by Jeffrey Spencer | Oct 3, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for October 1
Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost – October 1, 2023
Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is a great scene in the third installment of the Indiana Jones movies, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” Indy is attempting to enter the chamber which contains the Holy Grail, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper. The chamber is at the end of a long, dark tunnel, which is protected by booby traps designed to keep out those with the wrong motives for seeking the cup. Those booby traps have already proven to be effective. Indy knows a clue about the first booby trap from his father’s research. The clue is: “The penitent man will pass.” He keeps repeating this over and over like a mantra as he steps carefully into the tunnel. “The penitent man will pass,” he says as he thinks about what this could mean. “The penitent man is humble before God. The penitent man is humble, kneels before God.” At that moment he kneels, avoiding the swinging blades of the first trap as they swoosh over his head.
The idea of the penitent passing, or the humble entering into the presence of God, is at the heart of our gospel reading for today.
Jesus has just entered Jerusalem with much fanfare. He has made his triumphal entry, with people laying cloaks in his path and waving palm branches and shouting “hosanna.” Jesus has entered into the temple complex and driven out the money changers, flipping over their tables and chasing them out with a whip of cords. Now Jesus has settled in to do some teaching in the temple when the authorities gather around him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they ask.
And, of course, as Jesus often does, he turns the question back on them. “Let me ask you first, did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” This might sound like a total non-sequitur of a question to us, totally irrelevant to the question at hand. But this is directly related to the question of Jesus’ authority. If John’s baptism is from heaven, being done with the authority of God, then the implication is that this is where Jesus’ authority comes from too.
The chief priests and the elders are more concerned about public opinion and crowd control than they are about the truth. They struggle with how to answer, eventually deciding to punt. I picture them like contestants on Family Feud. They huddle together and discuss how they might answer the question, and then they come back and say, “Pass.” “Well then,” Jesus replies, “neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” For Jesus to tip his hand so publicly this early in the game would have given the chief priests and elders exactly what they wanted. If Jesus straight out said he was acting on God’s authority they could have him arrested right then and there, and it wasn’t yet time for that.
Jesus goes on to illustrate the problem with these chief priests and elders by telling a parable. There are two sons who are told by their father to go and work in the vineyard. One says, “I will not,” but then later changes his mind and goes. The other says, “I go, sir,” but then did not go. Jesus then asked the chief priests and elders, “Which of these two sons did the will of their father?” “The first,” they replied. This is what we in theological circles call a “mic drop.” Jesus has lowered the boom on them! He has lured them into convicting themselves without them even realizing it!
The chief priests and the elders are behaving like the second son. The vineyard has long served as a symbol for Israel. It has represented the Promised Land. It has represented the covenant people, the people who said yes to God. Only these chief priests and elders weren’t saying yes to God now! They were rejecting God’s prophet, John. They were rejecting God’s Son, Jesus. They were saying no to the way of righteousness John and Jesus represented, which was through repentance and the forgiveness of sin. And so their initial yes had become a no.
Jesus then spells out the consequences of this. “Truly I tell you,” he says to them, “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” Ouch! These most public and scandalous of sinners are moved to the front of the line! They get to enter the kingdom of God ahead of the most religious and outwardly righteous people in town! What gives? Well, the tax collectors and prostitutes knew how to kneel. “The penitent will pass.”
Jesus continued: “John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him,” What is this way of righteousness? Well, what was John’s message? John came preaching a message of repentance, of changing one’s mind and turning away from sin and back to God. John came preaching the forgiveness of sins. And when the time came, he pointed to Jesus and said, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He pointed to Jesus as the savior of the world. This was the new way of righteousness – not having a righteousness of one’s own but receiving the righteousness of Christ simply by believing in him, by trusting in him, by receiving his forgiveness, by kneeling before him.
This is precisely what the tax collectors and the prostitutes were doing. They had initially said no to God’s kingdom. They said no to God’s covenant. They chose lifestyles which were flagrantly against God’s will – cheating God’s people and collaborating with Israel’s enemies, strangers buying and selling bodily intimacies intended to be shared only within the holy bonds of marriage. But now, with the coming of John and his message of the coming of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, they said yes! Now with the coming of Jesus, the savior and Messiah, they had entered into the vineyard. Through his forgiveness, they could enter the Promised Land, the kingdom of God. “The penitent will pass.”
Martin Luther often taught that there are two kinds of righteousness. One kind is called “proper” righteousness. I’ve also heard it called civic righteousness, or the righteousness of the law. We could think of this as everyday righteousness. This kind of righteousness is reflected in our outward behavior. It is reflected in how we treat others, in how we love our neighbors. It is reflected in how well we follow God’s law, specifically the Ten Commandments, which are given to teach us how God intends for his human creatures to live. We should strive to keep these commandments. They are good to follow. We shouldn’t gouge our neighbor or deal unfairly, like the tax collectors. We should live lives of chastity and fidelity, unlike the prostitutes and their customers. The Holy Spirit works on us to give us new hearts which want to do these outwardly righteous things.
