by Jeffrey Spencer | Aug 27, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for August 25
Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost – August 25, 2024
John 6:55-69
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
There’s a pastor I know who entered into ministry as a second career. He started out working in the trades, but when he went into ministry it was obvious right away that he was a natural at it. He had a lot of gifts for pastoral work and his congregation, which was a new mission start, grew quickly. He kept bringing in new members. But then one Sunday he preached a sermon that went over like a lead balloon. What he said confused some people. It made others angry. And just like that, his ministry tanked. One sermon was all it took. People stopped coming. His congregation went into a steep decline. This preacher I’m talking about, of course, is Jesus.
As we come to the end of our exploration of John chapter 6, we hear how Jesus preached a sermon which offended people. They found his teaching difficult and started complaining about it. Jesus had, after all, told people they needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have life. He said that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood abide in him, and he in them. He said that whoever eats him will live because of him. This made no sense to anyone. Frankly, it sounded disgusting.
You might think that once people started complaining about this language that Jesus would soften things, that he would explain what he “really” means. But no. That’s not what happens. Not at all. As we pick up the sermon today Jesus doubles down once again.
Jesus said to those who were complaining: “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” This is a reference to his death and resurrection and ascension as the crucified and risen savior. If you’re offended now, Jesus is saying, what is going to happen when we get to that part? If they’re queasy about a little blood now, what are they going to do when Jesus is lifted up on the cross? If they don’t like Jesus describing himself in this way now, as the sole source of eternal life, what are they going to do when he actually ascends to the right hand of God?
Jesus goes on in this explosive sermon to say that “the spirit gives life and the flesh is useless.” When Jesus uses the word “flesh” here, he is NOT devaluing the body or our physical being. Christ became incarnate in a physical body and he rose with a physical body! Jesus is NOT saying that the physical body is less important than some inner truth or inner voice or inner spirituality – that’s Gnosticism, not Christianity.
The use of the word “flesh” here refers to our fallen human nature. Our fallen human nature will not lead us to salvation, Jesus is saying. Our fallen human nature will not lead us into life. The spirit gives life – our fallen human nature is useless. It cannot save us. It is what we need to be saved from!
Jesus continues by pointing out something else that is painfully true: His words are spirit and life, but there are some who do not believe. Moreover, Jesus says, no one can come to him unless it is granted by the Father. Faith is not a human work. It is not a human decision. It is not the result of human effort. It is a work of God to create faith in the human heart. You can’t achieve it; you can only receive it.
“Well then,” said the crowds, “forget that!” This is the moment when people left in droves. And note here that these weren’t Pharisees or the Chief Priests leaving. These weren’t the usual suspects who were always complaining about Jesus. John tells us that these were his disciples who were leaving! These were his followers!
We live in a time when people are again leaving in droves, when former disciples of Jesus are walking away from him. The Gallup organization has been keeping track of church membership in the United States for about 80 years, and in 1940, 73% of Americans belonged to a church. This held remarkably steady until around the year 2000, when it dipped slightly to 70%. Since then, it has plummeted. It dropped to 61% in 2010, and in 2020 it had fallen to 47%. I was ordained in 2000, so maybe it is all my fault! Seriously, some of you remember when peak cultural Christianity met the Baby Boom in the U.S. and churches were full to overflowing. My entire ministry, on the other hand, has been during this momentous shift towards a post-Christian culture, with people leaving Christianity in droves. It was no coincidence, then, that one of the elements of my Doxology pastoral renewal program was about the importance of spiritual disciplines in what can be a very discouraging time to be a pastor. It can be discouraging to anybody who cares about the church.
There are lots and lots of reasons for why people are leaving Christianity in our own time, but I think it boils down to the same thing that is happening in our gospel reading for today. Many people find Jesus and his claims hard to swallow. They don’t believe they need him for life. They don’t believe they need his forgiveness. They don’t believe there is anything wrong with their human nature, or at least they don’t believe there is anything wrong that they can’t fix themselves.
They find the whole idea of needing a savior offensive.
In desperation, some Christians have tried to soften the offense. Back in the 60s, Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco famously (or infamously) took down all the crosses in his church because he thought it was an offensive symbol. In the last few decades, Evangelical churches have bent over backwards to make worship as unoffensive as possible, constantly catering to people’s felt needs. In our own denomination there are more and more clergy who believe that the concept of sin is too offensive. They seem to believe that talking about sin is the only sin there is. And so in some circles the confession of sin in worship is being replaced or rewritten with softer language or tossed out entirely because it is seen as too negative, too offensive. Never mind that sin and being saved from it is what the Bible is about from beginning to end. Never mind what the Lutheran Confessions, which every Lutheran pastor vows to uphold at their ordination, might say about any of it.
We should never set out to be offensive. There are others in the church today who seem to enjoy the offense a little too much. They seem to enjoy driving people away. They seem to take pride in their smaller and supposedly purer churches.
But at the same time, it is noteworthy that Jesus cares less about offending people and more about saving them. He cares less about what is popular and more about what is true. He cares less about telling people what they want to hear and more about what they need to hear.
