by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 31, 2025 | Sermons |
CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 30
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent – March 30, 2025
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we hear what is likely Jesus’ most famous and most beloved of all his parables. But our gospel reading for today begins with an important bit of context. St. Luke prefaces the parable with an important bit of information. He writes: “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he told them this parable.”
Jesus actually goes on to tell three parables, all with the same theme. Jesus tells the parable of the lost coin. Then he tells the parable of the lost sheep. And then, finally, he tells the parable we hear today. We only hear the third parable, which is why we jump from verse three to verse eleven. And the context in which Jesus is speaking is especially important for understanding this third parable.
Jesus tells these parables with two groups there listening to him. These two groups could not be more different from each other. On the one side you have a group of tax collectors and other assorted sinners. This group was comprised of people who were widely despised for their sin. Their sins were public, obvious, easy to see.
The tax collectors were despised because, well, because they were tax collectors. I mean, that’s pretty obvious, right? It is tax season, after all. As necessary as it surely is for a functioning government, I don’t know anyone who would list the IRS as their favorite government agency. In ancient Israel this was made far worse by the fact that tax collectors worked on commission, that is, they kept for themselves whatever they were able to gouge out of people beyond what was required, and they were working for their Roman oppressors while doing so. So they were widely reviled not only as aggressive bill collectors, but as betrayers of their people and betrayers of their God.
Along with the tax collectors were other assorted sinners. These were those who had wandered away from God and squandered their holy heritage with dissolute living – chasing their every appetite, abusing God’s gifts for their own selfish pleasures, living by their own rules, ignoring God’s commandments, spending their weekends committing idolatry and adultery, wallowing in their own bad decisions.
This first group, the tax collectors and other assorted sinners, had been coming to listen to Jesus – and Jesus welcomed them! Jesus had even been breaking bread with them. Jesus had been enjoying little dinner parties with them.
The second group was comprised of the Pharisees and the scribes. This second group was the mirror opposite of the first group. While the first group was publicly reviled, the second group enjoyed great public respect. These were the good people, the respectable people. They were careful followers of God’s law. They were obedient to God’s commandments. They were Israel’s most loyal sons. And so of course they raised their eyebrows when they saw Jesus eating with these rank sinners. Of course they objected to someone who came preaching and teaching in the name of God sitting down and breaking bread with them. Of course they looked down their noses and grumbled at the whole thing.
Jesus tells this parable in response to this dynamic. Jesus is masterfully addressing both of these groups with it. Jesus is explaining what these little dinner parties with sinners are all about, while also inviting the Pharisees and the scribes to quit grumbling and take their place at the table.
Jesus begins by saying there was a man who had two sons. Note that right from the beginning this is a parable about two sons! The first son asks for his inheritance ahead of time. This was a great insult to the father in that culture, but the father gives it to him and the son promptly leaves home and goes to a far-off country called Las Vegas. He goes to a far-off country known as Amsterdam’s red-light district. In this far-off country he blows through all the inheritance money, spending it on vice, and debauchery, and immorality of every kind – which is precisely what “dissolute living” means. He hits rock bottom. He ends up flat broke. In his desperation he takes a low-paying job at a Gentile pig farm, where he ends up so hungry that the pig’s food starts to look good to him. He finally comes to his senses and returns home, hoping at least to get hired on as one of his father’s hired hands. But when he is still at the end of his father’s long driveway, he sees his father running towards him. Before he can even apologize, his father throws his arms around him. His father kisses him. His father calls for his son to be clothed in a new robe and to have the family ring put on his finger. Then he tells his servants to prepare the fatted calf. It was time to barbecue! It was time to celebrate! For this son of his who was dead was alive again, he was lost but had been found.
This first part of the parable describes what was going on with the first group, with the tax collectors and other assorted sinners. By listening to Jesus, those sinners were coming to their senses! In him, they had found their way back home to God. Jesus wasn’t endorsing their sin by eating with them. The son in the parable doesn’t bring whiskey and dancing girls back home to dad. These sinners had repented. They had come home, and God was receiving them with open arms! God clothed them in a new robe, giving them a new life. God restored them to the family. God and all his angels celebrated, for these sinner-sons who were dead were alive again. These sinner-sons who were lost had been found. The meal Jesus shared with them both symbolized and celebrated their homecoming.
The story line of the first son takes up most of the parable, but it is not the end of the story! This parable is often called the parable of the prodigal son, but there are TWO sons in the parable, and to ignore the second son is like telling an entire joke only to botch the punchline! This should be called the parable of the lost sons, because there are two sons in the parable, and both of them are lost. One is lost to self-indulgence, and the other is lost to self-righteousness.
When the younger, self-indulgent son comes home, the older son is indignant. He is sanctimonious. He is resentful. When he sees that his father has thrown a party for his brother, he becomes angry and refuses to go in. He feels he deserves more from his father for being the good, loyal son. Here they are butchering a fatted calf, and he never even got a goat to roast for a party!
But the father speaks tenderly to his older son. He acknowledges his faithfulness, his loyalty. He tells his older son that everything he has already belongs to him. All the fatted calfs. All the goats. It is all his and always has been. The father invites his older son to set aside his self-righteousness and to just come in and enjoy the party. You see, he is lost too! He needs to come home too!
