstep in their lives. We think they'll quickly get back up on their feet and get over it. A nondescript, almost unnoticeable trip up along the way couldn't lead to a lifelong trajectory, could it? Maybe we could convince ourselves of that. But yet, if we're honest, we know that tripping over something, a little stumble can lead to a major fall, a fall from which it takes a very long time to recuperate, if ever. We learned that this week from watching the news, didn't we? When we place stumbling blocks in the paths of those trying to answer God's call, as they and only they can hear it and live it, we are essentially silencing them. "No," said Jesus. "Don't you dare."
     
    We do not want to feel that unquenchable fire. Now we will have many points of view here and differing opinions about our best way forward here at Christ. Our agreement though should be just like Paul said in Philippians, chapter 1. "What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice."
     
    We Christians here at Christ, and wherever our brothers or sisters gather on Sunday morning, are united in our desire to hear the word, pray together, and to gather at the Lord's table. We don't want to be salt that has lost its flavor, and we sure don't want to be salted with fire. Our salt is from God. So let us all be at peace with one another.
     
    Amen.
     
    *** Keywords ***
     
    2018, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Jon Heerboth, Philippians 1:18