And the truth Jesus proclaims in this sermon is that he gives his body and blood for us, that he would abide in us and we in him, that we would have life – now and forever. The truth is that the blood of the cross was necessary for our salvation, and that Jesus, the Son of Man, has ascended to the right hand of God. What people need to hear is that our human nature is useless. We are in bondage to sin and unable to free ourselves. We need forgiveness. We need a savior. What we need to hear is that saving faith cannot be achieved, it can only be received as God grants it through the hearing of the Word.
When people started to bail on Jesus after this sermon he turned to the twelve and said, What about you? Are you going to leave too? “Do you also wish to go away?” he asked them. And Peter replied, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
You have many options for where you can go, many options for how and where you can spend your time other than at church, other than in worship. Many of your friends and family members are choosing those other options. There has been some more encouraging polling recently from Gallup suggesting that the drop off in church membership and attendance of the last few decades has leveled off – but many are still choosing to be elsewhere.
But we are here because it is here that we find something that we cannot find anywhere else. The “here” I’m talking about is not specifically the picnic or the barn, though I always love being here. I’m not even specifically talking about Oak Harbor Lutheran Church, though I love our congregation and think everyone on Whidbey Island should be an active member. The “here” I’m talking about is our gathering around the Word. The “here” I’m talking about is this sharing in life-giving body and blood of Jesus. The “here” I’m talking about is this community which has been gathered around Christ and his gifts, given in Word and Sacrament.
We are here because Peter’s response is our own. We sing it in our weekly liturgy:
“Lord to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” We are here because there is nowhere else that we can receive what we are given here. We are here because it is here that we receive Christ’s gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. We are here because we know just how much we need them.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Aug 21, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for August 18
Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost – August 18, 2024
Proverbs 9:1-6, Ephesians 5:15-20, John 6:51-58
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we hear what might just be the most shocking thing Jesus ever said: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” There is the graphic language of eating flesh and drinking blood, which, on the face of it, sounds more like something you’d hear in a zombie movie than a worship service. Then there is the exclusivity of Jesus’ statement and his total lack of equivocation: Unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood, Jesus says, you have no life in you. Life is found in him alone! And just in case anyone was to think that maybe Jesus just phrased things poorly, in his very next breath Jesus repeats all of this by saying that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink, and those who eat and drink of it have eternal life. He really means all of this!
But what, exactly, does he mean?
There are different ways of interpreting Jesus’ words here. Even within Lutheran Christianity there are different interpretations. Some, including Martin Luther himself, have argued that what Jesus is saying here is all about the cross. With this shocking language, Jesus is pointing ahead to the sacrifice he would make for us on the cross. He is the one whose flesh would soon be given and whose blood would soon be poured out in order to make atonement, in order to make things right between sinful humanity and a holy God. This was all foreshadowed in the Levitical system, the sacrificial system we read about in the Old Testament – only now, instead of it being a bull or a lamb or a turtledove, it would be the Son of Man giving himself as the final sacrifice. By eating and drinking this in, by consuming this gift, by taking it in through faith and inwardly digesting it (as we talked about last week) we receive eternal life.
Other Lutheran theologians argue that this passage is all about the Lord’s Supper. They point out that John doesn’t include an account of the Last Supper and the institution of the Lord’s Supper in his gospel – probably because he knows it has already been covered three times in Matthew, Mark, and Luke – and so instead John is sure to document these words of Jesus to help us understand what is happening when we share the Lord’s Supper, to help us understand that we are indeed eating and drinking the true body and the true blood of our Lord Jesus, who gives us eternal life.
There are important reasons for both interpretations, and I don’t want to gloss over them, but I also think both can be true at the same time. This shocking language from Jesus is primarily about the cross. Jesus is no doubt pointing ahead to the sacrifice he would soon make. But it is also true that in the Lord’s Supper we are connected in a powerful way to what happened on the cross. It is in the Lord’s Supper that we receive the body and blood which were given on the cross for our salvation. As St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthains: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” Jesus is no doubt pointing ahead to this too.
Speaking of the Last Supper, you may have heard about the controversy at the Olympics opening ceremonies in Paris a few weeks ago. As part of the performance art there was a depiction of a banquet which bore an uncanny resemblance to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” only instead of Jesus and the apostles there were drag queens striking similar poses. There is some question as to whether the resemblance was intended or not, but even if it wasn’t, the artist’s explanation wasn’t much better. He insisted that what he was really depicting was the feast of Dionysus. To be fair, because the Olympics originated in Greece, it does make some sense to give a nod to Greek mythology, but Dionysus is an interesting choice. Dionysus doesn’t represent strength or speed or victory. Dionysus represents revelry, drunkenness, promiscuity, and pleasure seeking. The Roman name for Dionysus was Bacchus, which is etymologically related to the word debauchery. The Bacchanal feasts of ancient Rome and the Dionysian feasts of ancient Greece were notorious for intoxication and gender bending and orgiastic indulgences – all of which were depicted in not-so-subtle ways in this performance art. This Dionysus-inspired display perfectly represented what St. Paul is referring to in our second reading from Ephesians when he warns against evil days and foolish people, and saying, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.” This is exactly what the Ephesians had left behind when they became Christians.
