Immanuel Lutheran Church - Benson

“Love covers over all wrongs.”
Proverbs 10:12

So I’m sitting in my office on the Tuesday of Holy Week, trying to distract myself enough so I can hear God’s Word in the readings for Maundy Thursday so that I can compose a sermon.

See, if I concentrate on myself too much when I’m trying to write a sermon, then the sermon just ends up being about me: what I want, what I think, what I feel.  So, every time I get to this point, I have to read these lessons every 10 to 15 minutes, and then distract myself from my own thoughts, so that I can try and tease out even a little bit of what God wants, what God thinks, and what God feels as revealed in these lessons.

So as I’m sitting here, I thought, “You know, maybe you should write on your blog about something totally unconnected to Holy Week at all.  That will distract you!”

Well, that’s what I thought.

I pulled out this little verse from Proverbs (one of my favorite books of the Bible by the way) and lo and behold, I think that it has everything to do with Holy Week.

After all, this verse tells us simply that, “Love covers over all wrongs.”  That is what Holy Week is all about!  This week is about God loving us poor pathetic little human beings so much that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was not only willing, but actually did get killed to save us.

This is the type of love that covers over all wrongs.  Not like our human love for one another, that can cover over a lot of wrongs, hurts, betrayals, and all the other horrible things that will happen to us in this life.  This is a type of love that only God can give: a love so pure and right that it won’t just cover over the wrongs that happen to us, but the wrongs that we do to others!

The blood of the Lamb, shed for you and for me, covers over all the wrongs, all the hurts, all the betrayals that we have committed.  And yes, to some of us, this just means that we will do them all over again.  But then the blood of the Lamb will cover them over too.  And to some of us, we will accept being covered over by the blood of the Lamb and turn from our sins - although most of the time it’s just to turn to another sin.  But the blood of the Lamb will cover them up too.

Our sin is like a chasm, separating us from God.  Only the love of God, made human in Jesus Christ, made suffer under our sin and die on the cross can cover up the chasm so that God, who loved us from the beginning of the world, can come be with us - Immanuel!

As we sit and ponder what this week means for us, what the stories of Jesus betrayal, passion, death, and resurrection matter for our lives today, please don’t forget the reason behind all of this: God just wants to love you!

Thanks be to God!

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23

We are approaching St. Valentines’ Day, a day that has Christian roots but that has largely been a secular holiday, when we give our loved ones cards and candies and shower them with love and attention.

And this is a great day.  It’s a great idea to set aside time, not only once a year, but every day to tell the people we love that we love them.  It helps to build up that relationship and enrich the bonds and promises we make to each other.

But the history of St. Valentines’ Day is very interesting.  According to Wikipedia (which I know is not a very reliable resource, but it’s kind of fun and easy to look up) this day remembers many different saints named Valentine, who were all killed for their faith.  These ancient martyrs were killed because they refused to recant their beliefs in a God who loves us all so much that Jesus Christ was willing to be killed to prove it.

But what does that have to do with Valentines’ Day as we know it?  Simply, it is all about love.  Out of love for us, God sent Jesus Christ into this world.  Because of love for us, Jesus Christ followed God’s will even to the point of being put to death.  Because of God’s love for Jesus and for us, God raised him from the dead.  And through all of this, God the Holy Spirit loves us so much that we are continually showered with the powers and gifts to love one another in word and deed.  And, in the end, God loves us so much that despite our sinfulness, we are given the free and undeserved gift of salvation. 

Many different words are used to describe this gift.  Salvation, Eternal Life, Grace, Love - all of these words describe what God is giving to us, freely and bountifully, so that those who believe in Jesus Christ and call on his name will not be lost into darkness of death, but be raised up to new life.

We cannot earn this gift from God, just like we cannot really earn the gifts we receive on Valentines’ Day.  Sure, we love our family and friends, and because of that relationship, they give us gifts and we give them gifts in exchange.  But a true gift, just like the gift of eternal life from God, is not earned, but always given freely. 

We cannot earn the gift of salvation from God, but we can receive it joyfully, happily this day and every day.

Thanks be to God!

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”
Psalm 34:8

Just so you know, I love food.  I especially like a real good cherry pie.  And candy.  And chocolate.  Yeah, good food.

Are you hungry yet?  Good.  Go get something to eat.  Something really tasty, something that you really, really like.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait here.

