by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 17, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for September 15
Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 15, 2024
Mark 8:27-38
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked the disciples. And after Peter correctly identified Jesus as the Messiah, as the promised Savior, Jesus sat them all down and began to teach them what that meant. He taught them what kind of Messiah he would be. He taught them how he would save. Jesus told them that he would undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
To put it lightly, this was not at all what Peter had in mind! We don’t know what exactly Peter expected Jesus to do as the Messiah, but it certainly didn’t involve him undergoing great suffering! This was the furthest thing from Peter’s mind. A suffering and dying Messiah wasn’t on his radar at all! And so Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked him. In Matthew’s account of this incident he tells us that Peter said, “No, Jesus! This must never happen to you!”
To be sure, it was a gutsy move to dare to take Jesus aside and rebuke him – but to be fair to Peter, this was a very human response. Peter was having a very human reaction to suffering, which is, naturally, to avoid it at all costs! Peter was thinking in human terms, which are bent towards self-preservation, towards self-fulfillment, towards self-serving ends. But therein lies the problem: Peter was setting his mind on human things, not divine things. This is exactly what Jesus says to Peter as he rebukes him right back: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.”
The divine thing that Peter didn’t yet get was that it would be through suffering that Jesus would accomplish his saving work as the Messiah. The divine thing Peter didn’t yet understand was that Jesus would suffer and die on the cross for the sins of the world, and then rise again on the third day.
And Jesus wouldn’t be the only one who would bear a cross. His followers would too! “If any want to become my followers,” Jesus continued, “let them deny themselves and take up their crosses and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
This all sounds very gloomy on the surface, very negative. Troubling, even. It seems that way from a human point of view. But Jesus is describing divine things. He is describing divine love. As St. Paul writes in Romans 5:8, “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” As Jesus says in John 15: “There is no greater love than this – to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This suffering and dying Messiah would do his saving work through divine, sacrificial love.
Jesus first describes the divine act of saving love which he is about to accomplish on the cross, and then he describes how this will impact the lives of his disciples. As his followers are swept up in the sacrificial love of the cross, they will begin to follow him by taking up crosses of their own. They will begin to willingly deny themselves for the sake of others. They will begin to willingly endure suffering as a response to the saving love they have received in Christ. They will begin to lose their old self-centered life and live into something new through him. This might not be easy, but it sure isn’t gloomy! This is what it means to live a redeemed life rooted in divine love. This is what it means to live the new life God provides through the power and promise of the resurrection.
On our wedding day I gave my wife a gold crucifix necklace. A crucifix, of course, is a cross with the body of Jesus still on it. After all our wedding festivities were over and it was just the two of us, I gave it to her. She unwrapped it. She opened the velvety jewelry box and took it out. She held it up, the suffering body of Jesus dangling from the chain. As we both looked at it, I pointed to it and said to her: “That is what it’s going to be like to be married to me.”
Just kidding. That’s been the joke ever since, but that’s not what I said. To be honest, neither of us remember exactly what I said, but we both agree on what it meant to us, and what means to us now. That crucifix represents to both of us that our marriage is rooted in and shaped by the sacrificial love of Christ. And this being the case, there is a little kernel of truth in the joke!
It is blessedly rare, but sometimes we suffer because of each other. I’m not talking about anything major. I’m talking about those inevitable disagreements and misunderstandings and kerfuffles that come up. A professor of mine once colorfully said of marriage that when you put two sinners belly to belly for a lifetime there is bound to be trouble once in a while. It is unavoidable!
Sometimes we suffer not because of each other, but with each other. My wife and I have both had a difficult few weeks emotionally as we’ve adjusted to having an empty nest. Don’t get me wrong, isn’t all bad – but it has stirred up more grief in us than we were expecting. There is a tremendous sense of loss as we come to terms with the reality that a truly wonderful time in our lives, a time we both enjoyed very much, has come to a close. This is something we’ve suffered through together.