This part of the parable is aimed at those Pharisees and scribes. They might enjoy much public respect, but they are sinners too. They might not be self-indulgent, but they are self-righteous. And so they are more like the first group than they want to admit! In fact, Jesus suggests with this parable that they are brothers! Their sins are two sides of the same genetic coin!
As the father of three boys, it is amazing to my wife and I how different our three sons can be. They sprang from the same two parents. They were raised in the same home, in mostly the same way. They share the same blood, the same DNA. But they each have such radically different personalities. For instance, one is an extrovert who will talk to you until you want to sew his mouth shut, while another is so introverted that two complete sentences from him in a conversation is a precious, cherished moment. They are so different, and yet, at the same time, in other ways, they are obviously brothers. They have a lot in common too!
The tax collectors and sinners and the Pharisees and the scribes are all brothers. They are all sons of the same Father. They are radically different in the ways sin presents itself in each of them, but they are all the products of the same turned-in-on-self DNA.
The same is true for us. There are obvious, public, glaring sins that we easily recognize in people – the sins of self-indulgence. These sins are harmful. They need to be repented of. There are behaviors that need to be left behind when coming home.
But there is another way in which sin is manifest, and it is especially rampant among those who consider themselves to be the good people, the respectable people, the correct people. This is the sin of self-righteousness. This sin is expressed in sanctimoniousness – which isn’t just a religious phenomenon. People get sanctimonious about all kinds of things. People look down their noses at others for what they eat or what they wear or what they drive or how they vote. They get sanctimonious about how their ideas and concerns and choices are SO much better than everyone else’s. This is a form of lostness too. It is a form of lostness because it fails to see that everything we have and everything we are is given to us through the graciousness of the Father. It is a form of lostness because it fails to see how we all fall short of the glory of God and are all equally and utterly dependent on God’s grace.
The son you might identify with can vary from day to day. We’ve all been both of them at different times. But no matter which son you might identify with today, the invitation offered in this parable is the same. The invitation for all of us always is simply to come home. We are invited to leave our self-indulgence AND our self-righteousness behind and come into the forgiving embrace of our loving Father. This Father clothes us in a new life. By his grace he restores us to the status of family. In his joy, he throws a celebration to which both kinds of sons and daughters are invited. We are all brothers and sisters, after all. And our gracious Heavenly Father wants nothing more than for all of us to enjoy the feast together.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 26, 2025 | Sermons |
CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 23
Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent – March 23, 2025
Luke 13:1-9
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wouldn’t it be great to know what Jesus thinks about current events, about all the things happening in our world today? Wouldn’t you love to get Jesus’ hot take on the latest news? Wouldn’t it be interesting to have our Lord give color commentary on the most recent terrible thing that happened? Maybe he could get his own show on one of the cable news channels, or his own Twitter account where he could post his thoughts.
There are many who claim to know what Jesus thinks about this or that. Oh, they are quite sure the Lord is on their side. There are some who turn to preachers to give them these hot takes, and there are no shortage of preachers who are happy to do so. The trouble is, these people who claim to know exactly what Jesus thinks about the latest current event often contradict each other. These takes are often just thinly veiled political ideologies from one side of the aisle or the other, so how do we know which side is correct?
Well, today we actually get to hear Jesus respond to the news. They aren’t current events, of course, but today we hear how Jesus responded to the breaking news stories of his time.
Some people came to Jesus with a situation which was deeply troubling. This was breaking news. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate had massacred some Galileans and then went on to mock their religious practices by mingling the blood he had spilled with the blood of the sacrifices they had offered to God in worship. It was a horrible act of violence and desecration. It was the kind of story that got people’s attention. This news traveled fast. It was a story that shook people up.
And as people often do, they gave their hot takes. People were trying to make sense of the evil Pilate had done. Jesus, perhaps hearing the chatter in the crowds about this horrible story, understood that some people believed these Galileans had actually brought this on themselves. They must have done something. Maybe they provoked Pilate. Maybe they even provoked God somehow!
Jesus soundly and swiftly rejects this kind of thinking. “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” Jesus pointedly asked. “No, I tell you!”
And then Jesus turned their eyes from the headline to their own hearts. “But unless you repent,” Jesus said, “you will all perish as they did.”
Jesus then brought up a different news story. “You know those eighteen people who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think they were worse offenders than everyone else in Jerusalem? No, I tell you.”
And then Jesus did it again. He turned their attention from the headlines to their hearts. “But unless you repent,” he said, “you will all perish as they did.”
What is going on here? What does Jesus mean by this, and what does it mean for us?
Whether the latest tragedy in the headlines is due to wickedness or a freak accident, Jesus encourages us to respond in the same way. He calls us to repent. He calls us to turn our attention from the headlines to our hearts.
There is certainly a place for analyzing why bad things happen in order to stop them or prevent them from continuing. Sometimes it is indeed bad people or bad choices that bring on bad consequences – St. Paul has something to say about that in our second reading for today. It is also worth noting that Jesus makes it clear that victims of violence or accidents – then or now – are not being punished by God. And none of this suggests we should all just put our heads in the sand and ignore the world around us.
But Jesus points to these unsettling new stories as opportunities for us to not only look outward, but to look inward. They should prompt us not just to look at who we can blame, he says, but to take a close look at our own lives. They should prompt us to repent.