Okay.  Now this treat that you’re eating, this meal that you gave yourself, came from somewhere.  It may have been organically grown in your backyard, cared and cultivated by you alone.  Or it may have come from a factory, undergone many chemical processes, with all kinds of additives and preservatives, shipped half-way across the world until you bought it in the grocery store, brought it home, put it in your pantry, forgot about it until now, when you finally ate it.  Or it could be somewhere in between.

But this food came from somewhere.  You didn’t magic it up, create it out of nothing.  You planted a seed, toiled over the dirt, or you worked hard to earn money so you could buy it, while someone else worked hard to farm the land, making the base food stuffs that you are eating.

But the food came from somewhere.  And ultimately, whether you’re eating food you grew yourself or food you bought pre-packaged, we can trace the roots of that food back to God.

God gives life to humans, animals and even plants.  God makes the plants grow in their seasons, makes the rains come (or the snow as it is today).  Food comes from God, through other people, and finally to us.

This, I believe, is the real reason why we like food so much.  Food is a sign, for me, that God loves us.  God created us, and in fact created us to consume food.  Now, food doesn’t have to taste good (as you would know if you tried some of my failed recipes).  But food nourishes us, helps us grow as God has designed us to grow.  But God has made us to like certain foods, has made foods to taste good to us, and given us these foods to enjoy!

What a blessing food is for us.  Taste your food again, and see how good God has been to you, to provide you with this delicious food.  Taste and see that the Lord is good!

Thanks be to God!
Pr. Bryan

While he was saying this, [about unclean spirits returning to those who cast them out unless the unclean spirit is replaced by a clean spirit] a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!”  But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!”
Luke 11:28

What does it mean to be blessed?

When someone says, “Bless you!” after you sneeze, do you feel any different?  Did your soul get crammed back into your body (as is the joke about your soul escaping during a sneeze, which is the reason why polite people say, “Bless you!” after you sneeze)?

When you come to church, and you hear the benediction (The Lord bless and keep you now and forever), do you leave feeling different?  Does that make any real change in your body or soul?

This word occurs 335 times in the NRSV, yet it is a word that I am not really familiar with.  So I will take you along with me as I explore this word, its uses and meanings, and what it eventually means for us.

So my first stop is by computer program BibleWorks, just to see how prevalent this word is.  That’s how I know it pops up 335 times in the NRSV.  I could look at other translations, but I just don’t feel like it.  The first appearance of the word is in Genesis 1:22, where God blessed the animals and the birds so that they would reproduce.  The final time it appears is in Revelation 22:14, (the conclusion to that letter) where people are blessed and allowed into the Kingdom of God.  So that’s interesting, that the word spreads through the whole of the Bible, beginning to end.  It’s not a word that one particular author used, or special to one particular book.  But that also means that the definition is going to be wiggly - after all, the word probably changed meaning and interpretation over the thousands and thousands of years from Genesis to Revelation.  So what is the definition of the word? 

According to one of my dictionaries, to be blessed actually has two definitions.  The first, and most common use of the word, refers to God’s state of being.  “Blessed be God!” is according to this book a traditional Jewish worship response and call.  I’ve heard it too in songs like “Blessed be the God of Israel.”  The second definition refers to human beings which is to be in a state of happiness, well-being, and in God’s favor.  But “Blessed” seems to be a variation of the word “Bless” (both can be nouns or verbs or adjectives - it’s really hard to place them in English grammar structure outside of particular usage). 

So, according to this same dictionary, “Bless” has two meanings as well.  It is primarily used in reference to what humans do to God: to acknowledge the wonder and majesty of God in light of all that God has done.  ”Bless” can also be used in reference to things or people, but this dictionary makes an interesting point that it is not that the object or person takes on special significance, but that to bless an object is to thank God for giving it. 

The second definition of “Bless” refers to what God does to humans, granting us special gifts of property, land, possessions, or spiritual goodness.  Humans can bless other humans in this way as well, giving property, land, possessions, or even spiritual goodness through sharing what we know about God!  (Take that, confirmation students all over the world - you’re getting blessed whether you like it or not!)

It seems then, that in this passage from Luke, Jesus and the unnamed woman in the crowd are trading these definitions of the word and deed.  This woman wants to grant special benefits to the woman who bore Jesus, presumably unknown to this particular woman.  We know the story of the woman who bore Jesus, Mary, and we know for sure that she was blessed by God.  Mary says so herself, in Luke 1:48 (”Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed…”). 