This kind of righteousness matters. It matters to our families. It matters to our congregation and our community. It matters to our nation and our world. But this is not the kind of righteousness by which we enter the vineyard. This is not the kind of righteousness which will get us into the Promised Land, the kingdom of God. This is not the righteousness of the new covenant. This takes a different kind of righteousness, a second kind of righteousness which Luther called an alien righteousness. This has nothing to do with E.T. or flying saucers. What Luther meant is that this righteousness comes from outside ourselves. It is an imputed righteousness, given to us by another. It is a status declared to us rather than something earned or achieved. This kind of righteousness is received by believing in the One who gives it to us, by trusting in his promise. St. Paul called it the righteousness of faith.
It is this kind of righteousness which Jesus is talking about in the conclusion of his parable. The way of righteousness John was bringing was a righteousness that came through faith in Jesus. This way of righteousness is repentance and belief in the salvation God has given through his Son, our savior. The tax collectors and the prostitutes had this kind of righteousness. When Jesus came, they knew they needed what he was bringing. They had faith in him. After their initial no to God, they changed their minds and entered the vineyard through Christ’s forgiveness, his mercy, his grace. They humbled themselves and received the gift of his righteousness because they knew it was the only kind of righteousness they had. They didn’t have a leg to stand on otherwise. Rather than questioning Jesus’ authority like the chief priests and elders, they knelt before him, and in so doing they entered the kingdom of God ahead of them. “The penitent will pass.”
We are here in worship today because we know that we need what Jesus brings too. No matter how outwardly righteous we might be, we know that there are many ways in which we fall short. Even if our sins aren’t as public and scandalous as those of tax collectors and prostitutes, we confess that we too are captive to sin and unable to free ourselves. We are here today because we have changed our minds about who we want to be and who we want to serve. We have turned away from all the sins of the past week or month or year or more and have come back to his vineyard.
As we do so, like Indiana Jones, we have an opportunity to drink from the very cup of Christ. And while I can assure you there are no booby traps on your way up to his table, there is a trap that we all need to watch out for. The trap is thinking that it is our own righteousness that earns us a spot here. The trap is thinking we deserve to be here, that we are entitled to what Christ gives us, that we have an authority higher than his. I must tell you that if you come strutting towards the kingdom of God with that attitude you will never enter it. At the very least, tax collectors and prostitutes will be allowed to cut in line ahead of you.
The penitent will pass. As Paul so memorably puts it in the reading from Philippians today, “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend.”
The penitent will pass, and so we kneel at the altar rail, humbling ourselves, avoiding the spiritually deadly trap of self-righteousness. Remember this when you come up for communion today. If you can’t physically kneel, you can do so spiritually, kneeling in your heart.
The penitent will pass, and in so doing we find ourselves in the Promised Land of God’s gracious presence. This is the will of the Father for you today as he welcomes you back into his vineyard through the forgiveness of his Son.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 12, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for September 10
Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 10, 2023
Matthew 18:15-20
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I saw a picture of a church sign someone shared on social media recently. It bore a message that didn’t come across in quite the way it was intended. It said, “We love hurting people.” Now Martin Luther encourages us in the Small Catechism to make a habit of interpreting other peoples’ words in the most charitable light, so we can assume that what this congregation meant to say is that they love people who are hurting. That’s a good message! But that’s not how it sounds at first glance, does it? It sounds like this congregation gets a perverse joy out of inflicting pain on others! “We love hurting people!”
Sadly, this sign’s unfortunate wording conveys an all-too-frequent truth about the church: sometimes we hurt each other. I don’t think most church members set out to do this. Most of the time it isn’t intentional. I certainly don’t think any church member actually loves hurting people. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever met in church who actually takes pleasure in it.
But the sad truth about life in the church is that sometimes we do hurt people. Sometimes we hurt each other. And the hurt that happens in church can be particularly painful because we rightly believe that church should be a safe place. The hurt that happens in church is similar to the hurt that happens in family life. It hurts more because we have higher expectations in those contexts. It hurts more because these are the people we should be able to trust. It hurts more because we believe these are the places we should experience love and care, not hurt. Like our families, if church isn’t a safe place for us, it seems like nowhere is, and the world can then seem awfully cruel and hopeless.
I know church hurts hit differently because I hear about them all the time. They make a big impact on people. I’ve had people turn down invitations to serve on council because they have PTSD from the last time they were on it decades ago. I’ve heard of how people have bravely stepped forward to volunteer for something, putting themselves out there, making themselves vulnerable, trying something new, and then they are snapped at by someone for not doing it the way they think it should be done. That hurts! I’ve heard of people being hurt because they were overlooked or not included in something, intentionally or not.
I know too that I as a pastor have caused hurt. I sincerely cannot think of a time I ever did so intentionally. I certainly don’t love it when it happens. But it does happen. Sometimes a lame attempt at humor or a poor choice of words comes across as flippant or uncaring. Sometimes I fail to remember something important about someone, an important detail, even a name. Sometimes my head is full and I can seem distant.
Church hurts hit differently, and I can’t promise that I won’t be the cause of some of them, however unintentionally. I know church hurts hit differently, because I’ve been hurt by them too.
The good news in our gospel reading for today is that Jesus knows this about his church. Jesus anticipates that church members will sin against each other. He knows that when he calls a bunch of sinners together to live as brothers and sisters and appoints another sinner to be their shepherd that there are going to be problems from time to time. I find great comfort and hope in the simple fact that Jesus already knows this about us! While church should be a safe place, while it should be a place of love and care and not hurt, Jesus knows that we will not carry out this calling perfectly. Jesus knows this and yet he calls us to live together as his people anyway.