This part of the opening ceremony represented less than two minutes of the otherwise spectacular four-hour event celebrating French history and culture, but the specific Greek mythology this artist chose to depict is telling. The motto or mantra of these worshippers of Dionysus was: “Nothing is true; everything is permitted.” Even if the artist didn’t intend to mock the Last Supper (which I find very difficult to believe), this is the ethos he was promoting, and this is the ethos that is increasingly gaining a foothold not only in France but in all of Western civilization. We are seeing a resurgent Dionysian paganism where nothing is true and everything is permitted, and those who worship at this table are in grave spiritual danger.
A couple of Sundays ago I was at my Doxology conference in Kansas City, and in the Sunday morning sermon, which was on the Bread of Life just as it was here that week, the preacher said something which stuck with me. He said, “False gods always consume their worshipers. Only the Lord Jesus gives himself to be consumed.” This just rings so true! The idols people turn to for comfort or peace or pleasure always end up devouring them. Those Dionysian false gods have a way of consuming their worshippers. We see this in how promiscuity so often leads to depression or disease. We see this in how drug and alcohol abuse destroys people from the inside out, making them a shell of their former selves. I’ve personally watched this happen, and I know many of you have too. We see this in how people spend their lives chasing one pleasure after another, and when that inevitably leaves them feeling empty, they fall into despair. The celebrity chef and food journalist Anthony Bourdain seems to be an example of this. He was wealthy and famous. He went all around the world eating all the best foods. As an atheist, he believed this was what life was for – to eat, drink, and be merry. He ended up taking his own life – in Paris of all places, the culinary center of the world. Dionysus consumed him. It’s awful. He was a charming and insightful and wonderful man. This is the danger. False gods always consume their worshippers. Only Christ gives himself to be consumed.
This, my friends, is what this shocking-sounding gospel reading is all about. When you get right down to it, what Jesus is saying here is more than an abstract theological claim about the cross or an abstract theological claim about the Lord’s Supper. Instead, it is a powerful proclamation of the kind of God Jesus is. Jesus is the kind of God who, instead of consuming us, gives himself to us to be consumed. Jesus gives himself for us on the cross, and he gives himself to us in the Lord’s Supper. He is the only God like this, and so he is the only God who can truly give us life.
In a world that wants to eat you up and spit you out, the Lord Jesus comes as one who gives you his own body and blood to eat and drink. This isn’t cannibalism, which is what the early Christians were accused of by their pagan neighbors. This is the promise of Christ dwelling in us as we receive his gifts, given in Word and bread and wine. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them,” Jesus says.
In a world that wants to eat you up and spit you out, the Lord Jesus gives you himself to eat and drink, that you would have life. “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever,” Jesus promises. “Whoever eats me will live because of me,” he says. Ignatius of Antioch, one of the early church fathers – so early that he knew the apostles personally – wrote that the Lord’s Supper is “the medicine of immortality, because there in the eating and drinking we receive the Lord’s true Body and Blood just as He had taught in Capernaum.”
In a world that increasingly believes that nothing is true and everything is permitted, Jesus comes to us as the way, the truth, and the life.
Christ comes to us with his cross, where we find forgiveness for all the times we may have sat at the table of Dionysus. He comes to us with his Word, which guides us in the way, teaching us to lay aside immaturity and walk in the way of insight, as it says in our first reading, teaching us to be careful in how we live, not as unwise people but as wise, as it says in our second reading. Christ comes to us summon us to his table, which is set with his true Body and Blood. He comes to feed us with true food and true drink – the medicine of immortality. Jesus comes to be consumed by those who worship him, that we would have life in him.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Aug 16, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for August 11
Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost – August 11, 2024
John 6:35, 41-51
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
To begin this morning, I ask you to pray with me an ancient Christian collect, or prayer. Let us pray:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
In this prayer which has been prayed by the Christian church for many hundreds of years, we ask God to help us inwardly digest the holy Scriptures. This is the language of eating. It is the language of receiving something, taking it in so that it becomes part of us. We pray that we would inwardly digest the Word so that we would receive life from it, a life that is everlasting.
Today we once again hear our Lord Jesus say, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” As Pastor Laurie concluded her sermon last week by saying, “to be continued,” we pick up right where we left off in John chapter 6, with this verse being our point of overlap. And as we continue to explore this chapter today, we hear Jesus inviting his hearers to inwardly digest who he is and what he has come to do, so that they would have life in him.
Next week we will hear Jesus get more explicit about how people are to literally eat his body and drink his blood, and so next week we’ll make some more specific connections to the literal eating and drinking of the Lord’s Supper, but for our passage this week Jesus is speaking more figuratively.
As odd as it might sound, there are many examples in the Old Testament which speak of eating the Word of God. Ezekiel was told to feed his belly with the scroll God gave him, filling his stomach with it (Ezekiel 3:3). Jeremiah was told to eat the Word of God, which became a joy and a delight to his heart (Jeremiah 15:16). The psalmist describes God’s Word as sweet to taste, sweeter than honey on the tongue (Psalm 119:103).