Jesus, though, contradicts this woman.  Really?  Is he saying that Mary wasn’t really blessed?  I don’t think so.  I think Jesus is refocusing this woman and the crowd back to what he was talking about.  After all, this event takes place on Jesus’ walk to Jerusalem, his trip towards his death.  This woman in the crowd wants to look backwards, to a happier time, a pleasant memory, perhaps an innocence before all this talk about suffering and death.  In other words, perhaps, she is saying, “If you’re so smart (and you’ve shown yourself to be), why don’t you go back home to the woman who bore you and nursed you so that you could grow up and be so smart!” 

But Jesus was never one for looking back.  He looks forward, to the kingdom of God, and the sign he will become of that kingdom (hence the next story of the sign of Jonah for Nineveh and the sign Jesus will be for this generation).  At this point, Jesus is surely looking forward to the cross, but also to the sending of the Spirit on the disciples(Acts 2), when about 3000 people heard the word of God spoken through the disciples and were baptized and included as disciples of Jesus.

And Jesus is surely looking ahead to us, calling us blessed (favored of God and happy in our salvation), but also surely pointing out that blessed people will bless the Lord, remembering all that God has done for us, and using what God has given us to serve and care for others.  That is, after all, how Jesus the Word of God summarized all the words of God for us: Love the Lord, and love your neighbor.

We are truly blessed when we recall what God has done for us: the first creation, the last creation to come, our lives, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.  All this God has done for us so that we might be the blessed people, a people sent out like our Father Abraham, to be a blessing for all people (Genesis 12:1-3).  So let us bless the Lord, remembering all that God has done, and looking forward like our Lord Jesus to what God is doing next!

Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.
Proverbs 11:4

I love the Bible’s Wisdom Literature!

Wisdom Literature is a specific type of writings that only a few books of the Bible qualify.  But the book of Proverbs is one of them.  If you’ve never spent time with Proverbs, I encourage you to pick up your Bible and check it out.  It’s a great little Old Testament book, and it contains the roots for most of the teachings that Jesus did.

Most ancient Wisdom Literature (from outside the Bible) comes from Plato’s attempt to figure out what “the good life” would look like.  And since the ancient world did not have public schools like we have now, parents and elders of the community had to teach their youth how to behave and live in the world as responsible adults.  And so Wisdom would be passed down from philosopher to parent, and then parent to child.

But the Bible’s Wisdom Literature (primarily Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon) focus not on how to live “the good life” in this world, but how to live the faithful life.  A lot of the wisdom in these books (as well as the wisdom teachings in all the rest of the Bible) would have been counter-cultural even back then, much less now, today.

I mean, look at this proverb.  “Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath…”  Is that even true?  For so many people in our world, wealth is exactly what they want when they are in trouble.  If you have enough money, they think, you can buy yourself out of trouble, or at least delay the consequences. 

But remember that in the Old Testament, the wrath of which they speak is God’s wrath, God’s punishment.  And God is not interested in obtaining your money.  God gave that to you in the first place.  No amount of money will protect any of us from God’s wrath, or the finality of “the day of wrath” (usually interpreted as the day God reclaims the breath of life God gave you - so the day you die).  This simple truth makes fools of us all, doesn’t it?  We all struggle in this life to achieve money, status, things, and then we die.  We act like money and power make all the difference in this life, but in the end it changes nothing.

“But righteousness delivers from death.”  The superstitious will think that this means, “If I’m good enough, I’ll never die.”  But that is nowhere near close to what this means!

First of all, what is righteousness?  Righteousness, as a Biblical concept, is not just being right all the time, nor is it doing good things.  Righteousness is living as we were created to live, in right relationship with God, each other, and all creation.  As such, righteousness is impossible for human beings to achieve.

So who is righteous?  Only the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, who came to save us all from sin and the finality of death.  It is Jesus’ righteousness that we rely on, and we live in relationship with him in order that we can see his righteousness at work in our lives.

But even Jesus’ righteousness will not save us from dying.  Death is a result of sin, and since we all sin (more than we should most days), we will die.  But Jesus’ righteousness will deliver us from death.  Deliverance does not mean “saving from,” but means “carrying through.”  Just as the Israelites were saved from Egypt, delivered through the wilderness to the promised land, we will be saved from this life of evil and sin, delivered through death to eternal life.  Or, just as we trust the USPS to deliver our mail through hundreds of miles, we will be delivered by Jesus Christ into the hands of our loving heavenly Father.