To repent is to turn back to God. Whenever we see a news story that reminds us of the wickedness and evil of this world, it should drive us to God. Whenever we see a news story that reminds us of our mortality, our human frailty, it should move our hearts to repentance, to taking stock of our lives and recommitting ourselves to living lives of faith in God and love for one another.
This leads us to the second part of our reading for today, the little parable Jesus tells. Jesus tells the story of a man who had a fig tree in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit and found none. He was ready to cut it down, but the gardener pleaded for a little more time. “Let me put some manure on it. If it bears fruit, well and good. If not, you can cut it down.”
At first glance it is an odd juxtaposition – having these brutal news stories alongside this quaint parable about gardening. But what Jesus is saying here is that we have something that the victims in the latest news do not. We have time. We have life yet in us. We’re still here. And Jesus is the gardener who has come along to coax some fruit out of us while we are here. What’s more, Jesus is going to use manure to grow that fruit.
St. Augustine taught that the manure in this parable represents the sinner’s sorrows. He wrote that “the basket of dung is filthy, but it produces fruit.” I think this interpretive move by Augustine is the key to connecting the parable to those horrific news stories. Our Lord Jesus, the gracious gardener, is using the sorrows of life to draw us to himself. He is using the manure we see or smell or step in to help us become more deeply rooted in him. Christ Jesus, the savior of the vineyard, is using the filthy parts of life in this broken world to grow fruit in us, the fruits of repentance.
This is how God often works in the Bible. When Joseph’s brothers sold him off, God used that stinky move to save all of them from famine. “What you intended for evil,” Joseph would eventually tell his brothers, “God used for good.” When the Assyrians and then the Babylonians invaded and conquered Israel, God used those bloody situations to call his people back to the covenant. When the early church was violently persecuted, God used the dispersion it caused to spread the gospel out from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. In each of these cases God used the wicked and evil dung scattered around by human beings to a greater purpose: to draw people to himself, to root people in him, and to grow the fruit he desires, the fruits of faith.
The best example of this, of course, is found in the cross. What Pilate did to those worshippers, spilling their blood and mingling it with their sacrifices, desecrating God’s beloved children, was a foreshadowing of the desecration Pilate presided over in the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. And as wicked and evil as this certainly was, God brought life out of it! God used it as the very means of our salvation!
We don’t come to worship to look at headlines, we come to look at our hearts. We don’t come to worship to look at who we can blame, we come to look in the mirror. We don’t come to merely to rally, but to repent. We don’t come to worship to get a hot take on the news, we come to hear the Good News.
And the Good News is that even amidst the horrific events that make us afraid or angry or quick to blame, the patient gardener of our souls is still at work in us turning fertilizer into faith, turning manure into good fruit, turning all the world’s excrement into the first blossoms of hope.
The Good News is that on the fig tree of his cross, our Lord Jesus stretched his arms out over every bloody headline the world has or ever will see, taking it upon himself. The cross is God’s commentary on every human tragedy, telling us that there is no story or situation which is beyond his redeeming love.
The Good News is that after enduring the cross, where his own sacrificial blood was spilled, after experiencing his own brutal death, Jesus rose again. Pilate did not have the last word. Evil did not have the last word. Sin and death did not have the last word.
The Good News is that none of the violence or tragedies we see in the news today will have the last word either – for the most important headline of all is that Christ is risen, and that’s the headline we need to focus on the most.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 18, 2025 | Sermons |
CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 16
Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent – March 16, 2025
Luke 13:31-35
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is very difficult to help someone who does not want to receive help. Many of you know how frustrating this can be, painful even. I’ve sat with family members of alcoholics who have offered their loved ones every opportunity to get help, but they are not willing. I’ve talked with parents who desperately want to help their wayward children, but they are not willing. I’ve had conversations with elderly people who still live alone and need more help than they are willing to admit, help that is available, but they are not willing. I know one of the greatest disappointments of our Stephen Ministry leaders is that we have all these Stephen Ministers trained and available to walk with people through any kind of difficulty, but when people who are experiencing those difficulties have been identified and invited to receive their care, they are not willing. Our male Stephen Ministers in particular often sit without care receivers for long periods of time, because even though there are men in need of their care, they are not willing.
My wife and I have some dear friends. We’ve known this couple for almost 30 years. They are from Washington state, but we met in Minnesota, where we started seminary together. Although ministry has taken us to different parts of the country at times, we’ve stayed in touch. We’ve stayed close.
Ministry can be hard on marriages. There are particular challenges and strains that are unique to this calling. They tell us this at the beginning of our seminary education. In fact, Luther Seminary offered marriage care groups to start to get us in the habit of being intentional about caring for our marriages. We invited these friends to come with us, but they were not willing. Years later Amy and I went to a Lutheran Marriage Encounter weekend. We raved about it, and encouraged these friends to go, but they were not willing. Over the years there were times when we saw fissures start to show up in their marriage, little cracks that emerged. When Amy and I went through training and wrote our talks and started leading Marriage Encounter weekends ourselves, we encouraged them to come. They are free for pastors and their spouses! “You’ll at least know us,” I told them. But they were not willing.
