Sermon for All Saints Sunday – November 3, 2024

by Jeffrey Spencer | Nov 5, 2024 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for November 3

Sermon for All Saints Sunday – November 3, 2024

Isaiah 25:6-9, Revelation 21:1-6a, John 11:32-44

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Death stinks.

In our modern world it is blessedly rare that this is a literal experience, but no matter how hygienic we might be and no matter how quickly bodies are whisked away, death still stinks. Grief tends to hang in the air for a long time afterwards. There is an unpleasant heaviness which clings to people. The overwhelming emotions floating around can be so overpowering that people can hardly see straight.

There may well be moments of peace when death draws near. There are sometimes beautiful goodbyes and deeply touching expressions of faith and hope and love and care in a person’s final moments. But even under the best of circumstances, death stinks. It stinks because it robs us of the people we love. It stinks because it leaves an aching absence in our lives that lingers and lingers and lingers.

Even Jesus thought that death stinks. When he saw his dear friend Mary weeping after her brother died, Jesus was “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” Jesus began to weep too. When he came to the tomb that Lazarus had been laid in, he was again greatly disturbed. While John’s gospel usually presents us with a more stoic Jesus, even with John’s high Christology, his emphasis on Jesus’ divinity, he doesn’t hesitate to show us the raw human emotions Jesus experienced at the death of his friend. Tears flowed. He felt this terrible loss in his gut. He was racked with grief, with sorrow, with anger even. Jesus would completely agree – death stinks.

In the case of Lazarus, the stench was quite literal, of course. When Jesus went to his tomb and demanded that the stone be rolled away, the ever-practical Martha objected because of the odor which was sure to burn their nostrils if they were to crack that seal. But Jesus said to Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” In other words: “Trust me, Martha.” “Trust me,” Jesus said.

So they took away the stone. And once the tomb was opened, after offering a prayer up to the Father, Jesus cried out with a loud voice. He shouted into the tomb: “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus came out.

The takeaway? Death stinks, but it doesn’t deter Jesus. Jesus enters the stink with a word that is more powerful than death. Christ comes to the tomb with a voice that has the power to raise people up. When your name is on Jesus’ lips it means there is life beyond death, it means the grave cannot hold you, it means death does not have the last word. Death stinks, but when we put our trust in Christ and his word, we can be sure that we will see the glory of God.

All Saints Sunday is a somber day. It is a widespread tradition in the Christian church for congregations to remember their members who have died in the past year. We’re doing this today, of course, as we remember Hal, David, Walt, Karola, and Kyle, with special prayers this morning. There will also be a time of silence during those prayers when we can remember and give thanks for the many other saints in our lives, whether they’ve been gone for two years or twenty. And so it is a time of somber reflection. It is a time when that ache of absence can begin to throb with renewed intensity. It is a time when we confront the reality of death. It can be a Sunday on which we are painfully reminded of how much it stinks.

But just as our Lord Jesus spoke into the stench of Lazarus’ tomb, so too does he speak to us. Today God gives us a word that cuts through the heaviness hanging in the air and brings life.

Sometimes it is hard to hear this word when grief is especially raw. I remember visiting a gentleman a few weeks after his wife had died, and towards the end of our visit he asked me for a copy of the sermon I delivered at her funeral. While he had no reason to feel guilty about this, he sheepishly admitted that he didn’t remember a single word I said at the service. At the time he was too numb to hear it. He was still in shock. His grief was too overwhelming. This is a very common experience, and so All Saints Sunday gives us an opportunity to listen to Christ’s life-giving word at a time when we are perhaps more likely to actually hear it. While there is plenty of grief in this sanctuary today, perhaps this Sunday provides an opening for God’s promises to break through in a way they haven’t before.

First, in our reading from Isaiah God promises a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines. While God’s people are feasting on these rich foods, the Lord himself is dining on something different. The Lord, Isaiah says, will swallow up death forever! What we have here is a glimpse of the great exchange that Christ has brought about in his own death and resurrection. By experiencing death himself, Jesus has swallowed it up. He has defeated it. What we get is the feast! What we get is life! The Lord’s Supper is an embodiment of this feast. Jesus gives us his body and blood, and we get forgiveness, life, and salvation. Jesus swallows death and we swallow life! It is through this feast, Isaiah tells us, that God begins to wipe away the tears from all faces.

Over the last several days I’ve served the Lord’s Supper in the kitchens and living rooms of people who are fighting for their lives, people whose grip on life is starting to slip, or is at least seriously threatened. Even through the furrowed brows and teary eyes of the gravely ill and their loved ones, there is a peace that is found in sharing in this feast of rich food. Christ’s broken body and shed blood provide an assurance that no matter how near death may be, Jesus already swallowed it, and as we swallow him, we are promised life with him. And so, while tears are never bad or wrong, God begins to wipe them away with this comforting promise.