As Martin Luther wrote in the Small Catechism, in his explanation to the second article of the Apostles’ Creed: “At great cost he [Jesus] has saved and redeemed me, a lost and condemned person.  He has freed me from sin, death, and the power of the devil - not with silver or gold, but with his holy and precious blood and his innocent suffering and death.”

Jesus’ innocent suffering and death are the signs we need of his righteousness: that he would live a righteous life even to the point of suffering and crucifixion, so that we might benefit from his death. 

Wealth is ultimately useless to us (although the benefits it can bring to this life are real and good).  What we really need to cultivate is not our financial lives, but our faithful lives, trusting that Jesus’ righteousness will deliver us from this world.

This wisdom will help us, even though to the world, it looks foolish.  After all, this world teaches us to gather us as much money as we can, even to the point of taking it from others.  But Jesus’ righteousness, working in our lives, will lead us to good and true uses for our wealth now and to a trust in Jesus for the rest of our lives!  Pray for that change in all our hearts!

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Ephesians 4:1-3

So far, I’ve been keeping my blog clean of controversies.  I’ve made it my effort to try and post uplifting, grace-filled messages so that you, when you read this, may come away feeling God’s love for you.  This post will break the first goal, but hopefully still keep the second.

Tomorrow (Friday, August 21) the ELCA in our Churchwide Assembly will vote as to whether to allow homosexuals in relationships to be ordained ministers.  This has become a great controversy in our church, along with the controversy in the wider world about recognizing those same relationships.

And I, being a prisoner of God’s Word, both Law and Gospel, feel that the only controversial point of the whole discussion is why it has become a controversy.

I’m wondering about the nature of controversy.  Why do we allow disagreements, problems, dislikes to become controversies?  Is there any way to stop controversies?  Is there any way, in our present world, that a problem will not become a controversy?

According to www.dictionary.com, a controversy is a public dispute between groups with opposing views.  But what sets a controversy apart from a public debate, public discussion, or other form of settling opposing ideas?  I feel that it is the vehemence with which the dispute is carried out.  I mean, between any of our friends, there is likely to come about a dispute with opposing views (even over something as simple as what to eat for dinner).  But that dispute, whether public or private, is not carried out with utter disdain and dislike for the opposite side.  But in a controversy, both sides see the other as not just wrong, but even evil.

I think the other break between a debate and a controversy is that controversies seem to be drawn out.  Any other argument can be cleared up fairly easily and quickly.  But not a controversy.  These incessant, ongoing, angry arguments seem to always come back around in a never-ending spiral of hate.

It is with these two aspects of controversies that I, with a heavy heart, await the vote in the Churchwide Assembly tomorrow.  Not because I don’t want this resolved (and not that I don’t have my opinion about the way this should be resolved), but because we’ve allowed this to become a controversy.  We have decided that the only way to resolve this issue of our life together is with hate, anger, and threats of leaving.

And so, in my devotions this week, I came across this passage from Ephesians.  And I wonder, in this controversy, where is the humility?  Where is the gentleness?  Where is the patience?  What would it mean to bear one another in love if the other dislikes you for everything you are?  What does it mean for those (on both sides of the issue)who are threatening to leave the ELCA, when we are told to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace?

Sure, we justify ourselves by declaring the bond broken if the vote doesn’t go our way, but that is just what it is: self-justification.  We self-justify ourselves by reminding us that it is God’s Law, and we must follow God’s Law, even though we all break God’s Law with our every action and every intention.  Have we cast ourselves into sin unwillingly and unknowingly, or did we jump in, eyes wide open?

I have become convinced through all of the controversies in the recent months that a controversy is the work of the devil, sent to us to distract us, given to anger us, to drive us to evil actions, evil intentions, and to break the power of the Gospel in our lives for the sake of the Law.

And here is our salvation.  Here is our hope.  It is not for the sake of the Law that we will be saved!  We can (and do) break every one of God’s Laws.  And yet, when God saw it was the right time, our God sent Jesus Christ into the world to save us from the power of the Law with the power of the Gospel - the good news that God’s Kingdom is breaking into this controversy-filled world, shattering our self-justification, making us God-justified.