Just a couple of weeks ago these dear friends signed divorce papers, ending almost forty years of marriage. I could kind of see it coming, but it still hit me hard. When I told Amy, I couldn’t get the words out without getting choked up. I was not only sad but frustrated. There was an anger even, an anger rooted in love for them. We could have helped you! But you were not willing!
I know this feeling. So do many of you. And Jesus knows it too. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
There is a long history behind these words. Jesus was talking to God’s chosen people. God had delivered them out of slavery in Egypt. God fed them in the wilderness. God brought them into the Promised Land. And again and again, they rejected God. They thought they were doing just fine, that they could get by on their own. God sent prophets to them over and over again, offering his help, calling them back, offering to restore them to life and holiness and right relationship. But they were not willing. Again and again God’s prophets, God’s lifelines of help, were rejected, killed even, because the people were not willing to receive this help.
Along came Jesus, the long-promised Messiah, and now they were doing it again. Jesus expressed his frustration with them, his anger even – an anger rooted in love. His only desire was to gather them together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. He only wanted to help them – but they were not willing.
A few chapters later in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus weeps for Jerusalem. There is a chapel which was built on the spot where Jesus wept. It is called Dominus Flevit, which is Latin for “The Lord wept.” It was built in the shape of a teardrop, and the big windows behind the altar look out over Jerusalem. There is a mosaic in this chapel too. The mosaic at the base of the altar depicts a mother hen with her wings spread out in defense of her chicks.
This is how a mother hen saves her chicks. She saves them by putting herself between them and the threat, by shielding them from danger with her own body. She will do this even if it means she herself will die. It isn’t uncommon to find a chicken coop which has been attacked by racoons or coyotes or foxes and to find the mother hens torn to shreds while the baby chicks are safe inside.
This is how Jesus ultimately saves us too. In our gospel reading for today we hear Jesus refer to what is about to unfold in Jerusalem. When the Pharisees told Jesus to get out of there, warning him that Herod was out to get him, Jesus said, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.’” Jesus then refers to his triumphal entry, saying they won’t see him again until everyone is shouting, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” These are the shouts of acclamation which will so quickly turn into calls to crucify him.
What lies just ahead is a showdown between the fox and the hen. Jesus will soon hand himself over to the powers of sin and death. Jesus will place himself between the enemy and his beloved chicks. Everyone knows how this story plays out. The hen always gets destroyed by the fox. She bears the fangs and the claws in her body to spare theirs. She dies for her chicks. But in the showdown between this fox and this hen, there is a surprise ending. On the third day, Jesus finishes his work by rising from the dead.
Do you need help? Are there parts of your life you are still refusing to let God help you with? Are there troubles you think you can handle on your own? Are there sins you are unwilling to confess? Are there behaviors you are unwilling to let him help you change? Are there wounds you are unwilling to let him heal, a grudge you continue to nurse, a mistake you won’t let him forgive, a fear you are unable to hand over to him?
Our Lord Jesus wants nothing more than to help you. Our Lord Jesus wants nothing more than to gather you under the shelter of his wings. Are there ways in which you are not willing?
Lent is a season of self-examination and repentance. It is a season in which we are invited to take a long hard look at our lives and to “change our minds” and “change our direction,” which is what the word repentance means. And so I invite you today to think about the ways in which you might be spurning the help God wants to give you.
In Jerusalem, Jesus threw himself into the jaws of the fox. He allowed himself to be chewed up in a brutal crucifixion. He died on the cross, giving up his life in order to save us, his brood.
On the third day he finished his work. He rose again, leaving an empty grave behind. And now his resurrected wings are spread over us, where they eternally protect us from sin and death and every evil.
So take your place under his wings. His help is continually offered to you. This help comes first and foremost through Word and Sacrament, where he graciously and continuously forgives sins and gives us new life. This help comes through the presence of his Holy Spirit, which leads us into lives that are holy and pleasing to God and offers mercy and whenever we stumble, helping us back up.
This help also comes through the wider ministry of the church, which offers guidance through Bible study, care through Stephen Ministers, pastoral counseling through pastors, grief care through compassionate experts like Pastor Laurie, and all kinds of other resources for help in times of need.
The strong wings of the risen Christ are spread wide, that you might find shelter under them. It is under those wings that he will protect you. It is under those wings that he offers forgiveness, life, and salvation. It is under those wings that he offers his help to every part of your life that needs it.
He spreads those healing, helpful, holy wings out for you today. Are you willing?
He is still gathering, still calling, still inviting, still forgiving, still defending his brood. He stands between you and every enemy with his wings stretched wide, saying, “If you want to get to them, you have to go through me.”
It is safe behind those wings. So let him gather you. Let him draw you to himself. Let him help.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 10, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 9
Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent – March 9, 2025
Luke 4:1-13
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
In our adult Bible study recently we talked about the Christian life as a battle. The conversation arose out of our looking at St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, specifically in chapter 6 where he writes: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Paul then goes on to describe what the armor of God is: It is the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness and shield of faith and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. These are spiritual weapons for a spiritual battle.
On the one hand, this sounds utterly foreign to many people. To think of life as a spiritual battle sounds like something from medieval times or out of a fantasy novel. To talk about “standing against the wiles of the devil,” as Paul says, sounds a little too woo-woo for some. As children of the Enlightenment, rationalism has shaped our minds in powerful ways. It has made us quick to dismiss spiritual realities, particularly the reality of the devil. The devil prefers it this way, you know. As C.S. Lewis once quipped, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.”
