The Pastor’s Words

Text:  Luke 21:25-36
29 Nov 2009
Topic:  The End of the World
 
The end of the world.  Who cares! 
When’s the last time you had a conversation at your home, at school, or at work about the end of the world?  Seriously, I’d like to see a show of hands.  And how long was that conversation?  5 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 minute?
     You see, we just don’t talk about the end of the world.  Now, those of my generation and older talked about the end of the world in the 1950’s and 60’s, largely because of the Cold War and the constant threat of a nuclear holocaust between the United States and the Soviet Union. 
     But today, with the exception of the days and months following 9/11, I have not heard people talking about or fearing the end of the world.  I guess we need to be under some kind of threat or imminent danger to engage the subject.
     However, the world WILL end and it’s documented in the Bible that we read.  As Jesus said in our gospel for today, there will come a day when “Strange things will happen to the sun, moon and stars.  The nations on earth will be afraid of the roaring sea and tides, and they won’t know what to do.  People will be so frightened that they will faint because of what is happening to the world.  Every power in the sky will be shaken….So, when you see these things happening, you know that the God’s kingdom will soon be here.”  (Luke 21:25-26,30  CEV)
So, in our daily lives, whether we talk about the end of the world or not, it’s going to happen and we need to talk about it.
    Willthe world end with the earth simply loosing it’s air and sputtering off into oblivion like a balloon that didn’t get its end tied up?  Will climate change burn a hole in the side of the earth and cause the earth to simply deflate?
    Or, more likely, will the world end come with an asteroid slamming into the earth?  This is what scientists believe.
Will the end look like this?  With an asteroid, so large and so massive, it will simply overwhelm us?
Who will see it happening?
What will it be like?
Will the entire world become a molten mass, like so much lava flowing from the center of the earth?
And once overwhelmed, will we simply disappear into some type of black hole that has no bottom?
What will the end of the world look like?  Jesus said, “Strange things will happen to the sun, moon and stars.  The nations on earth will be afraid of the roaring sea and tides, and they won’t know what to do.  People will be so frightened that they will faint because of what is happening to the world.  Every power in the sky will be shaken….So, when you see these things happening, you know that the God’s kingdom will soon be here.”  (Luke 21:25-26,30  CEV)    
You and I are believers.  You and I KNOW our destiny.  You and I know, that on the last day, we will be found among those who will be with God. 
There are times in our lives when we are afraid.  There are times when we look out on our world and wonder if we will ever survive.  We read the newspapers.  We listen to talk radio.  We are bombarded with news reports from every corner of the earth on the television, and we become so overwhelmed we sometimes succumb to the fears that are common to everyone.
     But, we are not like everyone else.  Like the disciples, we are believers and Jesus addressed himself to the disciples, and to you and me, when he said, “…[When] every power in the sky will be shaken, then the Son of Man will be seen, coming in a cloud with great power and glory.  When all of this starts happening, stand up straight and be brave.  You will soon be set free.”  (Luke 21:26b-28  CEV)
    Jesus said, YOU AND I WILL BE SET FREE!  It is the will of God and God’s great pleasure to not only give us life today but the promise of a “set free” life for all eternity as well! 
And these are promises we can count on because, again, Jesus said in our gospel for today, “The sky and earth won’t last forever, but my words will!”  (Luke 21:33  CEV) 
     We can absolutely believe and trust in the words of Jesus who says, “One day, you and I will be set free, free for all eternity, free from pain and sorrow, free from disease and death, free from anything and everything that weighs us down in this life.  We will be set free!  That’s the gospel news for today!
But the end is not yet.  The end has not come.  There is still time.  And we need to pay attention to the life we are living right now. 
     Jesus said it this way, “Don’t spend all of your time thinking about eating or drinking or worrying about life.  If you do, the final day will suddenly catch you like a trap.  That day will surprise everyone on earth.” 
The end of time as we know it will cease to exist someday.  It is all going to come to an end.  We live in the “in between time,” the time between Christ’s passion, death and resurrection and his triumphant re-appearing at the end of time.
      This “in between time,” even though filled with tension, is nevertheless characterized by hope, a hope based on Christ’s resurrection and his promise of life everlasting for all who believe.
      We are therefore free to struggle, free to wait, free to work, free to witness, indeed, free to live and die with hope because we know the end of the story.
     And so, while we wait, we live and love;  we have fun and serve others.  We live confidently and hopefully, because our future here, and in the hereafter, has been made secure in the faith we have been given in the life, death and resurrection of Christ our Lord.
     The end is going to come.  And Jesus says, “Stand tall, be brave.  Soon, you will be set free!”  For this we give thanks and ask God’s eternal blessings.  AMEN

Texts:  1 Kings 17:8-16 & Mark 12:38-44
8 November 2009
Topic: “Everything will be fine”
 