And as he calls us together to be his church, he gives us a template for how to handle the inevitable hurts that happen when sinners are placed in close proximity to one another. “If a member of the church sins against you,” Jesus says, “go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.” Jesus encourages us to be intentional about seeking reconciliation. Rather than spreading the hurt by sharing it with everyone BUT the person who inflicted it, Jesus instructs us to go to the source in an effort to restore the relationship.
If that doesn’t work, Jesus continues, bring two or three other members with you – not to gang up on anyone, but to serve as witnesses, as mediators to help sort things out. Again the goal is to “regain that one,” to restore the relationship.
If that doesn’t work, Jesus says, it should be brought before the entire church. This doesn’t mean standing up in the middle of a service and pointing fingers. It means bringing it to the church authorities for their help. We have an entire chapter in our constitution dealing with church discipline, and our bishop’s office has a standing committee on discipline to deal with things when they get out of control. But even here the goal is always reconciliation. The goal is always to “regain that one” whenever possible.
But what if that doesn’t work? What then? “If the offender refuses to listen even to the church,” Jesus says, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” What does this mean? Honestly, I’m not sure. It is highly debated among biblical interpreters. Some suggest it means putting them outside of the fellowship, keeping your distance, which is how Gentiles and tax collectors were commonly treated by pious Jews in Jesus’ time. They say it means establishing healthy boundaries, as we might say today.
This makes some sense to me. There are times when this is necessary. For instance, pastors or other church leaders who engage in abuse need to be removed from their positions. Full stop. In some rare, extreme circumstances, church members need to be removed from congregations. I have a pastor friend who had a woman in his congregation who was being stalked and harassed by another church member. When he refused to listen to the charges or change his ways, he had to be barred from attendance at all church functions. Jesus, then, might be speaking to those situations where the hurt is too deep or the danger is ongoing and it just needs to be stopped.
Others, however, have pointed out that Jesus came to include Gentiles and tax collectors. He came to graft them into the people of God. He continued to offer forgiveness to Gentiles and tax collectors along with every other kind of sinner. In fact, Matthew, the very author of this gospel, was himself a tax collector at one point! Jesus has a proven track record of reconciling both Gentiles and tax collectors, so perhaps Jesus has a proven track record of reconciling both Gentiles and tax collectors, so perhaps he is calling us to redouble our efforts at reconciliation, with him as our example.
These two interpretations aren’t mutually exclusive, I don’t think. We can recognize that there are times when toxic people or situations require drawing lines and establishing boundaries, while at the same time we never give up on praying that repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation would happen in one form or another, trusting that ultimately it is Christ’s job to make it happen, not ours.
These instructions are so very helpful. They are so important. Jesus is teaching us to lean into the inevitable conflicts that arise in church. He is teaching us to see every dispute as an opportunity for pursuing reconciliation, an opportunity for building community, an opportunity even for spiritual growth as we put our trust in him.
But Jesus gives us something even better than instructions in our gospel reading for today. He also gives us a promise. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” he says, “I am there among them.”
Church life is messy and sometimes even painful. When you gather together a group of sinners to live together in close proximity, there is going to be trouble. We are going to step on each other’s toes from time to time. There are going to be misunderstandings. We are going to fail one another in ways that are hurtful.
What makes it all worth it is that Jesus is here. “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Jesus gives us the safety we seek. He provides the love and care we long for. He forgives us all our trespasses and teaches and empowers us to forgive those who trespass against us. Even in the midst of all the failings of his people – which he himself anticipated! – he is here.
Because Jesus is here, our hurts can be healed. Because Jesus is here, the church is a place of reconciliation – first with God, and then with one another. Because Jesus is here, people who are hurting do indeed find love.
Our love will always be imperfect at best. His love is perfect and eternal.
And he is here today to give that love to you.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Sep 4, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for September 3
Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 3, 2023
Matthew 16:21-23
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
What a difference a week makes! Last week Peter was a hero of the faith. In the midst of all kinds of wrong answers floating around about who Jesus was, Peter got it right. “Who do YOU say that I am?” Jesus asked him, and Peter responded: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus was so thrilled with Peter’s answer, coming as it did from the Father himself, who revealed this to Peter, that Jesus said, “You are Petros, which in Greek means “rock.” “You are the rock, and on this rock I will build my church.”
Now here we are a week later, picking up right where we left off last week in the gospel, and here things have taken a drastic turn. Peter goes from being a mouthpiece for God the Father just a verse or two before to being a mouthpiece for Satan himself. “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus said to him, “You are a stumbling-block to me!” On a dime, Peter goes from being a rock to being a stumbling block.
What happened? Well, after Peter made his good confession, after he correctly identified Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of the living God, Jesus went on to teach Peter and all the disciples what that meant. Jesus taught them HOW he was going to save them. As St. Matthew tells us, “Jesus began to show them that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
Peter answered the “who” question exactly right, but he did not like what Jesus was saying about the “how.” He didn’t like what he was hearing about this suffering and dying business. We can hardly blame him. I mean, Peter cared about Jesus. He loved him. No one wants the people you love and care about to suffer. But Peter went so far as to rebuke Jesus! Can you imagine? Peter knew that Jesus was the Son of the living God and he had the gall to rebuke him, to scold him, to berate him!