Many of us, then, are predisposed to dismiss the whole idea of spiritual warfare. But when I started to describe this spiritual battle in our Bible study as a struggle between belief and unbelief, between hope and despair, between fear and trust, between obeying our appetites and obeying God, between living by faith or grasping for control, well, then heads started nodding around the room. When you start to talk about the devil in the way the Bible describes him – not as a little man in a red leotard with a pitchfork, but as an accuser, as a deceiver, as a tempter – well, then the devil becomes an enemy that people start to recognize. This is a battle people are familiar with. This is a battle you are in. We all are, whether we realize it or not.
St. Paul encourages us to put on the whole armor of God for this battle, and in our gospel reading for today Jesus teaches us how to use this armor.
Jesus was let by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he engaged in spiritual hand-to-hand combat with the devil. This was like a spiritual karate match in the desert, with Jesus deflecting every blow.
The first attack the devil attempted was to exploit Jesus’ hunger. After forty days of fasting in the wilderness, St. Luke tells us, Jesus was famished. And with his appetite raging, he was vulnerable. You’ve probably heard that it is a bad idea to go grocery shopping when you’re hungry? Well, the devil knows this too! Our appetites have a way of lowering our defenses, lowering our inhibitions, weakening our resolve. You can bet that the enemy will attack us at this same point, at our appetites – both physical and emotional. The devil will exploit the hunger in our bodies and the feelings in our hearts in order to lead us astray.
While his stomach was in knots, writhing with hunger, the devil tempted Jesus to command a stone to become a loaf of bread. There was nothing inherently wrong with this. Jesus would miraculously provide bread on other occasions in his ministry. But Jesus would not obey his appetite when that meant obeying the devil. And so Jesus deflected this attack by quoting from scripture. He quoted from Deuteronomy 8:3, saying, “One does not live on bread alone.” Jesus stops there, just referencing the first half of the sentence, but the rest of the verse is implied, and is just as important. The complete sentence is: “One does not live on bread alone, but from every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
We all have hungers and we all have feelings. But neither of these define what is true. Neither define what is good for us, necessarily. We must obey God rather than our appetites. Our appetites need to be kept in check by the Word of God.
The next attack was to tempt Jesus with an easy route to having authority over all the kingdoms of the earth. All Jesus had to do was worship the devil. All he had to do was bend the knee. This was a sneaky move. Both the devil and Jesus knew perfectly well that Jesus already had authority over all of these kingdoms, over all of creation itself. After all, he was the Son of God! What the devil was offering here was an easy route to establishing that authority. Touching his knee to the ground would have been a whole lot easier than dying for the sin of the world. Bowing before the devil would have been so much easier than going to the cross. This could be the shortcut to glory by which Jesus could avoid all of that nasty business awaiting him in Jerusalem, and Gethsemane, and Golgotha.
You can be sure the devil will try this tactic on us too, laying before us what looks like an easier way of doing things, trying to lure us away from God by showing us another path – the path of least resistance. The devil tries to promise us glory without a cross. Just as the legendary blues man Robert Johnson was said to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for worldly glory, we too can be convinced to take short cuts in our lives in order to avoid doing the hard thing. We will abandon people rather than doing the harder thing of seeking reconciliation. We will let ourselves be conformed to the world rather than transformed by the will of God. We will bow the knee to our own personal causes and comforts and conveniences rather than making the sacrifices we need to make in order to be faithful to God. It is all so very, very tempting!
Jesus shows us how to deflect this attack. He did so by turning once again to God’s Word. Jesus again cites the book of Deuteronomy, saying, “It is written: Worship the Lord our God, and serve only him.” This is a reference to the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods.” We deflect this attack by keeping this commandment front and center in our lives. We repel this attack by always putting God first, worshipping and serving only him, even when it is hard.
The third attack was to tempt Jesus to prove God’s faithfulness by throwing himself off the pinnacle of the Temple in order to let God’s angels rescue him. The devil’s tactic here was to demand evidence that God’s promises were true. The devil tried to lure Jesus into calling God’s bluff rather than trusting God’s promise.
This is perhaps the most sinister tactic of all, because the devil uses scripture for his own evil purposes. Perhaps he is learning how Jesus fights and is trying to use Jesus’ moves against him. The devil quotes from Psalm 91, where it says that God will not let one’s foot be dashed against a stone. The devil quotes this passage to Jesus and says, “Well? Prove it!” And Jesus fought back with a counterpoint verse, again from Deuteronomy, saying: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
As Christians we live by faith, not by sight. The evil one tries to lure us away from God by making us think we should be able to prove that God’s promises are true with hard evidence. Sometimes we do have evidence in the form of an answered prayer, an unexplained healing, or a life dramatically transformed. But sometimes we don’t! And when we base our faith in God on proof, on evidence, we’re not really living by faith anymore! Living by faith means trusting in God even when you’ve fallen and are hurting. Living by faith means trusting in God’s salvation when all you see around you is suffering and sin. Living by faith means trusting God’s promises rather than asking God to prove them. When this tactic is used on us by the enemy, we can deflect it by trusting God rather that testing him.
