Lutheran Free Conference

Lutheran Free Conference 2012

http://www.lutheranfreeconference.org/#

November 7-8
New Ulm, MN

A Lily Wiser Than Solomon

Trinity 15

September 16, 2012

Content in Christ

A Lily Wiser Than Solomon

Matthew 6:28-29

In name of Jesus. Amen.

Jesus pointed out Solomon's splendor when talking about being content, because Solomon tried to serve two masters: God and money. Even though he had everything, he wasn't content.

He had wisdom.

God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than any other man… 

And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations. He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom. (1 Kings 4:29-34)

He had wealth.

All King Solomon’s goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon’s days. The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons.

King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules. (1 Kings 10:21-25)

But the good gifts of wisdom, fame, and money with which the Lord had blessed Solomon were not enough. He had married many women, many of whom worshiped false gods. He began worshiping these idols, because he was only content when he served his own needs. In the end he was his own idol, his own master. He served himself.

The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. (1 Kings 11:9)

Jesus contrasted this great man of history with a flower.

See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. (Matthew 6:28-29)

Flowers are blessed with wisdom and contentment because they can't pretend that they are the reason for their own beauty. On the other hand, we pretend all the time.

We pretend that our money is ours. We may know that we have our money because God gives us jobs and parents, but we still manage to pretend that the money has become ours and we can use it as we like. We use it on the newest iPhone and TV and clothes that we don't need, because the money is ours.

Time belongs to us. We work for the weekend. The end of the world happens once a week: Friday. Heaven is Friday night, and Saturday, and Sunday morning. Sunday night is gloomy, and Monday morning is hell, when you live as though time belongs to you and that you can control it.

Contentment is out of the question, when you treat money and time as though it's yours. You might enjoy the illusion of possession for a while, but it never lasts. If anyone could have been truly content through the control of money and time, it would have been Solomon. But his life ended with turmoil in his life and in his kingdom.

Solomon wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes, which begins,

“Meaningless! Meaningless!… Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

Wisdom, money, even fame are gifts that are good when we don't pretend they belong to us and we use them to help others. Jesus doesn't need your wisdom, money, and time, but your neighbor does. And treating your good things as they truly are—gifts from Jesus—is the source of lasting contentment. And it starts on His cross.

Christ's cross washes away our sin, including our desire to pretend that money and time belong to us. The cross confesses that we are beggars with nothing to offer, so that all you have is a gift.

And by faith in His cross for us, we take the money we have and the time we are given and share them. First with our family, then with others. We spend our time and money by first asking ourselves, “What is the best way to use Jesus' money and time for the needs and benefit of my spouse and children, and then others?” You can answer that question as you live in the shadow of the cross. And even though your inner Solomon will howl at the answers and even win the day, you still live under the cross and live as a forgiven Solomon and a wise lily.

We don't pretend. It belongs to Jesus. And we live accordingly: forgiven, forgiving, and giving.

In the name of the Father of the + Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Why Jesus Healed Ten

Trinity 14

September 9, 2012

Why Jesus Healed Ten

Luke 17:11-19

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Why did the Holy Spirit inspire St. Luke to record this multiple healing? Before I tell you why, let me tell you that it wasn't to make you feel guilty.

Our thanksgiving is always incomplete, imperfect, and mixed up with our selfish desires. A prophet who preached Christ 700 years before Christmas, St. Isaiah, is blunt: “All our righteous acts (including our thanksgiving) are like filthy rags [to God]” (Isaiah 64:6).

So don't try to measure yourself up to the Samaritan. Your mother may compare you to others, but you shouldn't. You shouldn't try to compare yourself to others in regard to how good you are or in regard to how thankful you are to God's goodness.

Here's the thing. Jesus healed all ten lepers. He did not re-leperize the other nine after the Samaritan showed up to give thanks. He knew before He healed them who would return. But He healed all ten because of His great mercy.