Jesus tells us more specifically what happened to turn Peter from a spokesman for God into a spokesman for Satan, from a rock to a stumbling block. Jesus says that Peter was setting his mind on human things rather than divine things. In his human way of thinking, Peter wanted salvation without suffering. He wanted forgiveness and atonement without sacrifice. He wanted a Christ without the cross. In putting his mind on human things rather than divine things, by reflexively rejecting suffering, Peter was missing the very means by which Christ would save us from our sin.
And not only that, but by putting his mind on human things rather than on divine things, Peter had entirely missed what would come AFTER the suffering! He missed the promise of the resurrection. He missed the part where Jesus said that on the third day he would be raised. He missed it now, and he missed it later too. You’ll recall from the Easter story that on the third day after Jesus’ death Peter was sitting around twiddling his thumbs, expecting nothing. He had to be reminded of what Jesus said!
Putting one’s mind on human things rather than on divine things was not just a problem for Peter. It is a problem for all of us. It is a common human reflex, especially in the breathtaking hubris of modern times, for people to mentally pull Jesus aside, thinking they know better than him, correcting him with their modern sensibilities.
To put our mind on divine things is to listen to Christ’s Word and to trust that he knows what he’s talking about. It is to surrender to the holy wisdom of his Word. To put our mind on divine things is to look to the cross of Christ not as meaningless suffering, but as the means of our salvation. It is to trust in Jesus’ promise that after the suffering comes the resurrection.
After addressing Peter, Jesus turned to the rest of the disciples and said: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Now Jesus was talking not only about what would happen to him, but what would happen to them, and to all of us. Those who follow Jesus will have crosses of their own to carry. They can expect some suffering of their own.
Furthermore, those who follow Jesus are called to deny themselves. This is so very countercultural in a world where we are constantly encouraged to seek self-fulfillment. (“Follow your bliss.) This is countercultural in a society where the self is seen as the primary arbiter of truth. (“Seek your truth.”). This is countercultural in a society where the goal of human life is seen as self-actualization, in a culture that exalts the self-made person and self-reliance. Both ends of the political spectrum and both sides in the culture wars have their version of exalting the almighty self.
Followers of Jesus are instead called to deny themselves. This is not so much about external things. It isn’t so much about depriving yourself of all earthly pleasures. As Christians we are called to a measure of self-restraint in many situations, to be sure, but this goes much deeper. In calling us to deny ourselves Jesus is taking away one of our favorite idols: the self. He is telling us to not turn our self into our god, that to which we look for all purpose and meaning in life. This is about not turning yourself into the final authority on truth. Above all, it is about not looking to yourself for your salvation.
Life isn’t about finding yourself, it is about being found in Christ. Life isn’t about self-actualization, but Christ being actualized in us. It is not about being definers of our own truths, but humbling ourselves before God’s truth. It is not about being self-made, but acknowledging that we are creatures who have been lovingly made and provided for by God. It is not about being self-reliant, it is about being fully reliant on Christ.
Jesus goes on to say that those who want to save their life will lose it, and that those who lose their life for Christ’s sake will find it. In the early church this was quite literal. St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, literally lost his life for Jesus’ sake. There are some parts of the world today where being a Christian literally puts your life at risk.
But there’s another way of understanding this, and it follows from what Jesus said about denying ourselves. Losing your life can also be understood as losing your “self.” In giving your entire life, your entire self, to Christ, you find what really gives life. Yes, you will lose your life, in a sense, but you will find it again in him. You will find the life that is really life.
Peter’s mistake was a very human one. Human beings are wired to avoid suffering. This is usually good. It is mostly a feature and not a bug. For instance, we naturally pull our hand away from a hot stove to avoid being burned. That’s good! But this impulse towards self-preservation can be used against us. It can become a stumbling block. Satan can use it to put a wedge between us and God, just as he did with Peter. The devil can exploit this impulse to bring us to ruin.
Last week I watched the hit Netflix series “Pain Killer,” which is about OxyContin and the opioid epidemic. As Purdue pharma was developing their new drug, one of their executives spoke loftily about ending pain once and for all. He wanted to take the morphine molecule, which had been associated with death, and market it in a way that associated it with life. He wanted his pill widely distributed, and used terms like “setting people free,” and “giving them their lives back.” I know many people suffer from chronic pain, and I don’t want to be dismissive of that longing for relief. But you know how the rest of the story unfolds. You see it every night on the news. The same molecule that promised life delivered for a while, but then brought a tidal wave of addiction and heartache and death that continues to this day.
If you know my recent family history, you know that I already bring my own baggage to a show like this, but it is hard not to see this as demonic. The human impulse to avoid suffering was hijacked by demonic forces, bringing even more suffering and death. This is how the devil works. This is what he tried with Peter, and what he continues to try with us, in a million different ways.
And so our Lord Jesus calls us to set our minds on divine things. We counter this my setting our minds on divine things, by keeping our eyes on Christ and his Word.
We are to take him at his word and look at his suffering and death on the cross as the “how” of our salvation. It is his sacrificial suffering and not our self-pursuits that save us.
We are to take him at his word and follow him by taking up our own crosses, enduring our own suffering. The gospel is not a pain killer. Sorry Karl Marx, but it is not the opiate of the masses. The gospel does not take away suffering, not immediately anyway. Anyone who has followed Jesus for any length of time knows this to be true. We are instead to endure suffering patiently, as St. Paul says in our reading from Romans, not letting the devil use it as a wedge between us and God, turning us into a stumbling block, or bringing us to ruin.