We have learned some moves from Jesus’ duel with the devil. We’ve learned some techniques as we engage in this spiritual battle that is the Christian life. We’ve learned to not live by our appetites, but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God. We’ve learned to take the path of the cross rather than the path of least resistance. We’ve learned to live by promises and not by proofs. These are all important moves for us to learn as we wage this battle. But Jesus is so much more than our sensei. He is so much more than a spiritual karate instructor.
During the Lenten season we use a different prayer after communion. In this prayer we pray, “Almighty God, you gave your Son both as a sacrifice for sin and a model of the godly life.” Jesus is a model of the godly life, to be sure, and so he has some moves to teach us. But even more importantly, Jesus was given as a sacrifice for our sin. Jesus is more than a sensei; he is our savior. Jesus went into the wilderness for us, a place of utter desolation. Jesus experienced excruciating hunger for us, going without food for forty days. Jesus did battle with the devil, winning every round for us. This was all a great sacrifice for us, and it foreshadows the greater sacrifice he would make for us on the cross. It was there on the cross that the devil found his next opportune time, and came at Jesus again saying, “If you are the Son of God, save yourself! Come down from the cross!” But Jesus didn’t come down. And it was in Christ’s sacrifice for us on that cross that the devil was finally defeated.
We still have a battle to fight, there are still these spiritual skirmishes over our souls, but the war has ultimately already been won by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, who promises to share his victory with us when his kingdom comes in all its fullness. In the meantime, as we sing in “A Mighty Fortress,” Martin Luther’s great battle hymn of the Christian church: “God’s Word forever shall abide, no thanks to those who fear it; for God himself fights by our side, with weapons of the Spirit.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 3, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 2
Sermon for Transfiguration of our Lord Sunday – March 2, 2025
Luke 9:28-36
It is clear that Peter, James, and John experienced something spectacular up on Mount Horeb. It was truly a mountaintop experience for them. They saw Jesus transform before their very eyes. They saw him transfigured. Jesus’ face changed and his clothes became dazzling white. The divinity of Christ, which had been veiled in his flesh, was now, for a moment, shining through. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, Moses, who had been dead for a thousand years, was there! Elijah, who had been mysteriously taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire hundreds of years prior, was there too! Talk about a cameo appearance! You can hardly blame Peter for wanting to enshrine it all with a building project. It was clearly a spectacular experience for them.
What might not be so clear is what it means for us.
To help us understand the significance of this event for us, I’d like to use a baseball metaphor. After all, Major League pitchers and catchers have now reported. Spring training is under way. College baseball is in full swing. And now that baseball is being played again at last, there is a scene that will play itself out in ballparks all across the country. Once the starting pitcher has done his job, hopefully getting his team into late innings, a new pitcher called a reliever will be brought in. This pitcher might pitch for a couple of innings, and then, when the time is right, it is time for the closing pitcher. And at these transition points, there will often be a meeting on the mound – that mountain of elevated dirt in the middle of the diamond, sixty feet, six inches away from home plate. The manager will come out to this mound. Teammates will sometimes come in. There will be a little huddle at this elevated place. At some point the ball will be handed from the outgoing pitcher and handed to the closer. If the team is behind and the closer comes in and wins the game, they call him the saving pitcher.
Now the risk in using a metaphor like this is that the baseball geeks in the congregation will start picking apart the metaphor at all the points where it breaks down, while the non-baseball people will wonder what the heck I’m talking about. But the simple picture I’m trying to paint is this: The meeting on the mound is where the ball is handed from one pitcher to the next, so that the closer can win the game. Each pitcher serves their purpose, but when there’s a deficit on the scoreboard, it is the closer who needs to come up big. It is the closer who becomes the saving pitcher.
What we have on Mount Hermon with the presence of Moses and Elijah and Jesus is a holy huddle on the pitching mound, and the ball is being handed to Jesus to finish the game. The ball is being handed to Jesus to get the win. The ball is being handed to Jesus, who will be the saving pitcher.
Moses had been on this mound before. It was this very mountain, Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai, that Moses had climbed up to receive the Ten Commandments. It was on this very mountain that Moses himself caught a glimpse of God’s backside and came back down with his face glowing for days from the reflected light. Moses brought God’s law to God’s people, so that they would know how God wanted them to live as his covenant people.
Elijah had been on this mound before too. As a prophet, Elijah had spent much of his life calling God’s people back to the law, back to God’s commandments. At great personal risk, Elijah bravely preached against the idolatry rampant among the people. Elijah is the only person in the Bible other than Moses to climb to the top of Mount Horeb for a meeting with God. And it was there, on that very mountain where everyone was now gathered, that amidst a whirlwind and an earthquake and fire, Elijah encountered God in a still, small voice.
Did you know that the very last verses in the Old Testament mention both Moses and Elijah? The prophet Malachi speaks the word of the Lord, saying: “Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at [Mount] Horeb for all Israel. Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.” That’s how the Old Testament ends. It ends with Moses and Mount Horeb and Elijah and the implicit promise of a savior.
Jesus takes Peter and James and John to this very mountain. He takes them there because it is time for a pitching change. He takes them there because it is time for the saving pitcher to come and fulfill this promise.