Why should we turn our backs on the power of the Gospel for us, for our friends, for our enemies, for our world?  Do we distrust the Gospel so much that we would rather follow the Law?  Could anyone survive that?  Do we really think that the Law will save any one of us, heterosexual or homosexual?  Do we really think that the power of the Gospel is only for those heterosexual, as if sexual orientation is a limit on the work of the Spirit?

Of course not!  We are Lutherans, born and bred since the 16thCentury to know that God’s Grace is sent to us in Word and Sacrament, no matter who we are, no matter what Law or rule or law we have broken.  God’s Word does indeed come to us in Law and Gospel, but both carry us finally to God’s Grace.  This is the only thing that is real in this world - that God’s Grace is for all, regardless of nationality, gender, law-abider or law-breaker, homosexual or heterosexual.  If, in the end, Grace is not for all, then Grace is for none, for if in any way we must earn Grace, then it is not Grace, but Law, and we are all dead and forsaken.

But we are not forsaken.  We are gathered into the body of Jesus Christ through our baptism: one Body, one faith in one Lord.  That is who we are.  No more should we let controversies distract us from our mission in this world of gathering every person into this body of Christ that bears us up out of the depths of sin, death, and the power of the devil, and unites us with our Lord now and forever.

This is my prayer for you, and for all at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly: Forgive us, Lord, for allowing your Grace to become lost in our conflicts.  Bear with us in love, maintaining the unity of the Spirit in peace, humility, gentleness, and patience, whether we agree with what happens tomorrow or not.  Jesus Christ, you are our Lord whether we are right or wrong, so do not let us break the power of the Gospel for the sake of the Law.  Rather, let your Gospel ring out for all to hear!  Amen.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5

You would probably think that, following all of Paul’s arguments that finally lead to his statement, “…we are justified by faith,” there would follow a lot of wonderful, flowery talk about how great this new justified life will be like.

After all, the justified sinner is brought into peace with God only through grace (the unearned love of God for all creation), given to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!  How could life not be great?!  What could we possibly have to worry about?

Well, life definitely is not all rainbows and puppies.  Even as we stand in God’s grace, knowing our sins to be forgiven, seeing life as a blessed gift, and knowing that our salvation is both certain now and sure to come to fruition - despite all of this, there is still suffering, tribulations, trials, and torments.  And that’s just what we see in church!

Paul, knowing that the Christians in Rome are just like the Christians in Asia Minor where he had been preaching, assures them that suffering will happen.  But in a surprising turn, claims that suffering is something to boast about! 

What?! 

Seriously, what does that even mean?

I know when I’m suffering (think of a nasty head cold), I don’t feel much like boasting in it.  In fact, our usual reaction to suffering is make it go away.  We take medicines to make our aches and pains fade.  We make up with our loved ones when we fight.  No, usually, suffering just needs to be over and done.

But Paul teaches us here a little bit more about human nature.  We boast in our sufferings because suffering will produce endurance.  The more you deal with now, the more you will be able to suffer through later.  And then endurance will produce character - will make you an honorable person.  And then character will produce hope - the knowledge that the sufferings of today will in fact be done and over in the future.

I’ve always thought of this passage in terms of long-distance running.  No, I’ve never ran a marathon, but I used to run competitively in high school.  Running long-distance (especially for medals and awards) takes a lot of practice.  It takes sore knees, sore feet, tired arms, burning lungs.  In other words, suffering.  It is hard work to be a good runner (which, by the way, I never really was that good).  But, through all that suffering (that coach always used to call “practice”) eventually I found I could run longer distances, faster, easier.  Suffering had built up endurance.  As endurance builds, so does character.  In races, I saw plenty of people cheat or injure other runners, as ways to cut corners and win unfairly.  But character, the ability to see through the test with honor and respect, playing by the rules, always wins in the end.  And while character didn’t make me into the best runner, it made me into the type of runner who cheared for the winner, who cheared on the rest of my team, no matter my performance.  And as my character grew, so did my hope and desire to be a better runner, able to compete fairly and gain the respect of my team.

