4th Sunday After Epiphany

Confidence and Conviction

Knowing and Preaching the Good News can lead to trouble

As a seminary student in our entry level preaching class we talked about nervous habits we have during Sunday services. Stepping into the pulpit brings with it certain fears. Some of us were paper shufflers, some of us tapped the pulpit, others sweat - and badly, for one her voice would get higher pitched as she went. Could we overcome these habits brought on by nerves? I was terrified of making eye contact with anyone for fear of loosing my place in my sermon. It was my job to preach it WORD FOR WORD.

The preacher was wired for sound with a lapel mike, and as he preached, he moved briskly about the platform, jerking the mike cord as he went.

Then he moved to one side, getting wound up in the cord and nearly tripping before jerking it again. After several circles and jerks, a little girl in the third pew leaned toward her mother and whispered, "If he gets loose, will he hurt us?"

⁶Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” ⁷But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, ⁸Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” ⁹Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Jeremiah was a preacher called to reveal and plant God's Word in the hearts of a nation polarized and paralized by fear and difficult political times. Mirrors much like our own times eh?

¹⁷But you, gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them. ¹⁸And I for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. ¹⁹They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.

Jeremiah was aware that even God's own children would fight against hope and promise - presence and revelation. Hearts were hardened to the possibility of hope and God being present. How is this different than our own present time? Who is God sending us to? Will the people of our community be receptive to a message of hope - a call to hear both law and Gospel? What do you see people of God?

A MISSION!

Applying the Text to Daily Life

Having the Confidence and Conviction to Share that:

1. Love is foundational for us as Christians.
1. John Denver:
1. Perhaps love is like a resting place
   A shelter from the storm
   It exists to give you comfort
   It is there to keep you warm
   And in those times of trouble
   When you are most alone
   The memory of love will bring you home
2. ⁴Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
3. Agape love verses romantic love. Often when we hear these words from Corinthians we travel back to a wedding - the dashing bride the stressed out groom, the wedding party who is tired from all the pre-wedding preparations, and the nervous parents - romantic love. These words can speak to that - but Agape love is the love that God has for humankind. The love that we hear in these words comes from God to us and we are called to reflect that with the confidence we have received from God.
4. Loving Agape style takes courage, it takes trust and believing that we may not see a return of it, that we do it for the sake of being God in the world.
   
2. God is up to building up and replanting, rebirth and renewal!
1. "Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are."

   {radio address, September 15, 2001} President Bush.

2. ²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
3. Yet in their amazement could they truly hear and go where Jesus was taking them? Would they be blinded by their hopes, not God's, their ideas about what a messiah ought to be - he was just Joseph's son right?
4. ²³He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” ²⁴And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. ²⁵But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; ²⁶yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”
5. Their implied hopes of a messiah - militant King - were dashed. But nothing stops the power of God to rebuild with real hope, plant real seeds of renewal and new life - let us go with Jesus in the word and watch what happens.
6. God can take the greatest of all human failures and bring new life!
3. This might get you into trouble.
1. 8When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.
2. We live in a nation in which we are not persecuted. Christians have a free voice most everywhere. But this is not a reality in other nations.
   
3. ⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
4. We know in part that God who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. That the convictions of our faith might indeed upset someone - that we are given the courage to speak the truth in love, to open the Word to our neighbor, and see how God can move mountains.
5. When faced with opposition Jesus passed right through and onto his set course - a course never imagined.
   

3rd Sunday After Epiphany

Today Scripture is Fulfilled in Your Hearing
The Importance of Weekly Worship and Engaging Daily in the Word.

What are our earliest memories of hearing the Word in worship? For me these memories are woven together within the liturgy of the Lutheran Book of Worship. "Alleluia Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, Alleluia, alleluia." Then seeing Pastor Harley Schmidt step into the pulpit, the spot light turning on (which always seemed to give off a bright glow with his receeding hairline), and the sanctuary lights being dimmed as the sermon begins. Why would they turn down the lights? Surely it wasn't to encourage napping, or maybe it was discourage balancing the checkbook or other activities that took us away from giving complete focus to the sermon, to hearing the word.

Maybe our earliest memories take us back to a missionary who visited our congregation sharing stories and slides (of course slides!) of far off lands and encounters with the Word that changed lives and brought real transformation.

"The eyes of the assembly were fixed on him." They were astonished and without words. This was Joseph's son, he had common blood, how could he be anything special? Do you remember the first time you felt this way in church? Maybe it was listening to a powerful sermon - like ya know that Dr. Billy Graham?

You may be a member of a choir. I don't know who you are or what you are, but you want to give your life to Christ on this opening Sunday afternoon. I'm going to ask you to do a hard thing, because coming to Christ is not easy. So many people have made it too easy. Jesus went to the cross and died in your place. Certainly, you can come a few steps from where you are sitting and stand here, quietly and reverently, and with bowed head. And say, "I need God; I need Christ. I want to be forgiven of my sins. I want a new life, and I want to start a new direction today." Billy Graham, 1958.

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Final Sermon, April 3, 1968.