And when Jesus stepped onto the mound, he didn’t need to shield his eyes from God’s brilliant light. Instead, Jesus shined with that very light from the depths of his being. He didn’t reflect that light, he radiated it! And as Jesus stepped onto the mound, he didn’t listen for God in a still small voice, instead he was the very Word of God! “Listen to him!” God the Father thundered from the cloud above.
It was time for the saving pitcher, who was God’s own Son, God’s chosen. And as Jesus huddled with Moses and Elijah, they discussed how he was going to win. St. Luke tells us they discussed Jesus’ departure, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. The Greek word for departure here is a familiar one. The word is exodus. What gets lost in translation is how St. Luke is being clever here, choosing a word that has a double meaning. One the one hand, the Greek word exodus, or technically exodon, is a euphemism for death. It is where we get the word exit. This word was commonly used as a softer way of referring to our exit from life, kind of like how we often choose more delicate phrases like “passing away.” But of course, when you hear the word exodus, especially when Moses is standing right there, you also can’t help but think about the exodus he was part of as he led God’s people out of slavery, through the wilderness, and into the promised land. The ball was now being handed to Jesus to lead an exodus of his own, only he would lead God’s people out of a deeper slavery. Jesus would deliver people out of their slavery to sin. Jesus would lead people through the wilderness and into the promised land of life with God, both now and forever. And he would accomplish this exodus through his departure. He would accomplish it through his death on the cross, which was about to take place down the mountain in Jerusalem.
Moses had, and has, an important role in God’s playbook. Moses’ time on the mound, on this mountain, gave us the Ten Commandments, which reveal to us God’s eternal will for how he wants us to live. God STILL wants us to live this way! Martin Luther taught that the Ten Commandments should be studied diligently by Christians as the guide for how to live a life that is pleasing to God. He called it the guide for all truly good works. Elijah and all the prophets have an important role too. We hear them calling us again and again back to God’s law. But in the end, by the scoreboard of the Ten Commandments, we always come up short. When it comes to God’s law, we’re always losing.
And so at a certain point on the mound, on the mountain, Moses and Elijah faded away and, St. Luke tells us, there was Jesus alone. There was Christ alone. God sent his Son to that mountain to be the closing pitcher. God sent his Son to fulfill everything Moses and Elijah ultimately stood for, which was for people to be in right relationship with God. God sent his Son to fulfill the implicit promise in the last verses of the Old Testament, that he would bring reconciliation instead of a curse. God sent his Son to get the win and finish the game, delivering his people with one last exodus. And he would do this through his death and resurrection.
Can you see what the Transfiguration means for us? Can you see how it is spectacularly good news for us? It was on this mountain of the transfiguration that the game changed in our favor. God gave the ball to Jesus in order to save you. Seeing how we were down in the count, unable to change the score by our own efforts, by our own strength, God sent Jesus to win salvation for us by his grace. As St. John tells us in his gospel, “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).
“Listen to him,” God tells us.
“It is finished,” Jesus said from the cross. Listen to him. “Peace be with you,” Jesus said when he rose again. Listen to him. Repentance and the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, Jesus said. Listen to him. “This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you, for the forgiveness of your sin,” Jesus said. Listen to him. By his victory over sin and death, Jesus has reconciled you to God and given you a place in the Promised Land forever. Listen to him.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Feb 25, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for February 23
Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany – February 23, 2025
Luke 6:27-38
“Love your enemies,” Jesus says at the beginning of our gospel reading for today. And then, just to make sure we heard it, he says it again in the middle of the reading: “Love your enemies.”
He’s got to be kidding, right? He cannot be serious. Doesn’t he understand how awful my enemies are? He wants me to love them? He must be talking to someone else. Maybe this is addressed that guy or those people – you know, the obviously bad and wrong people. They’re the ones who need to hear this, not me.
Sorry folks. Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” And he is talking to you. We instinctively want to deflect these words or direct them to someone else, because if there’s one thing we love, it’s hating our enemies. People seem to enjoy it, actually. It makes people feel righteous. We see this in social media posts gleefully fanning the flames of division while projecting one’s own virtue. We see it in how eager people are to take offense, and to cast their opponents in the worst possible light. We see it in the way people are so quick to judge and so unwilling to try to understand. We see it in how people love to divide the world into good guys and bad guys. It feels so good to have an enemy to hate. We really do seem to enjoy it.
Lest you think I’m just scolding others, let me tell on myself. Some of you might have seen the first USA versus Canada hockey game, which took place a couple of weeks ago in Montreal. You might have heard that the hometown Canadian crowd booed when the US National Anthem was sung. It was hugely disrespectful, and while I could kind of understand it intellectually given recent political rhetoric on our side of the border, when I heard it, emotionally, as an American it made my blood boil.
And so when the players for Team USA immediately started throwing punches at Team Canada the second after the puck was dropped, I loved it! Every time a red, white, and blue jersey bodychecked a red jersey into the plexiglass, I loved it! Whenever there was a goal and “Free Bird” started blaring over the speakers, I loved it!
The funny thing is, I sincerely love and respect Canada. I love living close to it and visiting up there often. But for three periods of intense hockey, it felt so good to have an enemy! I loved it! I’m not necessarily proud of this, I’m just being real with you. Outrage is a heck of a drug. Whether it is sports or politics or nations or neighbors, we love to have enemies to hate. It is who we are as human beings.