And so when Jesus says he is the bread of life, he is drawing, in part, on this language. When he calls people to come to him that they would never be hungry and to believe in him that they would never be thirsty, he is drawing on this language of consuming God’s Word, taking it in and inwardly digesting it, so as to be filled, so as to be strengthened, so as to be given life.
This was too much to swallow for some. (Pun intended.) As John tells us, some people complained that he said he was the bread of life which had come down from heaven. This claim was distasteful to them. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son,” they grumbled, “whose father and mother we know? How can he now say he came down from heaven?”
They were skeptical of his claims. They were just sure that they knew him, that they knew where he came from. Jesus might be the toast of the town, but they couldn’t believe he was the bread of life. To them he was just Joe and Mary’s kid. They knew where he came from – and it was Nazareth, not heaven.
But Jesus kept pushing. He kept proclaiming. He kept promising. He told them not to complain. He told them no one can come to him unless they are drawn by the Father – and then Jesus put the scent of that bread under their noses so that they would be drawn by the Father, so that they would come to him. He put his wonderful promises in their ears so that perhaps they would eat them, so that perhaps they would begin to inwardly digest them.
Jesus tells them that whoever believes has eternal life. Note well the present tense here. Whoever believes HAS eternal life. This is not only a future promise – it is a present reality. It is something happening now. Whoever believes has eternal life. Whoever trusts God’s Word has the eternal God in their life now. Whoever comes to Jesus is no longer hungry for God. Whoever believes in him is no longer thirsty for God. God has come to them in Jesus to fill that hunger and quench that thirst here and now!
Jesus then goes on to make a future promise: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.” And so this bread, this Word, this promise, is indeed a future hope as well. This bread is a living bread. It doesn’t just fill you up for a day, or a week – it continues to give life perpetually. It gives life everlasting.
As we hear this Word today, I wonder how many of us find these promises to be too much to swallow. I wonder how many a have a hard time believing it, at least at times. I wonder how many have truly inwardly digested the meaning of all of this, taking it in deeply, letting it nourish and strengthen us, letting it give us life.
Perhaps at times we are like the skeptics in our gospel reading. We think we know Jesus. In fact we’ve known of him for a long time – but we have yet to comprehend the fullness of who he really is for us.
Maybe this is silly, but perhaps we have grown cynical after all the conflicting information we’ve received over the years about which foods are good for us, which foods really give life. Margerine is healthier than butter. Oops! No, it really, really isn’t. Eggs are bad. Oops, no, just the yellow part is bad. Oops, no, actually the whole thing is good. Red wine is good for your heart. Oops! No, actually you’d need to drink 100 glasses a day to get enough of that particular antioxidant, and in the meantime all your other organs would be poisoned. Sorry! Perhaps this dietary confusion has spilled into our spiritual life. Who can we trust? What is true? What can we believe?
Perhaps we have just seen too much death to believe that it could ever be overcome by eating anything, even something called the bread of life.
In our confusion and our unbelief we find ourselves hungry and thirsty. We find ourselves increasingly shaky and weak. We find that we need nourishment and strength that comes from outside of ourselves. We need living bread from heaven.
Jesus is this bread. He is the bread we need. Jesus is the living bread from heaven. Jesus comes to us today, putting the aroma of this bread into our nostrils as the Word goes into our ears. He promises us that when we come to him we will never be hungry. He promises that when we believe in him we will never be thirsty. We will never lack God’s presence.
Jesus promises that whoever believes in him has eternal life here and now. He promises that whoever eats of the bread that is him will live forever.
We come to him not because we are good or smart or worthy. Coming to him is not a spiritual achievement or a decision we make. We come to him because we have been drawn to him by the Father. “Anyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me,” Jesus says.
That’s you. That’s what is happening right now! We are drawn by the Father to the Son through the Word he delivers to us through the Spirit. Our hearts simply follow the aroma of those promises like one follows the alluring smell of fresh bread into the kitchen.
In a sermon on this passage the early church father St. Augustine wrote: “Believe, and you have eaten already.”
So believe. Believe the good news you hear today. His promises are trustworthy and true, so believe them. Believe that the eternal God has entered into your life here and now so that you can be filled, strengthened, nourished. Believe that whoever eats of the bread that is Jesus will live forever. Believe, and you have eaten already.
Once again, let us pray this ancient collect:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Aug 16, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 28
Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost – July 28, 2024
2 Kings 4:42-44, John 6:1-21
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
It has often been said that a crisis doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
We have two crises in our gospel reading today, and this saying very much applies to both of them. These crises reveal to us who Christ is. They reveal to us his character, his identity. These crises reveal to us who Jesus is and why he has come.
The first crisis isn’t necessarily a life-or-death situation, but it does involve a large crowd out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat. They aren’t necessarily going to starve to death, but if you’ve ever been out in the woods with a few hangry kids, you know how dire this situation is. Things can go south in a hurry!
But before we even get to the crisis itself, Saint John (the gospel writer) prefaces the story by telling us what time of year this is happening: “Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.” It is important to understand that there are no insignificant details in John’s gospel. John mentioning that the Passover was near means something. John is intentionally framing this story in the context of this festival.