What compels us to be caught up in such rhetoric? To feel our spirits move to answer, to be captivated? To remember such a sermon? Conviction. Billy Graham held a great conviction that every person sinner or saint, choir member or staunch atheist needed to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Every person needed to be given the chance to come to Christ, to embrace the promise of salvation and the gift of grace that comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Dr. King was convicted in his spirit to proclaim a Gospel that rose beyond racial and class boundaries and stood in opposition to the laws of man.

Maybe you won't remember a single sermon I preach but it is my hope that you treasure these weekly encounters with the Word enough to share them with your neighbor. That you feel compelled to invite your friends, neighbors, coworkers, former members, classmates, stranger on the street to come and see that God has something to say to this world caught up in pain, suffering, loss, hopelessness and sin. Indeed beloved today scripture is being revealed in your midst - do you hear it?

Applying the Text to Daily Life

1. The Lessons make clear the importance of hearing the Word in the assembly and together in study.
   
1. Come to a place where everyone knows your name and you will be always glad you came!Well at least God knows your name. We remember perhaps with fondness the lyrics to the TV show Cheers. Wouldn't you like to get away to a place where everyone know your name? There is power in this community beloved.
   
2. ⁸So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
3. They read from the book (hearing the Word as recorded in Holy Scripture), the Holy Spirit moves in the assembly through the preacher to bring a message to the people (interpretation), and the people understood it.
4. Preaching the best sermon involves a lot of work - but one can still miss the boat.
   
5. The elderly pastor was cleaning up his office one Friday morning. In the back of the office, he found a small box containing 3 eggs and 100 $1 bills. He showed his secretary the box to ask her about the box and its contents. Embarrassed, she admitted having hidden the box there for the last 25 years. Disappointed and hurt, the pastor asked her, "WHY?" The secretary replied that she hadn't wanted to hurt his feelings. He asked her how the box could have hurt his feelings. She said that every time that he had delivered a poor sermon, she had placed an egg in the box. The pastor felt that 3 poor sermons in 25 years was certainly nothing to feel bad about, so he asked her what the $100 was for. She replied, "Each time I got a dozen eggs, I sold them to the neighbours for $1."
6. You and I we may never remember every public occasion with the Word. Be it at a prayer service, a funeral, a wedding, confirmation, Sunday worship - but we need to hold fast to a weekly encounter with the Word. To hear the Word, hear its interpretation, and then understand it. This then gives birth to change and transformation.
2. The Lessons today make clear the importance of the giftedness of each member and how we truly need each other!
1. 2For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. ¹⁴Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
2. Sven and Ole went hunting for deer one day. As good hunters always do, they stopped to ask the farmer permission to hunt. The farmer agreed to let the two hunt, but warned them that he had a very large farm and it was easy to become lost. He told the two hunters that if they got lost to fire three shots into the air and he would come get them. This sounded like a good plan and they were off. About a half hour later the two found themselves totally lost. Sven said, "Ole, I beleive ve be lost, you better fire three shots into de air." "Ya, I tink you're right, Sven," said Ole. "Ve better get dat farmer going." So Ole fires three shots into the air with great expectations of seeing the farmer. A half hour passes and no farmer. Sven says, "Ole, I tink you better fire three more shots into the air, the farmer has not come yet." "I can't," said Ole, "I run out of arrows."
3. ²⁸And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. ²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
4. Some to be hunters, some church secretaries, some council presidents, others to be teachers - you all are important to this congregation in some way and without you the task of revealing the glory of God in the lives of others.
5. Jesus was among his own when the scriptures"were fulfilled in their hearing." How is this happening in the lives of our youth? What can we do to encourage the revelation of God's Word in this place?
3. The Lessons make clear the importance of engaging daily with God's Word.
1. ¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom.
2. "We live in a culture that does not value concentration. Distraction is the order of the day. Many will, for example go through all the activities of the day and evening with the radio on. Some will read a book and watch TV at the same time." Richard John Foster, Celebration of Discipline.
3. What is the first thing that we do when we walk into a empty house? Turn on some noise! In the car do we value the quiet or crank up the music?
   
4. Could we engage ourselves daily in the quiet study of God's Word? To reflectively give to God time in the morning or at night to read without distraction God's promises and love offerings to us revealed in the Holy Scriptures?

1. If we are Christians we have the Holy Spirit within us. Everywhere we go, He goes. When you are in church with other Christians you have more power from above.
2. When we go to church we sing praises and thank God for His goodness to us.
3. As Christians we are all one body; we need to fellowship with each other.
4. When you go to church faithfully you are a witness to others. Your neighbors and relatives see you go to church.
5. We are one in spirit. The Holy Spirit activates our worship.
6. We are one in hope. When we gather at church we give each other hope and encouragement.
7. As we go to church we become more fulfilled in the Spirit and become closer to God.
8. We show support and love to each other.
9. We stand strong when we are together.
10. We gather strength for the rest of the week. Our lives can be hectic and difficult sometimes. We need the strength we get from being with other Christians.

⁸So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. ⁹And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. ¹⁰Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”