And so when Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” he has to be kidding, right? And to make things worse, Jesus doesn’t just ask us to have an abstract love for them, he calls us to love our enemies with our actions: “Do good to those who hate you.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Do not judge.” He can’t be serious, can he? Please tell me this is all just more hyperbole from Jesus!
Well, yes and no. There are times when enemies should be opposed. Jesus himself turned over tables in the temple. He told the Pharisees to pound sand when they got all up in his business. He engaged in spiritual combat with the devil.
There are times when we are called to oppose enemies too. Political involvement is a valid way to influence society in the direction you’d like to see it go. For someone who serves in law enforcement, even if they are a Christian, it is their duty to restrain the enemies of society. They aren’t to turn the other cheek to violent offenders – they restrain them, using force if necessary. If someone is literally abusing you, you don’t just pray for them – you also call the police to make the abuse stop. If you as a citizen are called to serve on a jury it is your duty, even as a Christian, to judge the case and declare someone guilty if that’s what the evidence shows. In daily life, parents are to exercise judgement in the discipline of children, teaching them right from wrong with guidance from God’s Word.
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged,” is not a universal law for all times and places, and it is not to be interpreted through the postmodern ethic of “Do whatever seems right to you.” There are times for godly discernment and discipline in families, in the church, and in society.
So there are indeed caveats to these words from Jesus. God has established all kinds of earthly means to oppose enemies and restrain evil, and in a still-fallen world, they are all still necessary. We use scripture to interpret scripture, and there are plenty of other scripture passages, even other teachings from Jesus’ own mouth, which bring some nuance to Jesus’ call to love our enemies.
But still – he said it, didn’t he? “Love your enemies!” He said it twice, and we shouldn’t let these caveats make us too comfortable too quickly. I think we’re supposed to wrestle with these words. I think we’re supposed to squirm a little bit when we hear them. So what could Jesus be trying to tell us? What could he be trying to teach us?
The key to understanding these words of Jesus is to be found in what he tells us about God. It’s only a few words in the middle of the passage, but they are so important! These words are the lens by which to view everything else Jesus says in this part of his sermon! Jesus says that God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. And then he says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Here Jesus describes God as loving his enemies!
God is described as being kind to the ungrateful. God is described in other parts of the Bible as a jealous God who desires the affection and the appreciation of his people. To not be grateful to God is evidence of unfaithfulness, a serious sin for which God has every right to be angry. But here Jesus says that God is kind to the ungrateful.
God is described as being kind to the wicked too! Even after all the commandments, all the calls to holiness, even after the sacrificial system was put in place as a means of grace for the people to make atonement, God’s people still insisted on being wicked! They turned from God to idols. They abused themselves and each other. They disobeyed God again and again. And yet, Jesus says, God is kind to the wicked.
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” Jesus says.
God loves his enemies! And so when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he is only telling us to do what God is already doing. He is telling us to see those enemies in the same way God does. He is giving us a vision of God’s love, which is a love so great that it sees beyond the sin to love the sinner, a love so great that it responds to ungratefulness and even wickedness with kindness. The mercy we are called to share is rooted in the mercy of our Father in heaven.
When Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” he is only calling us to reflect the love God has shown to us. And God has shown this love to us nowhere more clearly than in Jesus himself.
At the time of this sermon, Jesus is inching ever closer to the cross, where God’s love would be lifted up for all to see. Jesus loved his enemies by letting himself be handed over. He did good to those who hated him by enduring their mocking, their abuse, their striking him on the cheek. Jesus gave up everything for the sake of the enemies of God. He was robbed even of the clothes on his back. He asked God to forgive them as he died. And because of all this, you are not judged. Because of his saving work on the cross, you are not condemned. Because of his sacrificial love, you are forgiven.
Just as our reading last week from earlier in this sermon was not a checklist to perform to accomplish our salvation by intentionally becoming poor, or hungry, or weeping, or hated, neither is this call to love our enemies a means by which we are to earn our salvation. Rather, it is a call to reflect the love God has already shown towards us, most especially through his dear Son, our crucified Lord and savior.
It might be jarring to hear, but we live much of our lives as enemies of God. This is what scripture tells us our condition is, and as hard as it is to admit it, it is even harder to deny it. We too are often ungrateful for all of God’s blessings. We take so much for granted. We take so much credit for gifts that have been given to us through no worthiness of our own. We treat God’s precious gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation, as nothing, without appreciation of or devotion to the Divine Giver. But, Jesus says, God is kind to the ungrateful!
We too fall into wickedness in countless different ways – through our stubborn rebellion against God’s will, through our rampant selfishness, through our choosing the world over the Word again and again. We fall into wickedness especially when we revel in the hatred of our enemies, relishing that feeling of righteousness it gives us. But, Jesus says, God is kind to the wicked.
God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked! Can you believe it! Well, you should believe it, because that’s the gospel! In Jesus Christ, God has been kind to us! For even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God is merciful, and the more deeply we come to believe and trust in this mercy, the more merciful we will become. In Jesus Christ we see that God loves his enemies, and the more deeply we come to believe and trust in this love, the more we will start to do the same.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