And then there have been the times when one of us has entered into the suffering of the other. There are those times when one of us has been there for the other when one of us has had a bad day or when there has been a sickness or a medical worry or a traumatic event impacting one of us more than the other. We have shared in the suffering of the other as we’ve walked through it together, offering our encouragement and our support along the way.
There is a lot of joy in our marriage, a lot of laughter, a lot of fun, but love really shows itself in an especially profound way in these times of suffering. I’m not holding us up as the ideal couple or saying we have this all figured out. We aren’t, and we don’t! But having the sacrificial love of the cross at the center of our relationship, being steeped in the sacrificial love of Christ delivered through Word and Sacrament, has shaped us in ways that make us more willing to bear crosses for and with each other.
This is what Jesus is describing in our gospel reading. This is what he is teaching the disciples, and us – and it applies to all Christians, and to all of Christian life!
Today Jesus teaches us that the Messiah came to undergo great suffering. Jesus suffered because of us. It is our sins that put him on the cross. Jesus suffers with us, weeping with us when we weep, bearing the pain of the world with us. Jesus comes alongside us in our suffering to encourage and support us, assuring us that we are not alone and that our suffering will not have the last word.
And through his sacrificial love for us, he changes our hearts and minds, turning them away from human things and towards divine things. We are always works in progress. This won’t be completed until the day of resurrection. But even now our Lord Jesus pours his divine love out for us in such a way that we begin to deny ourselves, we begin to take up our own crosses, we begin to loosen our grip on our self-centered lives and start to live more and more for others – not only for our loved ones, not only for our families, but also for our brothers and sisters in Christ next to us here at church, for our neighbors, for those around us in need, even, Jesus would tell us, for those we consider our enemies. We are sacrificially loved and so we sacrificially love!
Dear friends, there is a deeper joy and a richer life to be found when Christ is at the center instead of you. Jesus has come to free you from your bondage to sin and self. The Messiah has come to suffer and die and rise again in order to prove his great love for you. There is no greater love than this, and he gives it to you!
Carry this divine, sacrificial love around your neck. Carry it in your heart. Put it at the center of your life instead of yourself. Hold fast to it through all suffering.
Let Christ fill you with this divine, sacrificial love of the cross today, and then watch as it begins to flow through you as you take up your own cross and begin to love others like Jesus loves you.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 10, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for September 8
Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 8, 2024
Mark 7:24-37
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
This morning we find Jesus leaving his familiar environment in Galilee and traveling into the region of Tyre. Jesus was no longer among his fellow Jews. Now he was in Gentile territory. He wasn’t in Tyre too long before he was approached by a Syrophoenician woman. It was extremely unusual for a Gentile woman to approach a Jewish man, but this woman was desperate. This was a mother whose little girl was suffering, plagued by an unclean spirit. The precise nature of her daughter’s problem is unclear, but she was battling some kind of demon. She was in the power of something terrible, something not of God. This desperate mother came and fell at Jesus’ feet. She begged Jesus to help her. She had heard stories about the things Jesus had done, the healings he had performed, the demons he had cast out. She had nowhere else to turn, and so, although she was a Gentile and a woman, she turned to Jesus for help.
And Jesus, at least at first, said…no. In fact, Jesus didn’t just say no, he said to her: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Preachers have been trying to do damage control ever since!
Scholars have long tried to make sense of Jesus’ words here, and especially struggle to do so today in our hypersensitive, just-waiting-to-be-offended age. Some have suggested Jesus was testing her. Some say he was testing the disciples. Some say he had a sparkle in his eye when he said it and was only joking. Some say he was tired, and this illustrates his humanity. Some have said Jesus was just using the common language of his time and culture. Others have said he was only following God’s timeline, which was Jews first, Gentiles later. Some point out that he uses the term for little dog, or pet, instead of the term for a street dog, so it isn’t as mean as it sounds. The newest one I’ve heard is that Jesus was racist and that this is God the Father putting him through diversity training. This last one, of course, is theological illiteracy – not to mention blasphemy.