The Passover is the central festival for the Jewish people. It celebrates God’s saving help. It celebrates God’s deliverance of his people out of their captivity in Egypt. God fed them with the Passover Lamb, filling them with protein just before they began their long march towards the Promised Land. And then, along the way, when they were out in the wilderness without any food, God fed them again with miraculous manna from heaven.
Now it just so happens that there are a bunch of Jews once again living in bondage to foreign powers. Now God’s people are again out in the wilderness without anything to eat. What do you think is going to happen?
I love how Jesus toyed with Philip here, pretending to be concerned, pretending that he didn’t already know exactly how this was all going to play out. “Just look at all these people here, Philip,” Jesus said. “How are we ever going to buy bread for them all to eat?” John tells us Jesus knew what he was going to do all along, of course. Jesus was testing Philip.
We could think of this testing as a Sunday school quiz for Philip. “Do you remember the story about the manna in the wilderness, Philip? Do you remember what God did?” This was a quiz that both Philip and Andrew failed. Even though Passover was right around the corner, they weren’t making the connection at all. They looked to the meager amount of cash they had on hand. Andrew pointed to the one person who seems to have come prepared – a boy with five barley loaves and two fish – but noted that this wasn’t nearly enough to feed this crowd. “What are we going to do?” they asked.
And then Jesus did what he already knew he was going to do. He took the boy’s five loaves and two fish and he miraculously multiplied them, distributing them to everyone there, until all were satisfied. There were even leftovers!
The people who ate this miraculous meal in the wilderness knew they had experienced more than an impromptu picnic. They knew that they had received more than a fish sandwich. They knew that they had seen a sign. They knew that this meal pointed to something important about who Jesus was. They began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who has come into the world!”
We heard in our first reading for today the story of the prophet Elisha feeding a crowd. This story features some striking parallels to what these people experienced. An anonymous donor provided some barley loaves. There was more crowd than food, and yet, all ate and were satisfied. There were even leftovers! Sound familiar? You can understand why they would think Jesus was the prophet! The same thing was happening again!
They tried to make Jesus their king, but Jesus refused and withdrew from them – he wouldn’t be a king on their terms. He wouldn’t be coopted by their agendas or their felt needs. He had bigger things in mind, bigger things to accomplish – bigger fish to fry, we might say.
They were on the right track, in a way. Jesus was a prophet, insofar as he brought a word from God. He had come to be a king of sorts, although he would be a king unlike any they could imagine, with a kingdom not of this world.
But what this crisis reveals more than anything else is that Jesus had come to usher in a new Passover, a new saving event. What this crisis of not having enough food in the wilderness reveals is God had now come to them in person through his Son. God had come to feed them in the wilderness on his way to leading them to a new Promised Land.
A crisis doesn’t build character, it reveals it, and here it reveals Jesus to be the saving God who has come in the flesh to do more saving, this time from even greater powers. It reveals Jesus to be the one who fills every hunger through the miracle of his abundant grace.
The next crisis is told much more briefly, but it reveals much the same about Jesus. The disciples were out on the Sea of Galilee at night when a storm kicked up. They were three or four miles from the shore. Boats like theirs went under in those kinds of conditions all the time, so this really was a life-threatening crisis. It was dark and chaotic and topsy-turvy. The waves heaved up and down while the disciples heaved those fish sandwiches over the siderails. Just then Jesus came walking out to them on the sea. Walking on the water was a cool trick, but it was what Jesus said that reveals the most about him: “It is I,” Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid.” I really wish Bibles would translate this better, because as it is here Jesus sounds a little bit like Mighty Mouse. “It is I! Here I come to save the day!” He has come to save the day, to be sure, but so much more is going on here with these words! This is ego ami in Greek, which literally translates as “I AM.” In Hebrew it is pronounced Yahweh.
So now it is time for you to have a little Sunday school quiz. Do you know what God said to Moses when Moses asked for God’s name? God said, Yahweh, “I AM.” And so this crisis reveals something about Jesus’ character, his identity. In the fear and chaos of that storm in the dark of night, Jesus revealed himself as Yahweh, as the Lord God, who had come close to them in their time of need. “I AM,” he said to them, “So do not be afraid.”
A crisis doesn’t build character, it reveals it. Through the Word we hear this morning God is revealing to us the truth about his Son. God is revealing to us who Jesus is, and why he has come. God is showing us that Jesus has come to be our savior, that he has come to be our Lord, that he is the Son of God who has come to be with us in the midst of the crises we experience.
Some of these crises are on a smaller scale. They are more personal. They have to do with the struggles and anxieties of daily life: “Where am I going to get the resources I need to survive?” “How am I going to make it through this day?” “How am I going to find nourishment and strength as I travel in this wilderness? What is going to sustain me?”
Other crises are on a much bigger scale. There has been election year chaos on a level we haven’t seen in this country since 1968, and we aren’t even to October yet. There is ongoing international violence, including the 12 children killed on a soccer field this weekend in a rocket attack in Israel. God is openly mocked on a global stage. Yes, you could say that life in this world has felt topsy-turvy and unstable and slightly nauseating.
These various crises, both big and small, reveal something about us. They reveal the wilderness we live in as we make our way through this world. They reveal the darkness and the chaos that kicks up and engulfs us from time to time. They reveal that we need a savior. They reveal that we need a Lord who can give us the strength and the peace and the hope that the world so clearly cannot give us.