Jesus quotes St. Hosea, another prophet who preached Jesus' advent before He arrived, and said: “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)

Jesus desires mercy, but always rejoice that He is the source and the One who sustains all mercy. St. Paul says in Romans 9: “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy” (v. 16).

God's mercy is why those ten lepers were made whole. And when they were told to go to the Temple, Jesus gave them the faith to obey Him. And they were rewarded for Jesus' mercy.

And the Samaritan came back. Here's the rest of the story: he couldn't go to the Temple with the rest of the newly-healed Jews. If he had gone to the Temple, he would have been stoned to death. Jews could not allow non-Jews into their holy place.

So instead of going to the Temple of the Old Testament, of Moses and the Ten Commandments and of the Law, the Samaritan went to the Temple of the New Testament, Jesus.

Jesus is the New Temple. We know this from the Gospels. After Jesus had driven the money-changers from the Temple grounds, St. John tells us:

Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. (John 2:18-22)

The Samaritan had nowhere else to go. Jesus had created the faith in this man, so that this man trusted in Jesus. His faith was a gift and it clings to Jesus.

Thanksgiving that the world, and the Law, and you expect is measurable. Look at how we treat Thanksgiving Day: “Well, at least I'm going to church today. All those other people who are home watching parades and the football pre-game aren't thankful like me. If more people were thankful like me, than this country would be going to pieces!” That attitude is pride and is sinful.

Let's take it for granted that we take things for granted! Let's stop trying to measure how thankful we are.

Thanksgiving based on the Gospel is all about mercy, not measuring our level of sacrifice. The highest worship, praise, and thanksgiving is simply receiving the mercy that Jesus gives us!

In the Lord's Supper, also known as the Eucharist (Thanksgiving), you receive Christ Himself. You receive the forgiveness of your sin. He makes you whole for the very same reason He healed all ten lepers: His mercy.

In the name of the Father of the + Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

You Aren't the Good Samaritan

Trinity 13

September 2, 2012

Who Is the Good Samaritan?

Luke 10:30-37

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Jesus tells a story about a man who loved and expected nothing in return. He finds another man, half-dead, in a ditch. He clearly had been robbed of all he had. So he didn't rescue that man to gain; he rescued him out of love that expected nothing in return.

And that's the point of our parable today: Love that expects nothing in return. This is perfect love.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. (Deuteronomy 6:5; Luke 10:27)

Ironically, this was the heart-felt answer of a man who felt that he could justify himself. In other words, he was pretty sure that he could stand before God's judgment throne and declare himself to a man who had loved perfectly. This man thought that he had a relationship with God because he thought he had loved God and other people with all his heart!

Believers who are daily confronted with God's desire for perfect love that never expects anything in return must always say, “Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner! Christ, have compassion on me, because my love always expects something in return. I cannot remove my selfishness from my love. Have mercy!”

Because of sin of self, our relationships are broken. Your selfishness is why your family is so fragile, and why a happy family is worth more than a pile of gold.

Sin is why husbands and wives fight over trivialities. Afterward, they say, “What were we fighting about?” They can't remember because the real issue was selfish love. They love their beloved and expect a gesture in return. When these expectations aren't met, tempers flare.

When we refuse to confess that we are sinful and selfish, when we refuse to admit that our love is not perfect, we establish unrealistic expectations for love in general and our relationships in particular. This man who tested Jesus considered his love to be perfect, so good that he couldn't wait to go and perfectly love his neighbor. Thus, his follow-up question makes perfect sense: “Who is my neighbor?”

Then Jesus tells him with a story that he needs to go back and take a closer look at his first question: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus wants him to see that “I do” isn't part of His rescue of souls. He preaches that perfect love that expects nothing in return is far away from every human being, most especially far away from those who think that they are close to it.

So He preaches a story that can do nothing, but cause our minds to flashback to all those times when we failed. (Sure, those who want to try to justify themselves will cherry-pick the few “success stories” from their lives.) Jesus' sermon forces us to think about those times when our time was more precious than anything else. It forces us to think about the times when we have not loved and when we have loved expecting something in return. In short, Jesus preaches how miserably we have failed to keep the law of perfect love.