We are to take him at his word and also hear the promise he gives us. Setting our mind on divine things also means remembering what he promised about the third day. It means trusting in the promise of the resurrection. It means living in hope, for suffering did not have the last word for Jesus, and it will not have the last word for us either.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Aug 29, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for August 27
Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost – August 27, 2023
Matthew 16:13-20
This sermon was delivered at Three Sisters Farm for our annual worship service in the barn and church picnic and reflects that setting.
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father, and our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
It should be obvious today, as we meet in a barn, that the church is not a building. When we say we are “going to church,” we do not just mean we are going to a specific place, a specific address. As wonderful and precious to us as our sanctuary is, it does not define what or where the church is. So what does? Where is the church? What is it?
Our gospel reading for today begins with important questions about who Jesus is. “Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks the disciples. They fill him in on what the buzz is, what people are saying. Some think he is a reincarnated John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah. Then Jesus points the question at them: “But who do YOU say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Peter nails the answer! He gets it exactly right! Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior. He is uniquely the Son of the living God, the God who is active and present and at work. With Peter’s correct answer, the conversation quickly turns to the nature and purpose of the church. In response to Peter’s correct answer, Jesus says, “On this rock I will build my church.” What is this rock, and what is Jesus building?
First of all, the rock on which Jesus is building is not the person of Peter but his confession, his statement of the truth about who Jesus is. Peter the person can be a little rocky. Our gospel reading ends at verse 20, and by the time you get to verse 23 Jesus is calling Peter Satan and tells him to get behind him! So Peter the person isn’t the rock itself. After the resurrection Peter will indeed become a bold and powerful preacher. He will become the first pope, as our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters like to point out. They’re partially right – Peter was the first leader of the Christian church. But Christ’s church is not founded on Peter the person. It is founded on the Word that person spoke. The foundation of the church is the confession, the public testimony, that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of the living God.
This confession is why the church exists. We exist to confess Christ. The foundational purpose of the church is to know Jesus and to make him known. Yes, we do social service projects. Yes, we help our neighbors in need. Yes, we strive for healthy families and healthy communities and a more just world. But as important and wonderful as all those things are, none of them are the foundation of the church. None of them are the fundamental reason for its existence. As our own presiding bishop, Elizabeth Eaton, has said: “We are the church. We are not a social service agency with sacraments.” As the church we exist to proclaim the truth about who Jesus is, that he is the Messiah and the Son of the living God.
It is also worth noting that Jesus describes the church he is building as his church. “On this rock I will build my church,” he says. The church does not belong to those who have been in it the longest. It does not belong to those who give the most. It does not belong to the pastor. It is Christ’s church.
That’s good news, because if it is Jesus’ church, nothing can destroy it. That’s precisely the promise Jesus makes. “On this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” “The gates of Hades” is a biblical expression for the power of death. Jesus is saying that his church, just like himself, will never die.
There is much talk about the church dying these days, at least in western civilization. Downward trends which were already in place before the pandemic accelerated rapidly during it and have not quite recovered. There are more and more congregations which have closed or are starting to have painful conversations about needing to. Our own denomination has lost members every single year since it was founded in 1987. We started with about 5 million and are down to about 3 million. This is not a problem unique to the ELCA by any means.
We don’t want to be naive about any of this. We shouldn’t stick our heads in the sand. Individual congregations can and do die. But the church itself will never die. The gates of Hades will not prevail against it. History has shown that the church has faced all kinds of dire challenges before. It has survived through dark ages where almost forgotten manuscripts of Christian texts were curated by devoted monks in caves for hundreds of years. It has survived through the bubonic plague, which killed as much of 60% of the population of Europe. It has survived through scandals and violent infighting and horrible betrayals of its mission and identity.
Individual congregations may close. Entire denominations might find themselves on life support. But Christ’s church will not die. God will preserve it in one form or another. That’s Jesus promise to us!
Because we have this promise, we don’t need to be constantly checking the church’s pulse. Instead, we can keep at the mission we have been given. And Jesus makes it clear in this reading what our mission is. Jesus has given the church the keys to the kingdom of heaven. “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it,” Jesus says. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
This passage is where we get the idea of Peter as the gatekeeper of heaven. It’s where we get all those St. Peter at the pearly gates jokes. But again, this is not about Peter the person. It is about the church and its mission. Those keys are the keys of forgiveness. As Martin Luther said about this passage, “Christ gave his church the authority to forgive the sins of those who repent.” These keys are the keys that unbind people from their sin, setting them free to live a new life. They are the keys that open the gates of heaven not only when we die, but here and now as we are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, freed for a relationship with the living God which begins now and continues forever.
These keys are not those bits of metal you have hanging off your keychains. They certainly aren’t the keys to the church building. These keys are words. These keys are the proclamation that through Jesus, your sin is forgiven. These keys are the announcement that God’s love for you is bigger than your brokenness. These keys are the testimony that Jesus has come to set you free from your past to live into a new future with him.
These declarations are spoken to us week after week. We need to hear it over and over again because the world, the devil, and our sinful selves have a way of putting those cuffs back on over and over again. We find ourselves repeatedly bound by guilt and shame and fear and despair.
But these declarations are also to be spoken by us. Not just by the pastor on Sunday morning in the designated building at the announced time. These words are to be spoken by all of God’s people to all of those who need to hear it, which is every human being on the face of the earth.