The crises we hear about in our gospel reading, however, also reveal Christ to us. They assure us that he is the one who has come to feed our deepest hungers. They assure us that he is Lord of all creation, who ultimately has power over even the darkest, fiercest storms. They point us to the great truth that he comes to us with sacramental food and a holy Word.
Through his Holy Supper, he feeds us with miraculous food to nourish and sustain our souls. He meets us in our wilderness and strengthens us with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation. (We’re going to be hearing a LOT more about this in the weeks ahead as the lectionary takes us on a deep dive into this chapter of John’s gospel.) In this meal he reveals himself to be our savior. In receiving the bread and the wine that are his Body and Blood we participate in the new Passover. We participate in the saving event of his death and resurrection.
Jesus comes to us with a Word to give us peace and calm in the midst of every storm. Whatever particular crises you might be enduring, whatever storms you might be facing, today Christ Jesus reveals himself to you through Word and Sacrament to assure you that he is God, and he is near. “It is I,” he says to you. “Do not be afraid.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jul 23, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 21
Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – July 21, 2024
Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
As [Jesus] went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
What was it, exactly, that Jesus saw in this crowd that caused him to have compassion for them? What did he see in them that tugged on his heartstrings?
Actually, the response Jesus has here which is described as “compassion” is technically more related to the gut than the heart. He felt their situation in his gut. He felt their need deeply, to his core. He had a gut instinct to respond.
So what was their situation? What was their need? The scriptures tell us they were like sheep without a shepherd, but what does that mean?
I know there are a handful of you out there who have actual experience with sheep, but most of us are much more familiar with dogs. So, if you don’t mind me mixing metaphors just a bit, let me tell you about an experience I had recently with a dog.
On the morning of July 5th, I went out for a run. Being the morning after Independence Day, the sidewalks and streets were covered in cardboard casings from the fireworks people had shot off. This town really, really likes fireworks, and so they were everywhere, serving as a reminder of the loud booms and cracks heard throughout the night before.
By morning it was quiet. I didn’t see anybody out on the street. There was nobody driving by. And then I saw this dog. It was running on the other side of the road. It was panting with exhaustion. Its eyes looked frantic, but not in a menacing way. It looked more sad and confused than threatening. It was pretty obvious to me that this dog had been scared by all the explosions overnight and had bolted. Who knows how long it had been running or how far it was from home? I slowed to a walk and it looked at me, its ears perking up with hope. I started to walk towards it to see if it had a tag with a phone number or something. It stopped running too, and when it did I could see that it was trembling. I spoke to it in gentle, calming tones. It looked at me with those confused and frightened eyes. Then it gave me an expression that seemed to say, “Nope, you’re not my person!” and it ran off.
Now before someone comes after me for being anti-fireworks, let me assure you that that is not the point I’m trying to make. What I’m trying to say is that THIS is what it is like to be a sheep without a shepherd! It is an experience of being frantic and frightened and vulnerable and confused. It is an experience of running madly in any direction you can just try to get away from what is scaring you. To be a sheep without a shepherd is to be lost and exhausted and desperately looking for the one you know and trust to care for you.
This isn’t just something that happens to animals. It happens to people too. It happens to people all the time. This is what Jesus saw in the people he encountered that made him respond with this gut-level compassion.
Long ago, God had promised to send a new shepherd to care for his people. In the time of the prophet Jeremiah, the shepherds weren’t doing a good job of shepherding. In our first reading we heard how the shepherds were destroying and scattering the sheep. The shepherds Jeremiah is referring to are the kings of Israel. We often assume that anytime we hear of shepherds in the Bible that it is referring to pastors, but this isn’t in this case here. More about that in a bit. Here Jeremiah is talking about kings, and these kings were corrupt. Instead of caring for the sheep God had entrusted to them, they sought only their own power. Instead of providing for their sheep, they only lined their own pockets. Instead of being models of godliness, they abandoned God’s Word and God’s ways whenever it benefitted them to do so. And because of the negligence and the evil doings of these shepherd-kings, the sheep were scattered, unattended, alone, and afraid.
Through Jeremiah, God promised to tend to these wicked shepherd-kings. God promised to raise up new ones who would do a better job. And God did precisely that. God raised up shepherd-kings who were faithful and good, kings like Zerubbabel, who rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem.
Even better, however, God promised through Jeremiah that he would ultimately raise up through King David’s line “a righteous branch.” God promised that this particular shepherd would “reign as king and deal wisely,” that he would “execute justice and righteousness in the land.” God promised that “In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.” God said, “This is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
What God is promising here is that he himself will come to be their shepherd. God is promising that he himself will come to be their righteousness. What Jeremiah is saying is that Lord himself will come to make things right, the Lord himself will come to save his people, to gather all who were scattered. The Lord himself will come to be this shepherd, to lead them in right pathways for his name’s sake.
And in Jesus Christ, this righteous branch has come. In Jesus Christ, this promise has been fulfilled. Jesus is the shepherd who has come to reign as king and deal wisely. He is the shepherd who has come to make things right. He is the shepherd who has come to save.