“Everything will be fine.”  Haven’t we all heard that phrase one time or another?  A small child falls down, doesn’t appear to be hurt, and so we say, “Oh, everything will be fine.” 
We look outside and see that the wind has blown all our leaves onto our neighbor’s yard.  We run over to tell them we’re sorry, only to hear our neighbor say, “That’s okay, they’ll just keep blowing onto my neighbor’s yard next door.  Everything will be fine.”
We hear people say, “It’s okay, everything will be fine,” a whole lot.
But what if everything is NOT fine?   What if everything is NOT okay?
Did you read in yesterday’s paper that unemployment is now up over 10% across the nation? 
Are you aware that the World Health Organization has declared a worldwide pandemic as a result of the H1N1 flu virus?  This is because the virus has been documented in 199 different countries around the world.  
Can you imagine what the families of those who lost loved ones the shootings at Ft. Hood last week are feeling?  Do you think everything is okay, that everything will be fine?
No, sometimes, nothing is okay, and nothing is fine. 
In our first reading for today, a widow was living in a country that had been experiencing a severe draught.  Her cupboards were bare.   She only had enough ingredients to make one small loaf of bread, serve it to her son and herself, eat it, and then wait to die. 
Everything was not fine.  Her situation was not okay.
But here’s what God did to change the situation.  God said to Elijah, “I want you to go to the town of Zarephath in Sidon and live there.  I’ve told a widow in that town to give you food.”  (1 Kings 17:8  CEV) 
And so Elijah goes to this little town, finds the woman, and asks her to give him a piece of bread.  That’s when the woman says, “I don’t have any bread.  All I have is a handful of flour and a little olive oil.  I’m on my way home now with these few sticks to cook what I have for my son and me.  After that, we will starve to death.”  (1 Kings 17:12b  CEV)  
To which Elijah says, “Everything will be fine.”  (1 Kings 17:13a  CEV)
How could he say that?  How could he tell this woman, “Everything will be fine,” when she knew, and Elijah could see, her cupboards were bare and it was simply a matter of time before she and her son would die?  Is this how God fixes things?  You can’t just say things will be okay when they’re obviously not. 
Sometimes, nothing is okay, and nothing is fine.  And we need God to help us through those kinds of times.
Thirty years ago, Joanne and I were getting ready to sit down to eat our Thanksgiving dinner along with other members of our family.  We were living in Macomb, Illinois at the time.  I was serving my first call at Trinity Lutheran Church. 
I got a panic phone call from one of the young families in the congregation.  They were at Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, three hours away, where their son would have emergency brain surgery to take out a tumor that had just been discovered.  They asked, “Could I come and pray with them, in St. Louis.”
I got up from the table, packed some clothes, and went to St. Louis.  When I arrived, we prayed, and we prayed some more.  This young family was devastated.  This was their firstborn son.   Everything was not okay, and they were desperate.  
I thought about this family when a week ago, I got word that one of our young families from Good Shepherd had just had a baby born at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.  The baby’s name is Liliana Tapscott.  She was born on a Wednesday and would be operated two days later, on Friday, because her diaphragm hadn’t formed correctly and some of her organs were in the wrong place.  For this young family, everything was not fine either, and her parents asked me to pray with them that Liliana might be healed.  
Sometimes, things are not okay.  Sometimes, things are not fine. 
BUT THEN, sometimes, things get better.  Sometimes, things do turn out the way we want them to. 
Elijah, in our first reading, was sent by God to Zarephath with the promise, “There is a woman there who will feed you.”  Elijah believed this. 
And the woman, who was not of the same faith as Elijah, who lived in a country where they worshiped a different god, must have believed also because when Elijah told her to go home and make that last loaf of bread and share it with him, she did just that, only to discover that God replenished the supply of flour and oil so that they ate for a very long time.
For the widow at Zarephath, things got better.  She ate.  Her son ate.  And Elijah ate, for a long time.  The young boy with the brain tumor in Illinois survived and is still living today.  Liliana not only survived her surgery but is doing so well she will be coming home soon with the promise of a very long life ahead of her. 
Sometimes, “Everything WILL BE fine.”  And sometimes not.
Every one of us can tell a story of how things are not turning out okay in our lives.  There are people in this room today without a job, even though they have prayed for one.  There are people in this room who prayed for their loved one to get well and it didn’t happen.  There are people in this room today who want what the widow from Zarephath received and aren’t getting it.
We want God to not only listen to our prayers, but to answer them.
To help us with this very difficult situation, I am drawn to our gospel for today.  In that reading another widow is referenced.  In this story, this woman is so poor; she has only two pennies left.  Throwing caution to the wind, she decides to put both pennies, her last coins, into the temple treasury offering box.  She risks everything.  She puts herself at the mercy of God.  She gives up all she has and trusts that, from now on, God will supply what she needs.
Isn’t that what we have to do?  Isn’t that what God expects from us?  Total dependence upon God?   When we have no other place to turn, isn’t it better to rely on God than upon ourselves?
When things are NOT okay, when things are NOT fine, our only real option is to trust that God will provide all that we need.
We can fight alone, and we can die alone, or we can trust God.  The two widows in our readings for today chose to trust God.  It’s worth a try.  AMEN
 
 
 

AllSaintsSunday
Texts:  John 11:32-44
1 Nov 2009
Topic:  Let Him Go!
 