Whenever anyone is given a key, it comes with a measure of trust. If someone gives you their house key, or a car key, or a key to a workplace, there is the expectation that it will be used in the way it is expected to be used. Our Lord Jesus has given us the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Our Lord Jesus has given these keys to you. You have the power, and the responsibility, to use them in ways that set people free, in ways that help people live into the truth that Jesus is the Messiah and the son of the living God.
Maybe that means personal witness or public testimony – always given in a spirit of humility and gentleness, as the scriptures counsel us. Maybe it means putting those words in the ears of your children or other loved ones. Maybe it means inviting a neighbor or a friend to worship so they can hear it there. Maybe it means a careful conversation with someone who is bound up in guilt or shame or despair and needing you to pull out the key that can set them free. These keys have been entrusted to all of us. We all have the power, and the responsibility, to use these keys as our Lord intends.
The church is not just a building located at 1253 NW 2nd Avenue. The church is here too. The church is wherever God’s people have been gathered together to hear his Word. The church is wherever the confession is made that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the One who saves us, the Son of the living God. The church is wherever the keys are used to unbind troubled consciences and hurting hearts. The church is wherever and whenever Christ’s forgiveness is proclaimed and received and shared.
And so, welcome to church today – yes, even here in a barn. For even here the Lord Jesus is building up the kingdom of heaven in us, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jul 23, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 23
Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost – July 23, 2023
Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
If you have a garden, or a yard, or lawn, you likely find yourself once again engaged in the perennial summer battle against weeds. I myself have a brick patio in the backyard upon which the battle has been fiercely fought. I don’t like using chemicals, especially in an area we use a lot, so that isn’t an option. Organic solutions haven’t worked very well. Picking the weeds out from between the bricks by hand is time-consuming and leaves my fingers scraped and sore. But this year I found a solution to all of this. For my birthday this year I got a flame thrower. (It’s actually called a weed burner, but flame thrower sounds cooler.) I fire that baby up and in minutes I have those weeds torched into oblivion. I sweep up the ashes, and my patio is clean and weed-free. It is a great feeling. I take great pleasure in it. Nobody likes weeds. Even when the weeding itself isn’t fun, like it is with my flame thrower, it feels good to get rid of them.
Last Sunday we heard Jesus tell a parable about a sower who scattered seed far and wide, and while many of those seeds failed to sprout for various reasons, the seeds which landed on good soil brought forth an abundant yield. This Sunday we return to that yield. Jesus tells another parable, another allegory from agriculture. Those seeds which were scattered last Sunday have become a full-fledged crop of wheat in the parable we hear today. But there’s trouble in the fields. There are weeds growing amongst the wheat.
How did those weeds get there? Did the landowner not plant good seed, some ask? No, that’s not it. The weeds are the result of what we might call an act of ecoterrorism. “An enemy has done this,” Jesus says. “While everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.”
Those who work this land want to get rid of the weeds. We can understand the impulse, right? I sure can! “Do you want us to go and gather them?” they ask. They’re gearing up to pull them, torch them, clear them out. But the landowner in Jesus’ parable tells them to leave them be. “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at the harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Collect the weeds first and bind them into bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
The weed mentioned by Jesus in this parable is a specific kind of weed. In the Greek the word is zinzania, and it is a specific plant commonly known as darnel wheat, or false wheat. This particular weed is especially troublesome to wheat farmers because in its early stages it is virtually indistinguishable from real wheat. And not only is it troublesome because it is hard to distinguish from the real wheat, but beneath the soil its roots tend to intertwine with the roots of the wheat, making it impossible to pull out. If you were to try to weed out this false wheat, you’d pull out the good wheat out with it.
And so the workers are told to just leave them alone. They are to let the weeds and the wheat grow together for now. Those weeds will be gathered and burned, but it isn’t their job to do so. They are instead to wait with patience, trusting the landowner to bring in the harvest.
We don’t have to guess at what this parable is about. We don’t need to speculate about what Jesus is describing here. This is one of very few parables where Jesus tells us exactly what it means! He explains each part of the allegory for us: “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Mon,” that is, it is Jesus himself. “The field is the world,” Jesus says. “The good seed are the children of the kingdom and the weeds are the children of the evil one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are his angels.”
This image of a field with both wheat and weeds growing alongside each other is put to us in this parable as an image which describes the world we live in. It describes the age we live in, the age between Christ’s first coming and his final coming. And I think we can all see that this image of a field with both wheat and weeds is a starkly accurate description. On the one hand, the world is a beautiful place, filled with wonder and delight. There is beauty and there is goodness and there is love. On the other hand, the world is full of weeds. There is also much cruelty and corruption and violence.
This field of both wheat and weeds growing together is a good description of the church too, which exists, for now, in this field, this world. Luther liked to say that wherever Christ builds a church, the devil builds a chapel. The same sacred institution which has safeguarded the precious words of the gospel has also at times been the source of intense disappointment and pain for many. At times it is bravely and boldly faithful and at times it is a den of blasphemy and betrayal. At the congregational level, the same community of faith which so often envelopes us in love and care can also be the source of some of our deepest wounds.