We see Jesus doing precisely this as he encounters this group of people in our gospel reading. Jesus saw the fear and the desperation in their eyes. He saw how they were lost, how they had been scattered. He saw how they were frantic and exhausted and in need of one they could trust to truly care for them. And so, scripture tells us, “He had compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.
Jesus is still this shepherd. He is the shepherd-king Jeremiah promised would come. He is the shepherd we hear about in the 23rd psalm. He is the Lord who leads people to green pastures and still waters, restoring their souls. He is the shepherd who has a gut-level reaction of compassion for all who are scattered, lost, confused, or afraid. He has come to those who were like sheep without a shepherd, so that they wouldn’t be without a shepherd anymore. He is that shepherd for us. He is that shepherd for you.
We live in a time when many people feel like scattered sheep, when many people feel a little frantic. We hear loud noises coming from the booming voices of those who stir up fear in order to shore up their own power. We have recently heard loud rifle cracks of political violence, which has everyone on edge. We have widespread loss of trust in many, maybe all, of our civic institutions, which has many people feeling disoriented and confused, not sure where to turn or who to believe.
On a more personal level, we see those sad and frightened eyes over and over again in people around us who are dealing with scary stuff. We see them in parents with a sick or medically fragile kid. We see them in those battling cancer, and in their spouses who feel so powerless to help. We see it in families that have experienced the devastating impact of addiction, which has become so tragically common in our country and our congregation. We see them in those who have held the hands of loved ones as they have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and then had to learn to live without them, which is like learning to walk again.
We sometimes feel like scattered sheep, like lost dogs. We sometimes feel frantic and afraid, lost and vulnerable, desperate and confused. But we are not without a shepherd who cares for us.
Pastors are sometimes called shepherds. There’s a good reason for this. One of the most prominent images for pastoral work in the New Testament is that of shepherding. Pastors are to shepherd God’s people. They are to shepherd the congregation. But there is really only one shepherd, and that is Jesus.
Through the Doxology pastoral renewal program I have been participating in this past year I have come to view the pastor’s role of shepherding in a slightly different way. There I have been encouraged to think of pastors as sheepdogs.
Sheepdogs do indeed do the work of shepherding, but they do so by the direction of and on behalf of the real Shepherd. As sheepdogs, the pastor’s first job is to spend a lot of time looking at the Shepherd, keeping their eyes fixed on Him. Then they are to follow his lead in nudging the sheep in His direction, so that they would look at Him too.
As a sheepdog, sometimes the loud noises make me anxious too. But I know a guy! I know a shepherd. He is the only truly good shepherd. He is the only shepherd-king we can trust to care for us no matter what.
When he sees our frightened or frantic eyes, he has great compassion for us. He feels for us right down in his gut. And so he comes to us. He comes to lead us to green pastures and still waters. He comes to us to restore our souls. He comes to lead us in right pathways for his name’s sake. He comes to walk with us through the valley of the shadow. His rod and his staff comfort us. He prepares a table for us, and our cup overflows.
When you are tired, he is your rest. When you are afraid, he is your peace. When you feel lost, he will be your home.
Let us all keep our eyes on him.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jul 23, 2024 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 14
Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost – July 14, 2024
Amos 7:7-15, Ephesians 1:3-14, Mark 6:14-29
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Whenever this gospel reading comes around every three years, I have a hard time saying, “The Gospel of the Lord” at the end of it. “Gospel” means “good news,” and it is hard to see any good news in this sordid story. Instead, it is filled with adultery and manipulation and shocking violence. It sounds more like the evening news than the Good News.
But that is part of the point. As scripture often does, St. Mark is holding a mirror up to the kingdoms of this world. He is holding a mirror up to society, including ours. He is holding a mirror up to the realities of sin that continue to this day.
Herod Antipas was the son of the other King Herod we hear about in the New Testament – the one who killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem after Jesus was born. Herod Junior, otherwise known as Herod Antipas, was following in his father’s footsteps. He had grown up to be a Jewish puppet king for the Roman Empire, just like his dad. His Jewishness gave the appearance of piety and respect for God’s people, but he was just a mask, behind which lurked imperial, pagan Rome.
But the mask slipped when Herod Antipas’ scandalous behavior became public knowledge. On a visit to his brother Philip in Rome, he engaged in an affair with his brother’s wife, Herodias. They both ended up divorcing their spouses and marrying each other. Many in the Jewish community were upset and angry. They didn’t like the idea of a Jewish king violating God’s commandments, especially to marry his sister-in-law. John the Baptist was brave enough to call him on it. John called Herod and Herodias to repent.
Herod, scripture tells us, found John the Baptist to be an interesting person. He actually liked listening to him. He acknowledged that he was a righteous and holy man. He even feared him to a degree. Perhaps there was some respect for God’s law that remained in a corner of his heart. Perhaps his conscience was being pricked by John’s preaching.
His wife Herodias, on the other hand, despised John. She hated John for daring to publicly call them out on their adultery. She was so mad about it that she wanted him dead. At first Herod wouldn’t go that far, but at his wife’s insistence he did go ahead and arrest John and put him in prison. (Marriage is all about compromise, right?)