But this remarkable sermon-story also preaches the Gospel, because He preaches Christ, He preaches Himself. He is the Good Samaritan. He has loved us without expecting anything in return. His love for us gained nothing for Him. His love for us didn't make Him a more perfect God; He was, is, and always will be perfect.

So He preaches us away from our selves and preaches us to Him. When did He pick us up? When His pastor picked you up and held you at your baptism. When did He wash our wounds? When His pastor poured water on you over the baptismal font, a fountain of everlasting life.

What must you do to inherit eternal life? Nothing. What did Jesus, your Good Samaritan, give you to give you eternal life? His own.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Solitary, Sticking, Spitting, Sighing, Speaking

Trinity 12

August 26, 2012

Solitary, Sticking, Spitting, Sighing, Speaking

Mark 7:33-34

Dear baptized souls,

Sometimes Jesus heals the sick from far away. Other times He gets in close. Today is one of those times.

We see five up-close ways Jesus heals this deaf-mute man. Jesus did things for that poor man that only a mother might do. He laid His hands on this poor man and made him feel well, and even better than any parent, He actually made him well.

First, He gets him alone. He takes him aside. He does this to get him away from the crowd. Even though this poor man couldn't hear the commotion, Jesus was making it clear that He was responible for this man's healing.

Second, He sticks His holy fingers in this man's dirty ears. (Our antispetic culture says, “Gross.”) But again all those other people watching would see that this man was deaf, then Jesus took him aside, and then this man came back to the crowd well and whole. Sticking His fingers into his ears emphasized that Jesus was at work directly with His broken creature.

Third, He spits. He puts His saliva on His finger and applied this holy water to this mute man's broken tongue. Again, every witness saw Jesus' contact with this man and what happened next was all about Jesus and to His credit.

Fourth, Jesus sighed. The original Greek word Mark used meant the kind of sigh you sigh when confronted with great evil or sadness. When you heard that those two girls were missing in Evansdale, you may have sighed with deep sadness, even from far away.

Jesus was up close to this man who was a walking poster boy of life in a sinful world. And He sighed.

Finally, He spoke, “Ephphatha!” This Aramaic word is exactly the sound that came out of our Savior's mouth. And because God spoke, it was so. The man ears and tongue were opened, so that he could hear and speak clearly. It was a miracle.

God speaks, and it is so. He speaks and the heavens and the earth—everything—is made. He speaks to Adam and Eve of a coming Savior from this evil world and our evil selves, and He comes. This Savior, Jesus, comes and speaks, and the stormy winds and waves are still. This Savior Jesus comes and speaks, “It is finished,” and it is so.

He still speaks today. Just as He touched the poor man's tongue with a finger of His body, so He also places His body on our tongues in His Holy Supper. It is truly Him in the flesh. It is a miracle. He comes to us in mystery, and it is a mystery that washes away our sin.

And His saliva reminds us of our Baptism, when He washes not just our tongues and ears, but our whole selves, body and soul, with His life-giving word, “You are baptized in My name!”

Jesus heals your sin-sick souls from that far-away cross. But He also get up close to you and heals your soul through the work of the Church and her pastors. He gets up close to you through His faithful people in the world and at home who care for your earthly needs.

Let us bless the Lord who cares for us up-close with His holy hands, water, and Word.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Good Work of Nothing

Trinity 11

August 19, 2012

The Good Work of Nothing

Luke 18:13-14

Dear baptized souls,

Unbelievers is a misleading label, because unbelievers actually believe, just not in the Christ and His suffering and death for their sin.

The Pharisee in Jesus' story was an unbeliever, but he certainly believed in someone.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ (Luke 18:11-12)

He believed in himself. He believed that his kindness and compassion would force God to take order from him. Jesus' story brings out his over-the-top arrogance.

So you miss the point of this parable if you think you aren't in this story. You certainly aren't a bragging Pharisee. On the other hand, you don't scream in agony over your sin, either. You think you are holding this story in a snow globe, interested, but apart from the action.