And we find that the weeds and the wheat even grow alongside each other in our own hearts. One of the great insights of the Lutheran Reformation is that human beings are simul iustis et peccator, we are simultaneously saint and sinner. The Old Adam or Eve still dwells in us even as we have been declared righteous on account of Christ. Our lives are not without sin. Our hearts have not yet been made fully clean and pure. There are weeds that grow in us even now. Our sanctification is never quite complete in this life, on this side of heaven.
When we encounter the weeds of this world, we naturally want to pull them. We want to go after them and get rid of them. And in some ways, we should. Scripture teaches us that God works through earthly authorities to restrain evil, to create a measure of order in this world, to limit the damage the weeds might do. Scripture teaches the church to be on guard against false teachings. Matthew 18 gives us instructions on how to deal with problematic weeds that might crop up among believers. There are some ways in which we sin against each other that can’t just be ignored. Scripture tells us as individuals to strive against sin, to watch our behavior and to be careful about the company we keep. So we are not to be entirely passive in dealing with the weeds.
The problem comes when we want a pure field – whether that is the world, or the church, or us as individuals. The problem comes when we try to pull out every weed ourselves. The problem comes when we start torching everything that looks to us like a weed, and, in our self-righteousness, kind of enjoying it as we do so. That’s a problem because we can’t always tell the difference between weeds and wheat! We don’t have that kind of discernment! Furthermore, the roots of the weeds and the wheat are often entangled just beneath the surface! And so, in our burning desire for purity, some of Christ’s precious wheat ends up getting burned.
We can just think about utopian social movements like communism which have justified bloodshed and killed millions in the pursuit of a perfect society. We can think of how in the church our efforts towards theological purity have sometimes led to inquisitions and people literally being burned at the stake. Even our own personal efforts to weed out our every imperfection can become counterproductive and spiritually harmful as we start to trust in ourselves rather than in Christ.
The enemy continues to plant weeds – in the world, in the church, in our hearts. We shouldn’t become complacent about these weeds, these troubles, but we also shouldn’t think that we are the ones who are going to fix it. In this parable Jesus is describing how things are going to be for us as we live in the age between his first coming and his final coming. He is telling us to be patient. He is telling us to back off on the weed burner. “There are going to be weeds,” Jesus says. “They have been planted there by the evil one. But you are to leave those weeds to me.”
And so this parable ends as a parable of hope. Any field plagued by darnel wheat would be considered doomed in the ancient world. A farmer wouldn’t know it was there until it was too late, and come harvest time, it would be a total disaster. It would be beyond hope. Sometimes we think of the world in the same way – that it is beyond hope. Sometimes we think the church is filled with too many weeds to continue to bring life. Sometimes we think we ourselves are too weedy to be worthy of God’s love. But the punchline of the parable is that the Son of Man brings in a harvest! Even in a field where there is false wheat all tangled up with the good wheat, there is a harvest! Jesus, the Son of Man, the Messiah, the Savior, sends in his angels to deal with the weeds at last and to gather his precious grain into the barn.
We live in a hard time, an in-between time, where weeds and wheat grow right alongside each other – often indistinguishable from one another, often entangled in a complicated mess. As St. Paul writes in our second reading for today, the creation, in its bondage to decay, it its futility, groans in labor pains, even as we ourselves groan inwardly. But, Paul concludes, “In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
Jesus’ parable is about patience too – patience with our troubled world, patience with a compromised church, patience with yourself, patience with God, who will redeem it all in the harvest that is yet to come. Jesus gives us a glimpse of this harvest at the end of his parable when he says, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!” This righteousness is not something you will achieve yourself by your weeding efforts. It is a gift given to you who have been planted in good soil. It is a gift given to you who have been adopted as children of the kingdom through Holy Baptism. It is a gift for you who have been watered by his grace so that you would grow in faith, trusting the promise that one day you will be gathered as good grain into the barn.
In the meantime, we live in hope for what we cannot yet see. We wait with patience, trusting that the harvest is coming.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jul 10, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 9
Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 9, 2023
Romans 7:15-25a, Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
As first John the Baptist and then Jesus went out with the message that the kingdom of God had come near, that the savior, the Messiah, their rescuer and redeemer, had come, some people received this message. Some people received Jesus and followed him. But many did not. Many refused their help. They didn’t think they needed to repent. They didn’t think they needed the mercy of God. They didn’t think they needed forgiveness. They thought they were doing just fine, that they were pulling their own weight under the yoke of God’s law. They didn’t need any help from John or Jesus, thank you very much.
You can hear Jesus’ frustration with this in the first part of our gospel reading for today. John and Jesus were playing a gospel tune, and many refused to dance to it. They criticized John for not eating and drinking, and they criticized Jesus because he did! This is how it often goes. When someone’s heart is set against someone, they will always find something to criticize! When they’ve already decided they don’t like you, you can’t do anything right! Many didn’t like John or Jesus, and they refused to hear God’s voice, whether it came through either of them. They refused to hear their words of judgement and their words of mercy. They ultimately refused the redemption, the salvation, the help, they came to bring.
And so we hear Jesus lamenting this refusal to receive his help: “We played the flute and you did not dance.” In verses 18-24, which are skipped over in our lectionary reading, Jesus laments this and warns about it even more sharply. (I wonder sometimes if some of those lectionary omissions are really about helping focus the text, or if they aren’t an attempt to soften Jesus’ reputation.)