Some of those explanations are better than others, but I like Martin Luther’s explanation the best. Luther doesn’t try to apologize for Jesus. He leaves the offense there, but looks beyond it to where it ultimately led. Luther acknowledges that Jesus appeared to be rude to her, but he said there was a purpose in it. He argues that Jesus was talking this way in order to provoke faith in her. Luther argues that Jesus was stirring up faith in her like a hunter flushes a pheasant out of the bushes.
And boy did Jesus ever flush out her faith! This Gentile woman responds with one of the most powerful and bold demonstrations of faith in all of scripture! This woman doesn’t get offended, and she won’t be deterred. She doesn’t deny the position that she is in. She doesn’t deny that as a Gentile she has no right to demand anything of Jesus. She doesn’t try to argue that she deserves anything from him. Instead, she holds Jesus to his own words, trusting that even the smallest bit from him will be enough. “Sir,” she says, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
You’ve heard of mustard seed faith – well this is table crumb faith! She trusts Jesus in spite of what seems like his initial cold shoulder. She trusts him in spite of his appearance of rudeness, in spite of his initial “no.” She trusts that Jesus will come through for her. She won’t let go of that hope so easily! This woman has faith in Christ, and it is on full display! Jesus recognizes this. This is what he was provoking in her. And so he said to her: “For saying that you may go – the demon has left your daughter.” She went home and found her daughter lying in her bed, and the demon gone.
There is a particularly desperate kind of anguish that parents feel for their children when they are suffering, but even if you’re not a parent or have never been in that kind of situation with your kids, probably all of us have had times when God seems to be ignoring us, when Jesus seems to be brushing us off. There are times when all of us feel like God is blessing others while treating us like the dog under the table. There are times when God seems to be ignoring our prayers or saying no to them.
I talk to people all the time who have much in common with the Syrophoenician woman. I talk to people who come to me with tears in their eyes because their child has a demon of unbelief, or the demon of addiction, or a demon of depression or anxiety. I talk to people who have loved ones who are suffering, who are facing serious health problems. I know there are people in this sanctuary right now who have been begging Jesus for healing of bodies and minds and relationships, begging Jesus that things could be different, and so far all they’ve gotten from him for an answer seems to be a cruel-sounding “no.”
The Syrophoenician woman is the patron saint of all who have ever experienced what seems to be God’s cold shoulder. She is the patron saint of all Gentiles, all who acknowledge that they don’t have a birthright or a special claim to God’s attention. She is the patron saint of all who have wondered if they haven’t somehow ended up in the doghouse with God.
And this Syrophoenician woman doesn’t just echo the desperation of what seem to be our unanswered prayers. She also shows us what Christian faith looks like. “Sir,” she says, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” This is more than a witty comeback; it is a beautiful confession of faith. Christian faith understands that we have no right to demand anything from Jesus. It understands that we don’t deserve anything from him. But at the same time, Christian faith boldly holds on to hope. Christian faith trusts that even table crumbs from him are enough! Christian faith boldly holds Jesus to his Word. Christian faith trusts in the goodness and mercy of Christ even when it cannot be immediately seen.
We’ve probably all known someone who is a little gruff or abrasive in their personality, but when you get to know them, you see that they have a heart of gold. My grandfather was like that. He was often distant and prickly. He used to call all his grandkids “dummkoph,” which is German for “blockhead.” (And that is a generous translation.)
But all of us grandkids knew that underneath that sometimes gruff exterior there was a loving heart, and so in spite of the often-perceived aloofness and the snarling, we all loved to spend time with him. We knew that behind the snarl there was a tenderness, a great generosity, a playfulness and a deep affection. We called it out of him by pulling on his arm and demanding his attention. Then he would come down to our level and show us his softened heart. Then he would lift us up into his lap and hold us in his loving arms. You could say that our trust in him, our faith in him, revealed his true self to us. It revealed what was ultimately his loving heart.