As we share the Lord’s Supper here in the sanctuary, this feast of rich food becomes the place where the veil between heaven and earth is particularly thin. As we say in the communion liturgy, “with the church on earth and the hosts of heaven.” As our voices join the heavenly chorus in singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” death is not quite as deep a chasm as we share in communion with all the saints through Christ. Many people go to the graves of their loved ones to feel close to them after they’re gone. That’s fine, but it is here at this table that you are particularly close to them.

And then there is our reading from Revelation. Here we are given a glimpse of the coming kingdom, the new Jerusalem, where death will be no more. Just as there was a loud voice at Lazarus’ tomb, there is another one here! From the throne, the Lord Jesus uses a loud voice to say, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will be with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

Here we are promised that God dwells with mortals – that is to say, with people who die! Here we are promised a future where every tear will be wiped away at last, a future where death will be no more. We are promised a new Jerusalem where grief and sorrow are gone forever and we will bask in the presence of Christ and all whom he has called to himself.

“See, I am making all things new,” Jesus says. Also, he says: “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Remember how he told Martha to trust him? Now he is saying the same thing to you. “Trust me!” he says. “Trust these words, for they are trustworthy and true!” “Trust me, and you will see the glory of God!”

Death stinks, but it isn’t quite as pungent when we hear and trust in these words, these promises.

Death stinks, but there is a savior who is not repelled by it, a savior who enters into it with a word that has the power to call us into life with him. He comes with a voice that cuts through the heaviness. He comes to call us by name. Your name has already been on his lips when he claimed you as his own in Holy Baptism. Your name will be on his lips again when you hear his voice calling you out of death and into the new Jerusalem.

In the meantime, he speaks to you now to begin to wipe those tears away, bringing you healing, hope, and peace. He comes to you now to fill those aching absences with his loving presence. He gives you his word today so that you would believe, and in believing, you would see the glory of God.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for Reformation Sunday – October 27, 2024

by Jeffrey Spencer | Oct 28, 2024 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for October 27

Sermon for Reformation Sunday – October 27, 2024

Romans 3:19-28, John 8:31-36

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you want to understand what Reformation Sunday is all about, you only need to look at how Martin Luther has been depicted over the centuries. In Lucas Cranach’s Weimar Altarpiece, which was created just a couple of years after Luther’s death, he is depicted pointing to scripture. In the many statues which have popped up over the centuries since, Luther is almost always pointing to scripture. You can find German nutcrackers of Martin Luther, and he is usually either holding a Bible or pointing to scripture. And then there is my Martin Luther bobblehead, which has him…you guessed it – pointing to scripture.

We celebrate Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday in October because it was on All Hallow’s Eve – October 31, 1517 – that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, which is widely regarded as the spark which started the fire of the Reformation. This is fine as far as it goes, as long as we understand what Luther’s purpose was in posting that document. Luther was not filing for divorce from the Catholic church. He was not quitting the Roman church to start something new. Neither was Luther suggesting some radical new ideas he thought the church should adopt. With these theses, Luther was calling the church back to the Bible. After centuries of drifting away from it, Luther was calling the church back to the Word of God. Luther was calling the church back to the treasures he himself had found in the scriptures.

Luther was not a separatist. Some have said that Reformation Sunday feels to them like one of those grossly inappropriate divorce parties people sometimes have when their divorce is final. They’ve said it feels like we’re celebrating a break-up, the fracturing of the Christian church. I get that to a point, but Luther didn’t leave the church. He was kicked out! He didn’t intend to cause a split. He was excommunicated! And so on Reformation Sunday we are not celebrating a break-up or the forming of new denomination.

Neither was Luther an innovator. He wasn’t inventing anything new, as the radical reformers of the past or progressive theologians of the present are want to do.

Luther was neither a separatist nor an innovator. He was more like an archaeologist. Martin Luther was the theological equivalent of Indiana Jones. At great personal risk to his health and safety, Luther excavated the scriptures to recover the true treasure of the church which had been hidden, or lost, or stolen, or forgotten. In thesis number sixty-two Luther wrote, “The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.” Luther worked to recover this treasure so it could be put on public display for everyone to enjoy!

He did this by delving deeply into the Bible. He did it by sweeping away the cobwebs and the dust the church had let accumulate, and by dodging the boobytraps and the poison arrows certain church leaders would soon shoot at him. He did it by bringing the Word of God out of the darkness in which it had been hidden and out into the light. As Luther himself said later in his life as he reflected on the Reformation, “I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing.  And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philipp and Amsdorf…. the Word did everything.”

Martin Luther was only doing what our Lord Jesus calls all of us to do in the gospel reading for Reformation Sunday. “If you continue in my word,” Jesus says to us, “you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” To be a disciple of Jesus is to continue in his word. It is to be a student of the Bible. It is to gladly hear and learn from the scriptures, holding them as authoritative, as the very word of God.