After lamenting the stubbornness of those who don’t think they need his help, Jesus goes on to offer a prayer of gratitude to God the Father for those who do receive him. He notes in his prayer that the gospel was being hidden from those who were supposedly wise and intelligent, but that it was being revealed to infants. That is, it was being revealed to those who knew their need. It was being received by those who knew how dependent they were, how much they needed his help.
And then Jesus’ public prayer turned into a public plea: “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
This was a plea to stop being so stubborn. It was a plea to stop trying to carry those burdens on your own. It was a plea to receive the help he had come to bring.
This might sound silly, but as I have been pondering this text all week I’ve had a memory from my youth keep popping up in my head over and over again. When I was a teenager my sister and I were enjoying a summer visit with our dad and step-mom and two step-brothers in Spokane. We were loading up my dad’s truck for a day at the lake. We had duffle bags with towels and sunscreen and frisbees. We had bags of groceries and coolers full of drinks. I loaded up as much as I could carry. I had a couple of grocery bags in one hand and a duffle bag slung over one shoulder. Then, with one hand, I lifted the watermelon we were going to take, resting it on my shoulder. My step-mom told me I was trying to carry too much. She told me I was going to drop that watermelon. She told me to have one of my step-brothers help. But I declined. I told her I would be fine. You probably can already guess where this is going. As I walked down the steps of the back door, the weight shifted in the duffle bag I had slung over that one shoulder and I lost my grip on the watermelon. It fell the five feet from my shoulder to the ground and exploded on the concrete of their back porch.
I think the reason this is seared into my memory is the extraordinary grace that followed. Because you see, when my stepmother came out and saw what happened, she didn’t scold me, even though that’s what I deserved. She didn’t even say, “I told you so!” which would have been entirely true. I think I remember her having a knowing smirk on her face, but she didn’t say anything. She just started helping me pick up the pieces.
As a teenager, did I learn from this experience to humble myself? Did it take me down a peg or two? No. But now, as a middle-aged man, have I learned to not try to carry so much on my own? Also, no!
You see, there is a stubbornness in the human heart that makes us believe we can carry it all on our own. There is a hubris in the human heart which makes us think we can pull our own weight. Even God’s people, us who should know better, have this hubris. As St. Paul confesses in our second reading, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Even the apostle Paul himself was stuck in this stubbornness! We deceive ourselves into believing we are strong enough and smart enough and good enough, that we don’t need any help. This is bad enough in our everyday lives. It’s bad enough when you’re trying to load the truck up for a day at the lake. But it is even worse when this stubbornness makes it way into our relationship with God.
The world continues to be full of people who refuse the help God has sent. It is full of people who reject John and Jesus and the truth they bear. It is full of people who insist on doing things their own way, by their own power – and the consequences of this are all kinds of destruction and brokenness. The world continues to be full of people who are convinced that they don’t need to repent, that they don’t need God’s mercy, that they don’t need Christ’s forgiveness. It is full of people whose supposed wisdom and intelligence have blinded them to the gospel.
But this isn’t just something that happens out there in the world. This same refusal happens here in our sanctuary too. It happens when we try to carry too much. It happens when we refuse the help God has given us in his Son. It happens when we rely on our own strength and smarts and goodness instead of Christ’s grace and mercy and power.
None of us as Christians want to do this. It isn’t something we consciously choose to do. Instead, this old stubbornness creeps into our lives as we tune out the voice of God and our inner monologue takes over, telling us that we should be able to carry it all, that we don’t need any help.
I mentioned in my newsletter article this month about my pastor’s renewal program that in one of the sessions the presenter said, “You cannot do the work of ministry out of your own strength or smarts or cleverness. Whenever you try you will quickly become discouraged and grumpy and anxious and exhausted.” Those two sentences hit me right between the eyes. It showed me that sometimes I’m still trying to carry that watermelon.
What is true for me is, I’m sure, true for you too. What is true for pastors doing the work of ministry is true for all Christians as you carry out your callings in life. It is certainly true when it comes to the work of salvation itself. We cannot do it on our own. We cannot do it by our own strength or smarts. We cannot get there by our own power. When we try it just leads to anxiety and exhaustion. Ultimately, it can lead us into outright despair.
“Wretched man that I am!” St. Paul continued. “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
God has sent someone to rescue us from this despair. God has sent someone to rescue us from our anxiety and exhaustion. God has sent a rescuer to save us from ourselves, to give us mercy and forgiveness and hope and peace.
The voice of this rescuer enters into our ears this morning, disrupting the lies of our inner monologue. “Come to me,” Jesus says, “all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
If you insist on relying on your own wisdom and intelligence, you won’t be able to receive this rescue. If you insist on relying on your own strength or smarts, you will never dance to the tune of the gospel. If you insist on carrying everything yourself, you will never know the relief and the rest that comes when you let Christ Jesus bear your yoke.
In our stubbornness we will likely continue to try to carry it all ourselves from time to time. Sometimes it isn’t until things come crashing down that we realize how foolish we have been.
But when that happens, our Lord Jesus comes to us once again with his mercy. He comes to us in the midst of the mess we have made – not to say, “I told ya!” but to help us pick up the pieces, to carry our burdens, to lighten our load.
Come to him, all you who are weary and heavy burdened – for he has come to you! Whatever sins or struggles or sorrows or stress you’re carrying today, give it all to him. Let him take that yoke, that weight, off of your shoulders. In him you will find rest for your souls.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