The Syrophoenician woman verbally yanked on Jesus’ arm, and her confession of faith continues to be heard throughout the world to this day. This insistent faith ultimately revealed Jesus’ true self. It revealed his goodness and his mercy.
This was Jesus’ purpose all along. This is who he always was, despite initial impressions. Jesus was flushing out her faith. He was provoking her to trust him in spite of appearances, and as she did, it ultimately revealed Jesus’ true self. It revealed his loving heart.
This story provokes us to faith too. It invites us to look beyond what sometimes seems to be God’s cold shoulder. It invites us to trust Jesus beyond the “no” which sometimes seems to be the answer to our prayers. It invites us to believe in his goodness and mercy, even when we cannot immediately see it.
Like the Syrophoenician woman, we sometimes find ourselves desperate for help from God. We too contend with demons – in our own lives and in the lives of the people we love. We too fall to our knees, pleading for help, help that sometimes seems slow in coming.
But like the Syrophoenician woman, as we tug on Jesus’ arm, he shows us his true self. As we hold him to his Word, as we trust in him, he shows us his true heart.
We see this true heart in scripture. We see it in where this story ultimately ends up, as Jesus ultimately casts the demon out of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter, making her well.
We see this true heart most clearly on the cross, where Jesus experienced everything that we do: the cup of suffering that isn’t removed from us, the sense of forsakenness, the seeming silence of God. Jesus suffered all of that himself so that we would know that we are never alone, that we are never forsaken, that we are never without hope. In his great love for us he died and rose again to show us God’s true heart towards us.
We see Jesus’ true heart at his table, where he gives us so much more than mere crumbs. He gives us Himself. He gives us his own Body and Blood. He gives us the full meal deal of forgiveness, life, and salvation.
I can’t fully explain why Jesus says the things he does to the Syrophoenician woman.
Nor can I tell you why he sometimes seems to be reluctant to answer your prayers more quickly.
But I can tell you that Jesus has ultimately shown us his true heart.
He is showing it to us again today through Word and Sacrament, so that no matter who you are or what your situation is, you would know that his heart is full of goodness and mercy and love and compassion for you.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 2, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for September 1
Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 1, 2024
James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
As we come to September and get closer to autumn, you can bet that cold and flu season is just around the corner. In fact, we’re getting reports from our kids that on college campuses it is already well underway. One of our sons and our niece have both started off the school year at Washington State University with nasty bugs.
There are some preventative measures you can take to avoid getting sick. You can take vitamin C. You can get a flu shot, which sometimes kind of helps. You can avoid sick people, being especially careful to not use their fork or their toothbrush, which you probably shouldn’t do anyway. And, of course, you should wash your hands – frequently and thoroughly. These are all good preventative measures to avoid catching something.
The Pharisees in our gospel reading for today practiced some preventative measures of their own. But they weren’t worried about catching a cold or the flu. The Pharisees weren’t concerned about becoming physically sick. Instead, they were concerned about becoming spiritually sick.
The Pharisees, along with most devout Jews, established a whole set of religious practices they put in place to preserve their spiritual health. They developed a whole set of rules above and beyond God’s commandments which they thought would help them avoid getting spiritually sick. They were to keep themselves separate from others who had questionable moral or spiritual health. They wouldn’t eat anything from the market unless it was ritually washed and dedicated to God. The utensils and pots and pans they used were similarly “purified” through ritual washing. And, of course, they washed their hands. This wasn’t to get rid of germs – they didn’t even know about germs! This was about ritual purity, not hygiene. All of this was in place to keep them from becoming spiritually sick. These practices had become well-established and widely practiced among the Jewish people as a sort of preventative measure against the sickness of sin.
So imagine their shock when they saw some of Jesus’ disciples digging into their meal without going through these proper rituals first! This was the spiritual equivalent of having someone sneeze on your plate or cough in your face! The Pharisees approached Jesus about this. They asked him: “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” How could they be so careless? They wanted an explanation.