You are both these men. Since your washing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you have struggled with your arrogance that you can be a lazy Christian and you have also cried out to Jesus for mercy in the liturgy on Sunday morning. This is the Christian life, swerving between our arrogance and God's mercy in Christ.

Arrogance doesn't always look like arrogance. Among church members and pastors, it often looks like apathy. Close to a hundred in our church family are arrogant because they don't come to receive God's gifts on Sunday morning. (I'm not talking about those who must work on Sundays or those who have moved away and regularly go to their nearest church to receive God's gifts.) These Pharisees refuse to be fed; they think they can feed themselves. And this is what I say to them when I can.

And here's where the other arrogance creeps—in false humility, patting yourself on the back for being here today. You're here because there's nowhere else to go. This is where Jesus is. This is where He offers His body and blood to you to eat and to drink, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sin. As Peter said to Jesus,

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that You are the Holy One of God. (John 6:68-69)

Humility never thinks, “Look at how humble I am.” Humility says, “I'm nothing. All my good works are of no value before Your throne. Even my pathetic wretchedness will not make You love me. I'm nothing. My nothingness means nothing.”

This is the attitude of the pitiful tax collector: he was nothing and he knew it.

We don't always know or feel our nothingness. We sometimes feel pretty good. And it's okay to feel good. It's okay to have a good day—I hope Jesus blesses your future with them.

But our best days are the days when we understand that our greatest good work is nothing in us and everything Jesus has sacrificed and done for us.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Love in Lowly Pomp

Tenth Sunday after Trinity

August 12, 2012

See His Love in Lowly Pomp

Luke 19:41-44

Ride on, ride on in majesty!

In lowly pomp ride on to die.

Bow Your meek head to mortal pain,

Then take, O Christ, Your power and reign.

Dear baptized souls,

Today's Gospel tells us what else happened during Palm Sunday—Jesus sobbed. The Greek word used (ἔκλαυσεν) tells us that Jesus was sobbing, as He soon would sob during His prayers at Gethsemane.

Jesus was weeping loudly on that donkey's colt, not crying tears silently, but we might say that He was bawling. And Luke puts this sad noise in sharp contrast with the happy noise of the crowd, who had just been shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Lk 19:38)

He was sobbing because so many in Jerusalem and even many in this crowd of Hosannas rejected His cross.

They demanded glory and good times and happy feelings. They shouted, “Hosanna!” because they thought Jesus was coming to bring them glory right there and then. And when He didn't, they killed Him.

Jesus wept not for Himself, but for those hard-headed people. They stubbornly thought that since they belonged to the Jewish race and had the Temple, where they went through the motions of sacrificing to the true God, then God would reward them.

This attitude went back to the time of Jeremiah, who told their forefathers to stop trusting in outward things and lip service to God. Jeremiah told them these hard-headed people,

Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” (Jeremiah 7:4)

Jeremiah telling them to stop trusting in idols, in this case, a building built by King Solomon. But they didn't listen and the First Temple and the surrounding city of Jerusalem was destroyed.

Jesus warned the crowd of the same attitude and its consequences—stop trusting in your community, stop trusting in things that you can see, stop looking for glory and power. And because they didn't change, Jerusalem and its Second Temple were destroyed.

And He wept bitterly as He saw all the lost souls who refused to be gathered into the refuge of His Church. Matthew adds to our understanding of Jesus' weeping, when he writes that Jesus said later,

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.” (Matthew 23:37)

Where is our comfort in our Savior's tears? If He cares this much about those who hate Him, take a moment to consider how He loves those who trust Him and seek the cross, both His and our own.

By His grace and through His gracious means, He has baptized you into His Church, He has forgiven you through His pastor, and He will soon feed you the Bread of Life. Through His Church, He gathers us together and protects us, even when steeples are falling and even when crops are dried up and even when families are crumbling. He weeps with you when you weep, He rejoices when you rejoice in the cross, and He will always be with you because in lowly pomp He died for you.

In the name of the Father and of the  Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.