But then came Herod’s birthday party. Herod invited lots of powerful people for a birthday banquet. Herodias’s daughter, who was now not only Herod’s niece but his stepdaughter too, performed a dance at the party. This dance got everyone’s attention. Given what we know about this family and about the culture of the time and about human nature in general, this was almost certainly not a ballet dance. This was not an innocent tap dance. This was very likely a young woman dancing in ways that kept the men in rapt attention. At the end of the dance, Herod made a big show in front of his powerful friends, promising to give his niece/step-daughter anything she wanted. He even offered to give her up to half of his kingdom.
Herodias saw her chance. She coached her daughter to ask for the head of John the Baptist. Herod was “deeply grieved,” the scriptures tell us, but he was trapped. He was trapped by his own sin, by his own foolish bravado. Feeling bound by the oaths he had made in front of his important guests, Herod gave the gruesome order. John was beheaded, and the proof was brought into the banquet on a platter.
In our first reading we hear about Amos’ vision of the Lord holding a plumb line next to a wall. A plumb line was a simple tool consisting of a string with a weight tied to the bottom. It was a common tool used for construction in the ancient world. Gravity held that string taught and true, and so it showed whether a wall was vertically straight or not. It revealed where it was out of alignment. The Lord held this metaphorical plumb line up to the wall that was Israel under King Jeroboam, showing that they were horribly out of alignment with God’s will.
Similarly, in his preaching John the Baptist was holding a plumb line up to Herod Antipas and Herodias. He showed them how they were out of alignment with God’s commandments. First they violated the first commandment to have no other gods, which led to violating the tenth commandment against coveting another’s spouse, which led to violating the sixth commandment against adultery, which led to violating the fifth commandment against murder. Before John was done in by their violation of the fifth commandment, he called them to repent, to be realigned.
And now this Jesus whom Herod had heard so much about was sending out preachers. They, too, were preaching repentance! Herod thought that John, whom he killed, had come back to life! He was haunted by John. He was convicted by the plumb line of his preaching.
This is how God’s Word works. It is like a mirror, or a plumb line, for all who hear it. As we hear this sordid story today we can certainly make some connections to things happening in our own time. The Bible isn’t shy about showing us our world as it really is in all its wickedness and debauchery and violence.
But God’s Word holds a mirror, or a plumb line, up to us too. It shows us where we fail to live in alignment with God’s will. This story reminds us how certain sins are often handed down generationally. It shows us how insidious sin is – not just in the halls of power, but in our daily lives. It shows us how for us, too, the commandments are like dominoes in that once one falls, others soon follow. It shows us how desperate we are to be in control of our little kingdoms, how desperate we are to save face in public, how desperate we are to silence those voices which call our actions into question. It shows us how we often end up feeling trapped by sin with no way out. Did we not just confess that we are in bondage to sin and unable to free ourselves?
On the surface this story sounds like an unwelcome and R-rated anomaly in the lectionary. It sounds like an episode of Game of Thrones, or perhaps Desperate Housewives of Ancient Israel. But there is good news in it. There is good news in the fact that it is precisely into this reality in which we all live that Christ has come. It is this world that God so dearly loves, quite in spite of itself. It is this world and its fallen human race that Christ came to save – not ultimately with a mirror or a plumb line, but with a cross.
You see, this story, as strange and out of place as it might seem, is not only showing us how out of alignment the world is; it is already anticipating how God would go about setting it right. Mark includes this story in his gospel to begin to point us to the cross. He tells this story because it so powerfully foreshadows what Jesus would endure in order to bring salvation to a broken world. Jesus, like John, made many people mad for calling them out on their sin. Jesus, like John, would be arrested. Jesus, like John, would be brutally executed by a reluctant official who was bowing to the pressures of a crowd. Jesus, like John, would be laid in a tomb.
Before all this, when Jesus sent out his disciples to preach repentance, Herod thought that Jesus was John, raised from the dead. Herod was wrong on the details, of course, but he was saying more than he knew. His mistake was actually a clue of sorts, a clue foreshadowing what would come. Because after Jesus’ own brutal execution, he did rise from the dead! The grave could not hold him. The ugliness of this world could not keep him away. Jesus was raised from the dead in order to bring us back into alignment with God through the forgiveness, life, and salvation he has won for us through his death and resurrection.
There is good news here in this story. It is lurking in the background, but it is there – and it is for you. The good news for you is this: no matter how depressingly sordid the TV news gets, there is nothing new under the sun – and it is precisely this broken, sinful world that our Lord loves and came to save. This should help us all to live in hope in spite of all the depressing headlines.
Furthermore, no matter how sordid or sinful or messy or painful or soap-opera-y your own story might be, it isn’t too much for Jesus. No matter how out of alignment your life has been or might be today, Jesus has come to bring you back into right relationship with God through his forgiveness, which he continues to pour out for you abundantly. As St. Paul tells us in Ephesians, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.”
Christ has come to redeem you from the sordid parts of your story. By his death and resurrection he has conquered sin and death in order to give you his kingdom, which comes with a new life and a new hope and a new future.
This is the gospel of our Lord.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