Scripture is the written word of God, but God doesn’t only give this word to us in book form. God also speaks his word to us as it is preached and proclaimed. God attaches his word to water in Holy Baptism, pouring his grace over us, joining us to Jesus and his saving work. God feeds us his word to us by putting it in bread and wine, the very body and blood of Christ, which we can taste and savor as we are renewed in his forgiveness. These are the treasures of forgiveness, life, and salvation given to us through Jesus Christ! These are the treasures that are to be on display in the church for all to see. These are the treasures that belong to God’s people, the treasures we are called to share with the world. These are the treasures that make people truly free – free from sin, free for a life with God.

Jesus exhorts us to continue in his word because he knows how easy it is for this word to be hidden, or lost, or stolen, or forgotten. This word is sometimes hidden by the church when it starts to focus on other things, particularly when it seeks prestige or popularity or power. It gets lost when the church gets its priorities mixed up, putting the cart before the horse. The word gets stolen when those called to deliver the goods of the gospel instead use their platform to tell you how to become righteous through your works – works which usually bear a striking resemblance to their own projects or agendas.

There has been a buzz on social media in these last frenzied days before the election where some have said, “If your pastor isn’t telling you how to vote in this election, they are cowards.” I don’t actually engage in these debates online, but if I did my response would be that any pastor who sets aside the gospel in order peddle influence or steer people’s votes one way or another is worse than a coward. They have abandoned their post, abused their office, and betrayed Christ.

But it isn’t just church leaders. This word is forgotten when all of us as God’s people forget what the real problem is. The real problem, as St. Paul puts it in our reading from Romans, is that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” I did a word study on the Greek word for all here, and it means ALL! All of us are in the same boat! None of us are righteous before God, and no amount of virtue signaling or moral preening can change this fact! The real problem, as Jesus puts it in our gospel reading, is that we are all slaves to sin.

We admit this just about every Sunday when we confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves, but we seem to have a touch of spiritual amnesia from time to time. We are constantly forgetting the real problem! We are like those in the gospel reading who thought they were fine, who thought they didn’t need any help, who thought they didn’t need saving, that they didn’t need to be set free. “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone!” they said. Oh really? What about the time they were slaves to the Egyptians, or the Assyrians, or the Babylonians? Or how about the fact that they were arguably currently living as slaves to the Romans? The human capacity for self-deception, for self-justification, for self-righteousness is deep and pervasive – and we are all guilty of it.

God’s word tells us the truth about us. It relentlessly reminds us of the real problem, which is our bondage to sin. But that’s not the real treasure it contains. The accusation of the law is important. It is indeed God’s word to us. But it isn’t God’s last word, and so it is not the real treasure. The real treasure is the Good News of what God has done for us in Christ. As St. Paul writes in our second reading:

“…since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.”

This is the real treasure. We who have fallen short of the glory of God have been justified – brought into right relationship – by his grace as a gift. We have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. This is effective through faith, through trust in Christ’s work – not ours.

The real treasure is that the Son has made us free. He has freed us from our bondage to sin. He has freed us from our past regrets and our current brokenness. He has freed us from our fear, from our guilt and our shame and our anxious striving. He has freed us for a new life with him, a life steeped in forgiveness and the mercy of God. He has freed us for a life filled with peace and hope. He has freed us for a future with him that will have no end, a future where we will be freed at last from all suffering and from every lingering sin or struggle.

“If you continue in my word,” Jesus says, “you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” That’s the treasure. “If the Son makes you free,” Jesus promises, “you will be free indeed.” That’s the treasure.

Today we commemorate the posting of the 95 Theses, which sparked the Reformation. Today we give thanks for Martin Luther, the theological Indiana Jones who at great personal risk spelunked into the scriptures to bring back to us these treasures to put on display for all of us to enjoy. Above all, today we celebrate the true treasure of the church that is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God, which is given to you today through scripture, speech, and sacrament, so that you would be free indeed.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost – October 20, 2024

by Jeffrey Spencer | Oct 22, 2024 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for October 20

Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost – October 20, 2024

Mark 10:35-45

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I once went on a quest to discover the roots of my last name. The name “Spencer” has a long history in England, where it originated, and there are some prominent Spencers in British history, so I had high hopes. Perhaps there was some long-lost connection to nobility. Perhaps I was in the blood line of some prominent figure. One of our church members was recently visiting Westminster Abbey, where some of the most exalted figures from England’s past are buried, and he found a pin emblazoned with the Spencer name and the Spencer Coat of Arms in the gift shop, which he brought back for me. The Spencer line is established enough that it has its own Coat of Arms, represented at Westminster Abbey! While it turns out that I don’t appear to be related to any of them, but there are some significant Spencers sprinkled throughout British history.