And so it is with the life of faith (I don’t feel bad about using a race as a metaphor for the Christian life, since Paul himself uses it!).  We are thrown into this life, and we must suffer through all the ups and downs that this wierd world will give us.  Some days are good, some days are bad, but through them all we suffer, building our endurance.  Eventually, our endurance has grown so that we can take all the bad the devil can throw at us, and still smile and ask, “Please, sir, may I have another?”  And this endurance makes our character one that other Christians will respect and admire and use for a model for their own lives - a living example of truly faithful living, knowing and trusting that we stand in the grace of God.  And then this character will build in us the hope to know that, when Jesus returns, we will see all the grace of God for all creation.

We will not be disappointed, even though we are enduring hardships now, because it is not up to us to make all the bad in this world go away.  That is God’s job!  It is our job to spread the good news that the bad in this world has already met its match in Jesus Christ, and upon his return will lose the fight.  

The love of God is the love we have for all people, Christian or not, that we show primarily through giving them the gift of the hope we have developed through our sufferings.  We are like Job, through all the sufferings of loss of family and children, through all the sufferings of listening to four friends who don’t know what they’re talking about, through being shown our place in the cosmos by a loving God, who finally know that, in the end, all things will be restored to us and more.  This is the hope we have, the hope that sustains us even in the ravages of the evil in this world, and this is the hope that we pass along to all those who need it.  This hope is only in Jesus Christ, who took away the power of sin, death, and the devil on the cross for us all!

Thanks be to God!

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
John 15:9

I love this whole section of John’s Gospel.  The Farewell Discourse, as it is usually called, is the single largest section of this gospel (five whole chapters), beginning in chapter 13 and going through chapter 17.  (In comparison, the entire story of Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection is only four chapters, 18-21).  If space is one of the criteria for what was important to any particular writer (which I truly believe), then this should make us perk up our ears a little more at what is going on in these five chapters.

So, let’s back up to chapter 13 for just a moment.  13:1 says that, “before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come…”  John’s understanding of the timeline for Jesus’ life is a little different than the rest of the disciples.  Instead of Jesus having his final meal with the disciples on Passover (and then making the new covenant with them and with us through his body and blood), John records what Jesus said the night before Passover!

Jesus and his disciples are sitting around eating dinner (probably something they were well accustomed to do), when Jesus “got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet” (John 13:4-5).

Jesus is clearly acting out a parable instead of just telling these disciples another story, probably hoping that they would “get it.”  After all, as soon as Peter is done arguing about it and allows Jesus to finish what he intended, he sits back down and explains why he did this foot washing: “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one anther’s feet.  I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13:14-15).  Now, I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t intend for us to spend all day washing each others’ feet, because we would end of with some very pruney toes.  Washing feet, in those days, was the job of a servant or a slave, someone who had no honor or respectability.  Jesus, taking on that role even though he is the Lord and Teacher of all, showed us that we should serve others before ourselves, to not be so prideful and love one another in actions, not just words.

This becomes the point of the entire five chapter dialogue between Jesus and his disciples (with a dialogue between Jesus and God there towards the end).  Jesus, in fact, rewrites all of the laws in the entire Old Testament into one rule: Love one another (13:34).  Then, Jesus proceeds to explain the only way we have a chance of living into this new commandment, and that is because we have first been loved by God.

This love God gives us, new every morning and fresh every day, is called Grace.  Hopefully you’ve heard this word before, and you are familiar with it.  God’s love is called grace because it is completely undeserved.  We do not, and in fact can not, do anything to earn God’s love.  We are so lost in our selfishness that grace is God’s only response!  

Martin Luther pointed out that God gives us grace in two ways: through Law and through Gospel.  And Law and Gospel works on us each in two different ways.  (Luther had three uses of God’s law and one use of the gospel, but I much prefer the duality-laden theology of William H. Lazareth in his book, Christians in Society: Luther, the Bible, and Social Ethics.)  The first step (The first use of the Law) is to convince us of our sin.  Jesus gives us this commandment to love one another,and at least one of the first things that it should remind you of is how often you do not love other people. 

The second step (the first use of the Gospel) then forgives us our sin.  Like the laws we are given, we have no control over the forgiveness we receive.  We are, in fact, not even told that we have to confess our sins, or even repent from them (literally, turn around, change direction, from them) in order to receive forgiveness.  We just get it, undeserved, because it’s grace!

Then the third step (the second use of the law) orders our society. This use of the law is easy to see in the seventh commandment: You shall not steal.  This orders our society, so that what is yours remains yours, and what is mine remains mine.  How does Jesus’ commandment of loving one another in deed and not just words order our society?  It tells us that we need to care for those who are lost, forsaken, dying, sick - all those who need love.