Jesus never does directly answer their question. Instead of explaining why his disciples don’t do the ritual hand washing, he instead uses their question as an opportunity to challenge their assumptions about spiritual health.
First, Jesus points out that these Pharisees aren’t as spiritually healthy as they think they are! “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition!” Jesus says, turning the tables on them. A few verses from this section are dropped, so we don’t hear the exact charge in our reading for today, but in the omitted verses Jesus accuses them of breaking the fourth commandment. He accuses them of using some of the traditions of the elders as a religious loophole to avoid taking care of their parents, violating the commandment to honor your father and mother. These Pharisees are bragging about being as healthy as a horse and pointing a disgusted finger at others while they have chicken pox all over their faces! And so Jesus rightly calls them hypocrites.
Jesus then goes on to challenge their assumptions even more. You see, these Pharisees seem to believe that sin is something you catch from others. They seem to think that you get it by being around others who have it. But Jesus tells them that it’s more complicated than that. “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile,” Jesus says. Sin isn’t something you catch! It isn’t something floating around outside of you that you breathe in. Instead, it already resides in every human heart. “It is from within,” Jesus says, “from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they are what defile a person.”
These Pharisees were always on the lookout for ways they might be spiritually infected by others. They pointed at Jesus’ disciples as being contagious, and all the while that bug was already there within their own hearts. They thought sin was a virus, but Jesus teaches them that it is genetic.
What does this mean for us?
Sometimes we do need to be careful about the air we breathe. Sometimes as Christians we do need to separate ourselves from certain people or situations or environments. Just as addicts often need a whole new friend group in order to stay clean and sober, sinners need to be careful about the company we keep and the circles we move in and the media we consume so as not to make our spiritual sickness worse. There are things we do need to stay away from, things we need to avoid, things we need to wash our hands of completely so as not to exacerbate our symptoms. We are called again and again in scripture – even in the New Testament – to be holy, to be godly, to be careful about how we live. Our second reading for today concludes with a call to keep ourselves “unstained by the world.”
But at the same time, we need to remember that sin and evil aren’t just “out there.” They aren’t just floating around outside of us. It isn’t only found in other people, those people we avoid, those people we judge. It’s already right here in our hearts.
As the great Soviet dissident and writer Aleksander Solzhenitsyn once wrote, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties – but right through every human heart.” This sounds to me a lot like what Jesus said to the Pharisees, and what he’s saying to us today. There are things we can and should do to limit our exposure to that which would lead us astray, to be sure. But we cannot escape what is already in our hearts.
So what are we to do? What do we do with these hearts of ours that Jesus says are already infected with sin and evil? What are we to do with this gospel reading?
I’m privy to a lot of medical situations people endure. People often come to me with prayer requests when they are undergoing medical testing or struggling with frustrating symptoms. There often comes a point when they finally get a correct diagnosis. And when that correct diagnosis comes, even if it isn’t great, there is usually a great sense of relief. “At least now we know,” people say. I know a kid who wasn’t gaining weight like he should. He had tummy troubles and potty issues. He went years with these symptoms before finally getting correctly diagnosed with Celiac disease. This isn’t fun to have, but it was also a relief to know what the real problem was. “At least now we know,” his mother said. Once you know what the problem is, you can start thinking about what is going to make you better. Getting a correct diagnosis was the first step in getting his life back.
Our gospel reading is notably deficient in actual gospel – that is, there is nothing that is explicitly and obviously good news in it. But the beginning of the good news is there in the accurate diagnosis of our spiritual sickness. Spiritually speaking, we all have a genetic heart condition. This isn’t the gospel, but it is the beginning of the good news, because now at least we know! Now we know what we’re dealing with. Now we know the truth about ourselves. Now we know the real problem.
Now we know that our problem is more than skin deep, and so we need something more than hand sanitizer or a topical lotion. Now we know that our illness is more than viral, and so we know that all the preventative measures in the world will not ultimately save us. Now we know the full truth about our condition, and so now we are in a position to receive the only thing that can make us well.