However, if you go back far enough, if you research the origins of the name, it is not associated with nobility. It does not suggest prominence. In fact, the name means “someone who waits tables.” You see, many English surnames are based on occupations. The Millers were the family who milled flour. The Bakers were the family who baked bread. Well, the Spencers were the family who dispensed things for others. They were, at least originally, the waiters and waitresses in the houses of the nobility. They were servants.

I have to admit I was a little disappointed by this. But then I thought better of it. I thought what better last name for a pastor to have then Spencer! After all, I wait tables for Jesus, don’t I? I wait tables for the King! A pastor’s job is to dispense the gifts of Christ, given in Word and Sacrament. I’m like a Pez dispenser. I lift my head, and the gospel is supposed to come out! This is what it means to be a servant of God’s Word!

I went searching for nobility in the origins of my last name, and I found something better – at least from a biblical perspective. I went searching for prominence and found servanthood instead.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, went looking for nobility too. In our gospel reading for today we hear them approach Jesus with an audacious request. “Grant us to sit,” they said, “one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

This wasn’t merely a request for a good seat in the Kingdom of God. They weren’t merely asking for a comfy chair up front with a good view. They were looking for positions of nobility. They wanted positions of prominence. The seats they were asking for were a reference to the seating chart in a royal court. To sit at the right or the left of a great earthly king or leader was a privilege reserved for nobility. That’s what James and John were looking for! What they found instead, however, was a call to servanthood.

“You do not know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” Jesus was referring to his impending suffering and death. He was using common Hebrew euphemisms, or ways of speaking, to describe the overwhelming affliction he would soon face.

You see, Jesus was now on his way to Jerusalem. The throne he would soon occupy would be a cross, where he would give himself up for a sinful humanity. Jesus’ kingdom wouldn’t be about nobility or prominence or power – at least not in the way the world understands those things. Instead, it would be about humbling oneself. It would be about sacrifice. It would be about suffering for the sake of others. It would be about servanthood.

When the other disciples learned that James and John had been trying to jockey themselves into positions of nobility and prominence in Jesus’ kingdom, they got angry! Jesus saw this as a perfect teaching moment. He called them together and explained to them what his kingdom was all about. “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them,” he said. “But it is not so among you; whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus provides an example of what true greatness, true nobility, looks like in his kingdom, and it is not a matter of elbowing your way into a position of prominence or power.

Jesus’ kingdom isn’t like any earthly kingdom. It isn’t like the monarchies of the ancient world. It isn’t like the feudal system of medieval England. It isn’t like the meritocracy of our own time and place. Greatness in Jesus’ kingdom comes through servanthood. “Whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all,” Jesus said.

Jesus calls us to servanthood. He calls us to humble ourselves and to live lives of sacrificial service to others. This servanthood can be expressed in many different ways. It can be practiced in ways big and small. We can be servants to the people around us, caring for them in their time of need. We can be servants to our spouses, to our children, to our families – not seeing them merely as a means to our own happiness, but as people God has given us to serve.

We can be servants in our workplaces, whether that’s milling, or baking, or waiting tables, whether that’s teaching or driving a bus or stocking shelves or maintaining airplanes or homemaking. We can bring a servant’s heart to any number of tasks, whether they are in positions of prominence or in things the world sees as lowly. When it is done in faith and with love, our work – whether paid or unpaid – become an expression of discipleship.

We can be servants to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ here in the church, treating each other with humility and honor and love in spite of our differences. We can be servants of the church, and not just consumers of its goods and services. A paraphrase of JFK might be appropriate here: “Ask not what your church can do for you, but what you can do for your church.”

Jesus is our example in all of this. “For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.”

But Jesus is much more than just our example. Before we see him as our example, we must first receive him as our savior. Before we can be his sacrificial servants, we must first grasp his great sacrifice for us.

As Isaiah prophesied in our first reading, “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”

As Jesus himself said, he came “to give his life as a ransom for many.”

We are imperfect servants, to be sure. But through his sacrifice for us, Jesus has made us part of his noble blood line. Jesus donned the crown of thorns and assumed the throne of his cross, so that we would have complete forgiveness for all our failures as servants. He was raised for us so that we might rise again daily by his grace to walk in newness of life, serving him by serving those around us.

The only human being born of true nobility made himself a servant, humbling himself on the cross so that we could be part of his kingdom forever. He gives us all his name as we are called Christians. Through baptism he adopts us into his holy family, marking us all with his Coat of Arms and making us children of God. He continues to join himself to us through his sacrifice, putting his own precious blood in us, that we would be his own.

Our Lord Jesus continues to serve us with the gift of himself.

And so we willingly and joyfully live in service to him.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church