The fourth and final step (the second use of the Gospel) re-orders our society in grace-ful ways.  We don’t just love one another because we are told to, we love one another because we want to.  The difference between the second use of the Law and the second use of the Gospel is the negative verses positive sides that Luther gives in his explanations to the commandments.  The second use of the Law says you should not do _________.  The second use of the Gospel says you should do _______________.

And we can do all this because we have been loved first.  God the Father loved God the Son, God the Son loved us.  So now we abide in his love. 

Abide is an Old Testament word that means “live.”  When the Israelites were wandering the desert during the exodus, God ”lived” with them in the tent they built.  When they established their cities in Judea, God ”lived” with them in the tent there.  When they finally built the temple, God “lived” there. 

And so Jesus abides in the love of God (15:10), and invites us to live there too!  What could be better than to hang out, to live in the love of God?  Once again, though, we’re not talking about a love that is just touchy-feely good vibes.  Oh no!  This is an active love, always doing something strange, new and different.  This is a freely flowing love that is constantly seeking out more and new ways to get into our hearts, and to pull us along with the current.

This is a love that, while we just hang out, spits us out into the world to do something!  Just like God’s love for the Son was so complete that God sent Jesus into the world and will send him back at the end of history, the love that we live in sends us out into the world to do Jesus’ work of telling everyone that the grace of God is a free gift, no money down, no layaway necessary. 

So, while we hang out with Jesus in God’s love, we should never forget that this is an active, moving love, blowing us out into the world that God loves so much!  Amen.

But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
Romans 8:9

Paul wrote these words about 2000 years ago to settle a division in the Roman community between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.  This gathering of faithful believers had fallen on hard times, and Paul wanted to help.  He had not started this group, and he had never been to Rome, but felt that he could make a difference to the problems they were facing, because he had successfully settled similar divisions in other churches previously (see the two letters to the Corinthians).  Plus, Paul was on his way to Rome, and wanted to prepare the people to receive him.

But the community in Rome had fallen on hard times because the Emperor had expelled the Jews from the city, and then allowed them to return.  Upon returning, the Jewish Christians found that the Gentile Christians had changed things: they changed the way they worshipped, changed the interpretation of the Law, changed EVERYTHING!

The Jewish Christians thought that they were better than the Gentiles because they kept following the Law.  The Gentile Christians thought that they were better than the Jewish Christians because they had moved beyond the law, and could act however they chose.

Paul, in the first part of the letter to the Romans proves through impeccable logic that neither position is better because both positions deny the power of Jesus Christ.  It is only through faith in Jesus Christ - trusting that he is the Messiah, that through him we have become reconciled to God - that our sinful self will be drowned through the waters of baptism.

This puts us in a conflict, however, with our sinful self that still rises from the dead to torment us, and the Holy Spirit who leads us into righteous paths.  We suffer through this conflict day after day because we know that after our death, when our physical desires will finally be ended, we will be raised up to new life in Jesus Christ.

This is the basis then for Paul’s claim that God’s Spirit is in us all.  And aside from being a joyful reminder to us about the promises we have received, this claim is also an admonishment to us, to remind us that even in our disputes, the unifying factor is not the decision reached, or even the action taken, but the Spirit who dwells in each and every one of Jesus’ followers.  This means that, in all of our current debates and disagreements, it is not whether we are right or wrong, whether we agree or disagree, but that we are united through the Spirit, and remain in the unity that we have been given.

And so we pray for the Spirit to be in our lives, to direct our days and our deeds, so that we are not lost to the desires of the flesh, but to remain always united under one Lord, Jesus Christ!

Yesterday remained beautiful for us to play “Bonkers.”  This game included four of the camp counselors throwing socks filled with flour at the kids as they ran around trying to accomplish various silly tasks as directed by the remaining counselors.  I took a lot of pictures of the random activity going on.  Here’s a couple:

Catching the water

Sit-ups

Singing and dancing

After Bonkers, we had a beach party and campfire.

Having fun at the lake

Down the water slide

Everyone in!

We had a wonderful chapel service last night with communion (that Pr. Al and I officiated!), and then play time until around midnight.  We’re getting everything packed up now and going to get on the road after lunch, still expecting to arrive around 5:30.  Expect us all to be tired!