Why could the disciples eat with unwashed hands? Because they were eating with Jesus, whose grace meant that they were already clean. Why didn’t they need those spiritual preventative measures? Because they were with Jesus, who had come to make them well through his saving love.
This same Jesus comes to us today. He makes us clean by his word of forgiveness, where he sanitizes us anew by his grace. He comes in the cleansing Word and water which are poured over a new brother in Christ today who is receiving the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Jesus comes to us in his Holy Supper to give us a blood transfusion as we literally receive him – in, with, and under the bread and wine – that he would literally enter into the veins that lead directly to our hearts.
Today, through Word and Sacrament, our Lord Jesus is creating new hearts in us. By his presence here with us today, we are made clean. By the grace he pours out for us, we are made well. He is the cure for our sin-sick hearts, and as we receive him today, we get our lives back – today and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 2, 2024 | News & Events
September 8 we return to worship at 8 & 10:30. Christian Education for all ages will be held at 9:15. We’ll also have a Blessing of the Backpacks at both services and a Youth & Family BBQ from 4pm-6pm. Join us as we kick off a new program year!
by Jeffrey Spencer | Aug 27, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for August 25
Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost – August 25, 2024
John 6:55-69
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
There’s a pastor I know who entered into ministry as a second career. He started out working in the trades, but when he went into ministry it was obvious right away that he was a natural at it. He had a lot of gifts for pastoral work and his congregation, which was a new mission start, grew quickly. He kept bringing in new members. But then one Sunday he preached a sermon that went over like a lead balloon. What he said confused some people. It made others angry. And just like that, his ministry tanked. One sermon was all it took. People stopped coming. His congregation went into a steep decline. This preacher I’m talking about, of course, is Jesus.
As we come to the end of our exploration of John chapter 6, we hear how Jesus preached a sermon which offended people. They found his teaching difficult and started complaining about it. Jesus had, after all, told people they needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have life. He said that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood abide in him, and he in them. He said that whoever eats him will live because of him. This made no sense to anyone. Frankly, it sounded disgusting.
You might think that once people started complaining about this language that Jesus would soften things, that he would explain what he “really” means. But no. That’s not what happens. Not at all. As we pick up the sermon today Jesus doubles down once again.
Jesus said to those who were complaining: “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” This is a reference to his death and resurrection and ascension as the crucified and risen savior. If you’re offended now, Jesus is saying, what is going to happen when we get to that part? If they’re queasy about a little blood now, what are they going to do when Jesus is lifted up on the cross? If they don’t like Jesus describing himself in this way now, as the sole source of eternal life, what are they going to do when he actually ascends to the right hand of God?
Jesus goes on in this explosive sermon to say that “the spirit gives life and the flesh is useless.” When Jesus uses the word “flesh” here, he is NOT devaluing the body or our physical being. Christ became incarnate in a physical body and he rose with a physical body! Jesus is NOT saying that the physical body is less important than some inner truth or inner voice or inner spirituality – that’s Gnosticism, not Christianity.
The use of the word “flesh” here refers to our fallen human nature. Our fallen human nature will not lead us to salvation, Jesus is saying. Our fallen human nature will not lead us into life. The spirit gives life – our fallen human nature is useless. It cannot save us. It is what we need to be saved from!
Jesus continues by pointing out something else that is painfully true: His words are spirit and life, but there are some who do not believe. Moreover, Jesus says, no one can come to him unless it is granted by the Father. Faith is not a human work. It is not a human decision. It is not the result of human effort. It is a work of God to create faith in the human heart. You can’t achieve it; you can only receive it.
“Well then,” said the crowds, “forget that!” This is the moment when people left in droves. And note here that these weren’t Pharisees or the Chief Priests leaving. These weren’t the usual suspects who were always complaining about Jesus. John tells us that these were his disciples who were leaving! These were his followers!