I hold in my hand my Penquin Dictionary of Saints.  There are over a thousand saints listed in this little book.  It gives the date and place of each saint, and what they did that made it possible to call them a saint here on earth. 
There is a Saint Felix of Dunwich who was a missionary to the British Isles in the 7^th Century.
And there is a Saint Procopius who died a martyr in the 4^th Century.
There are a thousand more stories of people whom I’ve never heard about, but, their name is written here as a testimony to their life and accomplishments here on earth.
Most of us – probably none of us – will ever have our name recorded in a book like this detailing our accomplishments on earth.  For while all of you are wonderful people, and some of you have even done some pretty amazing things for other people, it is still doubtful that your life will someday be chronicled for the next generations to read about. 
We are just regular people who are simply trying to live our lives the best way we can.  Sometimes we do some good things for others, and sometimes we’re just as ornery as the next person.  When we do good things for others, we don’t expect any recognition, and when we do things we know we shouldn’t have done we hope nobody finds out.  We’re all fairly normal when it comes to these things. 
None of us are expecting to get listed in this little book.  We just want to live out our days, in the grace and mercy of God, and with the blessing of the Holy Spirit.
In our gospel reading for today, Lazarus is raised from the dead.  You know the story well.  Jesus was a good friend to Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus.  Lazarus dies, of what, we do not know, but he dies and Jesus comes to visit the family late, way too late, so late that both Mary and Martha complain that if Jesus had only come sooner, their brother might not have died. 
Jesus cries about Lazarus’ death.  He cries about death itself.  He cries for humanity.  He cries for everyone who has ever experienced the death of a loved one or the death of a friend.  He cried, and he continues to cry, for you and for me, whenever the pain of separation, suffering and death happens to us.  Jesus cries, real tears, for you and for me, not just for Lazarus, but for you and for me as well.
And then, this most amazing thing happens.  Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.  Despite his having been dead for four days, Jesus calls forth Lazarus from the dead with these words, “Lararus, come out.”  And then, Jesus says, “Untie him and let him go.”  (John 11:43, 44  CEV)
Jesus sets him free.  “Untie him, and let him go!” he says.  And from that moment on, Lazarus was free, free to live, free to serve, free to be the saint God appointed him to be when he was put on this earth.
We don’t know what Lazarus did once he was raised from the dead.  We can only hope he went out and did some really good things, like the saints written about in this book.
The saints in this little book come from all corners of the earth, from all classes of people, from a whole diversity of people, young and old alike.  But there is one common denominator.  As Christians, they were all baptized and declared to be children of God. 
In fact, in baptism they were each forgiven, and therefore, already known as a SAINT in the eyes of God.  They were each bathed in the waters of baptism, marked with the sign of the cross, inspired by the Holy Spirit’s presence in their life, and, as SAINTS, charged with power to bear witness to the light of Christ in their daily lives. 
But just because they were baptized didn’t mean they were destined to do what they were called to do.  Baptized people are given all kinds of chances in life to do good things.  Baptized people are given all kinds of opportunities to live free, serve free, and be the SAINT God intends for us to be, but we don’t always do it. 
There’s a problem.  It’s called sin. 
Most of us have good intentions in this life.  Most of us want to do good things for others and improve the world we live in.  But we fail.  We fail to do even those little things we know would be good to do because of the sin that pervades our lives.  And instead of changing anything in the world, we mess up our individual lives and sometimes the lives of those around us.
As St. Paul once said, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  (Romans 7:19  NRSV)  We are caught in the web of being both a SAINT and a SINNER.
But today, there is hope.  Today, we can celebrate the grace and mercy of God that comes to all who have been baptized.   Today, we can claim a part of the same resurrection bestowed upon Lazarus. 
As the song we just finished singing says:   
 
[For] we once were lost, without hope, without God;
but now in Christ Jesus we have been found –
saved by the promise of God!
 
REFRAIN
No longer strangers, no longer lost and alone!
No longer strangers, now we are saints!
We are one in the house of God!
 
            The saints who have died this past year and the new saint whom we have baptized today, like us, have been given hope in Christ Jesus who saves us from our sin and gives us second chances, and third chances in this life, and an eternity in the next, in which to enjoy the grace and mercy of God.
            Again, from the song we just sung:
 
We who once were dead, now…live in the light,
We follow Christ Jesus, abundant in grace –
Who saved us, who raised us to life.
No longer strangers, we are one in the house of God!
Text:  “No Longer Strangers”
David Haas, ©1993 GIA Publishers
 
Untied and set free, we have been let go.  Free to be God’s SAINTS in the world, forgiven and sent, saved and remembered.   AMEN