We live in a time when people are again leaving in droves, when former disciples of Jesus are walking away from him. The Gallup organization has been keeping track of church membership in the United States for about 80 years, and in 1940, 73% of Americans belonged to a church. This held remarkably steady until around the year 2000, when it dipped slightly to 70%. Since then, it has plummeted. It dropped to 61% in 2010, and in 2020 it had fallen to 47%. I was ordained in 2000, so maybe it is all my fault! Seriously, some of you remember when peak cultural Christianity met the Baby Boom in the U.S. and churches were full to overflowing. My entire ministry, on the other hand, has been during this momentous shift towards a post-Christian culture, with people leaving Christianity in droves. It was no coincidence, then, that one of the elements of my Doxology pastoral renewal program was about the importance of spiritual disciplines in what can be a very discouraging time to be a pastor. It can be discouraging to anybody who cares about the church.
There are lots and lots of reasons for why people are leaving Christianity in our own time, but I think it boils down to the same thing that is happening in our gospel reading for today. Many people find Jesus and his claims hard to swallow. They don’t believe they need him for life. They don’t believe they need his forgiveness. They don’t believe there is anything wrong with their human nature, or at least they don’t believe there is anything wrong that they can’t fix themselves.
They find the whole idea of needing a savior offensive.
In desperation, some Christians have tried to soften the offense. Back in the 60s, Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco famously (or infamously) took down all the crosses in his church because he thought it was an offensive symbol. In the last few decades, Evangelical churches have bent over backwards to make worship as unoffensive as possible, constantly catering to people’s felt needs. In our own denomination there are more and more clergy who believe that the concept of sin is too offensive. They seem to believe that talking about sin is the only sin there is. And so in some circles the confession of sin in worship is being replaced or rewritten with softer language or tossed out entirely because it is seen as too negative, too offensive. Never mind that sin and being saved from it is what the Bible is about from beginning to end. Never mind what the Lutheran Confessions, which every Lutheran pastor vows to uphold at their ordination, might say about any of it.
We should never set out to be offensive. There are others in the church today who seem to enjoy the offense a little too much. They seem to enjoy driving people away. They seem to take pride in their smaller and supposedly purer churches.
But at the same time, it is noteworthy that Jesus cares less about offending people and more about saving them. He cares less about what is popular and more about what is true. He cares less about telling people what they want to hear and more about what they need to hear.
And the truth Jesus proclaims in this sermon is that he gives his body and blood for us, that he would abide in us and we in him, that we would have life – now and forever. The truth is that the blood of the cross was necessary for our salvation, and that Jesus, the Son of Man, has ascended to the right hand of God. What people need to hear is that our human nature is useless. We are in bondage to sin and unable to free ourselves. We need forgiveness. We need a savior. What we need to hear is that saving faith cannot be achieved, it can only be received as God grants it through the hearing of the Word.
When people started to bail on Jesus after this sermon he turned to the twelve and said, What about you? Are you going to leave too? “Do you also wish to go away?” he asked them. And Peter replied, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
You have many options for where you can go, many options for how and where you can spend your time other than at church, other than in worship. Many of your friends and family members are choosing those other options. There has been some more encouraging polling recently from Gallup suggesting that the drop off in church membership and attendance of the last few decades has leveled off – but many are still choosing to be elsewhere.
But we are here because it is here that we find something that we cannot find anywhere else. The “here” I’m talking about is not specifically the picnic or the barn, though I always love being here. I’m not even specifically talking about Oak Harbor Lutheran Church, though I love our congregation and think everyone on Whidbey Island should be an active member. The “here” I’m talking about is our gathering around the Word. The “here” I’m talking about is this sharing in life-giving body and blood of Jesus. The “here” I’m talking about is this community which has been gathered around Christ and his gifts, given in Word and Sacrament.
We are here because Peter’s response is our own. We sing it in our weekly liturgy:
“Lord to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” We are here because there is nowhere else that we can receive what we are given here. We are here because it is here that we receive Christ’s gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. We are here because we know just how much we need them.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
